New song, new start?
For the past several weeks, I’ve been falling helplessly into what I’ve referred to, half-jokingly, as an “existential music crisis.”
The band I’ve been with for the past year and a half, the Natural Result, is quietly coming to an end. I’ll be leaving for London in July and Frank will be heading off to culinary school in New York City in the fall. We’ve really only got one show left, on July 2nd at World Cafe Live in West Philly.
I’ve struggled so much in trying to come to terms with the future of this band over the past couple months, trapped somewhere between, “Why does it even matter?” and “Why not make the absolute best out of it while we still can?”
We played a show a week and a half ago at Lickety Split, a South Street bar we’ve played dozens of times. Shows rarely go the way you imagine them going beforehand, but this one got to me. I was extremely disappointed with how we played, and something in me just snapped. All the frustrations that were building up and confusing the hell out of me just kind of exploded, and I told my bandmates I wanted and needed to just forget about the band for a while.
My relationship to my music is a really difficult one to explain. Someone recently told me that they felt bands and relationships were really similar, and I’d have to agree. Music has always been an escape and an outlet for me, and if you know me, you know I put a lot into it. It’s beyond hard for me to feel as though there’s wasted potential in any musical project that I know could very easily be much more, with a little extra push.
The Natural Result has always been “pretty good.” It’s been that way to everybody who’s heard us, and it’s always been that way to me. Just a little bit less than “good,” with “really good” on the horizon.
And I guess that Saturday night at Lickety Split, I got tired of settling for “pretty good,” and I didn’t know how to handle it.
As I told my bandmates in an e-mail I sent later that night, maybe it’s wrong of me to have such big expectations when we never really collectively discussed any long-term expectations.
Maybe I was wrong. I feel wrong. But I have no idea what “right” is in this story.
Any way I try to look at it, the Natural Result is coming to an end. I’ve written the best songs I’ve ever written with this band and for this band, and mostly all of the songs we’ve ever played together will die with the band. I get majorly bummed out about that, but it’s the way it has to be.
The other day I started writing something brand new on guitar, that just came to me. And maybe it was my subconscious taking over and trying to propel me forward, but the song I started writing doesn’t sound like a Natural Result song to me.
Maybe that’s for the best.
It’s been a good ride, and we’ve had a blast the last year and a half, but there’s got to be something after this. Maybe I’m onto something new.
Here’s a little preview of the basic guitar progression:
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An impossible task?
Some would say nothing is impossible, but staring at the stacks of CDs waiting to be imported onto my new computer, I’m feeling like this is an unworldly challenge.
Even, though I’m constantly on a quest for new bands to listen to and classic albums to hear, it’s astonishing to me the amount of music I’ve collected over the last several years. Hundreds upon hundreds of CDs fill the shelves of my bedroom back home here, and tons more await me, when I return to Philadelphia. Now, my objective is to put together a full and complete iTunes library of everything I’ve got, and it’s no easy thing.
In the process, however, I’ve been listening to all kinds of stuff along the way, and it’s really fun to brush over so many different bands and genres. I’ve rediscovered bands who originally helped grow my passion for music like U2 and Aerosmith. I’ve also discovered and learned to appreciate other gems I must have previously overlooked like the Postal Service.
In so many cases, our perception of things is so closely related to our current perspective. I’m hearing some of the same songs now, with a totally different ear than the one with which I heard them in high school or middle school. It’s times like these, you really realize the power music can have.
I’m in awe.
But I better get back to importing CDs. I’m gonna be up for a long time.
Here’s what I’ve got playing right now. It’s U2’s haunting cover of Patti Smith’s “Dancing Barefoot.” Check it out:
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I borrowed a friend’s guitar tonight for a little impromptu campfire singalong, and realized how much I missed playing guitar.
It’s been less than a week, that I’ve been out of Philly and home visiting my family, but that’s definitely enough time for me to yearn for some acoustic strumming. I sort of left the city on a whim, not knowing for how many days I’d be home. I knew I should have brought the guitar, but I didn’t, for whatever reason. I convinced myself I needed a break from playing music.
I’ve tried to convince myself of that other times, and it just doesn’t seem to work. It’s amazing to me, the role guitar playing, songwriting and performing have taken on in my life, since they’ve arrived in it. I can’t do without them anymore, no matter how hard I try.
Chances are, one of the first things I’ll do when I get back to my apartment in Philly sometime over the next few days will be to pick up my guitar and start playing. I’m just not myself without it.
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For months, I’ve been meaning to start a personal music blog. I said I didn’t have the time during the semester to get it off and running. Well, now I have time, and here it is.
I do a lot of music writing, and I do even more thinking about music, and I definitely need a place to get those thoughts out there. This will hopefully become that place, full time. I’ll be in London for six weeks beginning in early July, studying music journalism, so I’m sure I’ll have tons to say in narrating my experience over there.
“The only important thing these days is rhythm and melody…”
That comes from this brilliant tune:
Man, I hope I meet Mick Jones in London.
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Rhythm and Melody 