Improv

So I'm in this improv noise band that plays a few times a year. In theory it consists of all six members of both bands I'm in, plus another friend of ours. Our policy is that anyone may join the band when we play. All people on the planet are, by default, members of the group. They simply "opt out" by not joining us onstage.

The band was born of a few separate happenings: a TMWSD extended jam on CKDU late one night (BB before we were BB); a GS extended jam (with guests) at a party; and assorted group noodling with with my newly bought spacebeam device on tour last year. We grafted a jam onto GS's set at DMC's art opening last summer. We played an open mic once, to a room that was shall we say, a little divided on the subject of our musical merit. We also played a house party and a gig in October, but nothing since then. We are, however getting together to do an all ages show in early February.

I like to think about all the grandiose things this band could do. I imagine organizing a network of improv noise bands using the same name, with one such band in every major city in North America. Then, once a year, all of the bands get together in some huge field and meet each other, and share stories of things that have happened to them, been thrown at them, etc. Then, this large group of people (presumably hundreds) engages in a massive noise freakout. Imagine a noise band so big, it takes up an entire football field. It would take you a couple of minutes to walk from one end of the playing area to the other. Presumably, the sound would not be pure mush as each band would have by that time honed their particular style into something cohesive; as you walked through the field you would hear one unit gradually blend into another in various combinations depending on where exactly you were standing. I got this idea from a sound art exhibit I took in last week, where walking through a small room triggers different nature sounds in different parts of the room.

But back to reality for a moment. At the February show we're aiming to have at least four drummers; probably two guitar players; possibly one keyboard; Ian P playing electronic sounds; myself playing the spacebeam; possibly a trombonist; possibly a saxophonist; and Ube on vocals. He has the ability to really take the band on his shoulders when the music gets a little dense. It will be a "shock and awe" approach. We may need a conductor to keep people from noodling too much. If there's one thing I don't want this to become, it's sheer aimless noise.

I like the unpredictability of this band. We don't jam, but we do try and meet to formulate a loose gameplan before we get going.

It's also nice to be in a band rarely plays. It feels special in a different way.

Drums Are Overrated

BB jammed tonight at W's place; not our usual gear-furnished spot. Faced with the prospect of using all our own stuff, we soon realized that we had almost no drum equipment. W played the practice using only a bass drum, snare and one crash cymbal. Sounds kind of familiar. He normally uses a whole kit, but adapted well to the economy-sized unit, and actually seemed to enjoy it. We joked about deliberately playing a set this way sometime. Not tomorrow.

What We Do When We're On Vacation

Ube is happy we're talking a little time off from playing, as he sustained quite a self induced beating at our last show. I don't want us to stop moving though. My old band (yeah, that one) fell into that trap A LOT. In five years together we wrote about 40 songs, which isn't much. We only wrote one song in 1995. By the end it was like "We've got a show... better jam. Once.", or "Time to write something. Guess we'll have to jam again". It's not that jamming in that band was so awful, because it wasn't. We were just really lazy, and should have pushed ourselves to write more.

Writing for that band was difficult though. Quite a bit of it was done by me, which a lot of people are surprised to learn. As was the case for all of my bands in the 90s (except the one with C & LG, which was a side project for all three of us), I had a very clear, focused, exact idea of how I wanted things to sound. It must sound like this, and only this. Yet I was torn by the fact that I wanted everything to sound fresh all the time, to not write the same song over and over. Tough to have it both ways.

I can only speak for myself when I talk about the purpose and meaning of that band, but for me there was a clear agenda: provide for people the same kind of power that I experienced at my first few punk shows in Halifax. In my opinion, punk rock in this city was at a low point in the early 90s, compared to where it had been a few years earlier. I wanted no part of any musical progress whatsoever. The progression of punk rock, as I saw it, is what killed the music I loved when I was a teenager, and robbed younger people of the chance to experience such an awesome thing. I wanted our band to be a solution to this. Whether or not we succeeded is open for speculation. So is the wisdom of that entire mandate.

The trouble with recreating something old is that it doesn't leave you with a lot of tools to work with when writing. That didn't bother me then, because I liked the security of working within a tight framework. These kinds of chords, only. This kind of beat, only. This kind of lyric, only. When trying to come up with a new song, I did not have a long list of musical ideas to choose from... which I figured was good for two reasons: it meant less thinking for me, and it wouldn't insult the audience by introducing things into punk rock songs that had no place being there. "The bands that inspire me never did that, so I'm not going to, either".

This doctrine really ended up biting us in the ass though, in my opinion. Out of the blue, we were offered the chance to do a split 12" album with a band from the United States. We had just released a demo tape, and had next to nothing in the creative tank. The offer wasn't going to be there forever, so we had to get moving - but the tight focus of songwriting and desire to make every song different made it really hard to pump out good songs, fast. We had room for 15 songs and ended up rerecording inferior versions of 9 songs from our tape. Of the six new ones we were able to bang out (I wrote them all except for lyrics on one, which our singer wrote), most disappeared from our setlist very quickly. Maybe one was any good, and a couple were downright embarrassing. I think the year-drought happened around this time.

When we did the album on our own in 1996/97, my approach to songwriting was about the same, but you can hear different sounds creeping in. The distance between the present and the "glory days" was growing. The desire to make each song different was starting to win. There was a lot more discordance in the music, a reflection of what I was getting into by that point. Our final split 7" was the best example of this. We were at our creative peak then, without a doubt. If you listen to that record and the first couple of Be Bad songs where I wrote music (ask me in person, if you care), the gap is not that wide.

What does all of this have to do with the New Band and our vacation? I guess it serves to outline what I've learned in the past and how I want to put it into effect today. New Band doesn't have to take a vacation, and shouldn't. I feel a lot more satisfied if we're constantly at work. I want our jams to be necessary and happen often. This band does not face the same problems Old Band did. Our musical setup satisfies my need to work within tight constraints. I've learned from experience that being too focused creatively will make me frustrated by writer's block, or result in musical sameness or awfulness. Many have tried (mine included) but VERY FEW bands can get away with all of their songs sounding the same, and not sucking. I won't allow my bands to suck for this reason. There is not much I wouldn't try in GS or BB as far as musical experimentation goes. This is a 180 degree turn from where I was a decade ago.

GS jammed two new ones last night. I'm stoked.

Stage Nine et al

I think our band is going to get banned in Halifax for being a high broken glass risk. I played half of the set last night wearing sunglasses (hey, those stage lights are bright already) and the other half wearing none. My sight is awful so I didn't know what was going on most of the time. I hi-fived people I could only vaguely identify. I had a pair of badly thinning Chuck Taylors on so I could feel the many little chunks anywhere I walked. At least we didn't break any of it ourselves. I don't think.

All that said, it was one of the more fun shows for me in this band. There's no way we should ever be playing eighteen song sets though. We were only supposed to play thirteen (which I think is a lot to begin with). I do think the entertainment value was fairly good though. Hopefully people get more out of us than that, but I do think an aggressive live attack is a big part of what we do. I hope Troy's ok, he really put it to himself up there. I can only imagine what he might have done like if we'd played on the floor.

At one point last night Meghan took the mic and encouraged people to check out our band's website. I wish she hadn't done that. We did update it recently, but it's nothing that makes me want to say "hey, look at this". It's really no better than before, it just has more pages. Here's the thing: I'm an html novice, at best. I'd love it if someone could make us a beautiful, artistic website. But if that's ever going to happen it will either a) cost us a lot of money or b) be attempted by someone who works cheap but never has any time, so it never gets done. I figured, "fuck it, I'll do it myself". Tobias and I jokingly debated the other night over whether the site was "workmanlike" or just "shitty". We eventually settled on "blue collar". Don't take this as a solicitation for web designers.

Now, we're going to take time off to write more. We will have four new songs the next time we play Halifax.