Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

swimming with rock

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“It is now stupid o’clock.”

This was Jake. Or Gina. I don’t say it, generally, and I know that I saw Zina nod in response.

It is impossible to deny that – after a certain amount of evening rock on top of each of our full days at work – our quartet of brains begin to dribble out of our ears, at which point they promptly get blasted into a fine mist by the power of rock emanating from our various amps and speakers, until the air is swimming with rock and thoughts and laughter.

This is usually around the start of hour three, if we have paced ourselves.

I have nothing left in my body once it is over, no brains or thoughts or anything. Last night I tried to send an email to the band after they left, and like a bad dream about garbled numbers on a phone dial I couldn’t get it right. I kept sending it over and over, missing addressees, words, and attachments – a mini episode of Groundhog’s Day on All Marmot’s Eve.

I used to resist rehearsal reaching a point of silliness. You know me – I’m too elitist and serious and scarf-wearing for that. Eventually I began to appreciate it, and the brain drain I feel in its wake. Silly is good. It means we’re limber and willing to try things, like playing a dance cover twice as fast as we’ve ever done it before (and nailing it).

Brainless is good, too. It means we left everything in the room. In the air. I wouldn’t want to feel like I had a sparkling wit to wield after rehearsal. Then I think we would have done it wrong.

Arcati Crisis always experiences a bit of a lull in December and January, but this year it made me feel particularly desperate. We had been playing so regularly in 2011, and the songs were reaching an amazing locked-in state. Then came holidays and flu and travel, and when we met back together on the other side it had been over a month since we last played – out or in – and the songs were feeling a little flabby.

I’m impatient, and I wanted the tightness back immediately, but it doesn’t work that way. With four people making music in a room – our music, anyway – it’s not just about notes.We’re not an orchestra that tunes up and unfurls the same notes every time with precision. We need to loosen before we tighten.

Sometimes we become a little silly in the process.

Sing me to sleep, Scully

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I talk a big talk about my avoidance of television. Friends trumpet their favorite new shows, and I gladly ignore them.

My life is already so exciting and hilarious, see, that I don’t need situation comedies and crime thrillers to insert hilarity and excitement.

Except, lately that a bit of a lie. It has come to my attention that Netflix Streaming has added The X-Files to its extensive repertoire. And while I may be safe from the temptation most new television has to offer, I cannot resist forty-two minutes spent with my friends Mulder and Scully.

(What’s amusing about this is that we have the seven seasons of X-Files on DVD sitting just beside the television, but am I watching those DVDs? No. I am too lazy to load them into the DVD player. I would rather watch a stream.)

At this point I have this shit memorized. Every re-watch is like seven seasons of Rocky Horror Picture Show talkbacks (“You’re a backhoe!”) and Top Ten Lists. (Top Ten Times Mulder Screams “SCULLY!”)

So, every night – usually just after dinner or rehearsal – I say to E, “Let’s watch an episode.” (Top Ten Times Scully Shoots a Perp (or Mulder)) And we do. It’s great. It ends with my lying somewhat prone on the couch, carefully prodding at my laptop

(Top Ten Oblique References to Mulder’s (okay: Duchovny’s) Porn Addiction)

Then, I suggest, “One more?”

(Top Ten Times Scully is Captured)

This is where we enter the danger zone. I cannot stay awake for two consecutive episodes of TV I have already seen and possibly memorized while lying somewhat prone on the couch.

(Top Ten Times Scully is Knocked Unconscious by Walking Into a Wall)

And so I allow my eyes to drift closed, spirited towards fitful rest by the dulcet tones of Agent Scully.

(“Mulder, toads just fell from the sky.”)

It has got to stop.

 

#MusicMonday: “Trip To Your Heart” – Britney Spears

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This is a little embarrassing. Let me try to explain.

I’ve been really into synthesizer pop lately, because Studio Krisis has come into possession of a new synth and it’s not a language I speak fluently.

I am also working my way through roughly 1,700 songs from 2011 that I acquired in December.

Okay, enough excuses: this post is really about a Britney Spears song. I think it is awesome.

There, I’ve said it.

Two weeks ago E and I were lounging in our hotel room in Las Vegas between adventures when this came on my iPod. I looked up from my book. “This is really good,” I said. E nodded behind her book. When the song began to wind down I reached beside me and clicked back to the beginning without looking at the title or artist.

After two listens I picked up my iPod, curious to know who the singer was. It had a sort of UK pop sound to it, but also reminded me of the electric lounge of The Bird and The Bee or even The Cardigans.

Imagine my surprise to discover the singer: Britney Spears.

Let’s be clear here – I love pop music, but I do not like Britney Spears. In fact, 2011’s Femme Fatale is the only LP of hers I even own (mostly because we dance to a couple of the songs in Zumba).

This is mostly because she generally does not sing very well on record, and if you don’t sing well and you don’t write your own songs I don’t really get the point of you existing as an artist. At that point your face is just an ad campaign for someone else’s beats.

“Trip To Your Heart” disproves that theory, to a degree. She sounds lovely on it in a higher register I didn’t even know she had. Sure, she probably has a super-computer’s worth of digital processing tuning her up. She always has that, yet many of her other vocals still sound like hell.

Britney or not, if you like dreamy synth-pop with a good beat, this song is for you.