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| October 2004 »
 Spent the day writing songs yesterday. Things were flowing.
I have been developing an idea for a musical "piece" for the band in the last month or so. Something has been taking shape in my mind. I began writing it in earnest yesterday.
I can't tell you too much about it until it's finished. If I give away too much about something of this nature before it's done, it could interfere with it's growth. In the meantime, since it will be taking up a lot of my private creative time, I will refer to it as "Project P".
Yesterday I was at a diner working on the general framework and lyrics to the project. Had a few mp3's of some unfinished music from rehearsal that are the starting point, listened to them over and over for a couple hours, while I scribbled down ideas. Went home and played guitar all day and did a lot of recording. Super shitty home demo stuff, it seems the more inspired I am, the worse the quality of the recordings are, can't seem to concentrate on the knob twiddling. Best to get the ideas down quickly, then go back and "tart it up" later.
Wrote a new song: "C&S", and took the music from an acoustic number of mine called "Goodbye" and wrote all new lyrics and now have a different song in it's place: "FITC".
Was up until 5am. Little groggy now.
Stephen just got back from his UK/Europe Banyan shows. We go back into rehearsals today. Dave and Riss are in New York next week, so I can concentrate fully on Project P, the timing is perfect (I hope). There are a lot of ideas floating around, and I want to keep the momentum up and get it ready to show the guys, hopefully by next month. Project P is an idea that will need to be pretty well realized before I show them, or it could fall apart. Once it's ready, then we can add and add until it sounds like "us". Right now, I am very very excited about it.
After reading all the comments about frightening Ouija Board experiences, last night I kept seeing things out of my peripheral vison as the hours stretched on. Got more and more freaky in my work room.
> First Presidential Debate tonight...
Bought a Ouija Board last night. Many reasons, can't tell you why yet. The only kind they sell now are the glow-in-the-dark ones. Mine didn't have the little felt "glide feet" that make it easier to move the pointer around on the board. Called Hasbro and they're sending me my glide feet. Goddamn right.
Went to San Pedro today to meet up with my amp maker, Fred from Divided by 13. My amp has been a little hard to control volume-wise in rehearsal, so he gave me a Variac, a heavy little metal box that can control the amount of juice coming from the wall into the amp. So if my amp is too loud, and I want to turn it down, but not lose tone, I turn down the Variac and the amp has less power going into it. Seems like kind of a Flintstones solution, but he is adamant that having a master volume on the amp would lessen it. What the hell.
He also opened up my black Telecaster and tweaked the volume pot (the knob mechanism) and added a "bypass cap". So that I can roll off my volume and not have the tone get dull. Apparently this is how they had it wired back in the day - Clapton and Townshend etc., they wouldn't have a bunch of pedals, they would just roll off the volume to get the clean tone. My amp is built for that kind of playing. I just think it's pimpy having a "modded volume knob". Fred is such a cool guy, and whenever I talk to him, he has a ton of info for me to absorb. Today he was talking about mics, and mic placement, and all kinds of cool Classic Rock Bible tricks. Since we are recording soon, every little bit helps.
There ws a dead butterfly on my front patio this afternoon. Odd seeing something usually so free, so ...still. The ants hadn't gotten to it yet.
Working on a new song. Can't talk about it much, don't want to jinx it. It's a bit more adventurous than any of our songs so far. Will take a bunch of late night homework.
We are also working on the full Panic Channel website.
We will launch it Halloween night, October 31st.
and here is a hello to the 6767ers...
The lull after the tornado. Sucks. today really just sucked. No specific meaningful reason, guess just working so much and focusing so much on the show, and then two days of (sound of crickets chirping) ...the vacuum. Yesterday went to Ameoba records with Dan and got The Led Zeppelin DVD (never seen it), and The Who's "The Kids Are Alright" DVD, and the CD of The Who live at the Isle of Wight. I have been looking for a live recording of the Who playing "Tommy". After a year and a half of singing Tommy in the play, I didn't listen to the music for years. No bad vibes or anything, I just found myself getting so lost in memory, and part of me always misses the feeling of doing the show when I hear the music, that I just avoided it. Now, enough time has passed that I just want to hear it again.
Afterwards, we went to Melrose Ave. and looked around. Record shops, clothes shops, tourists.
Later, we met up with Riss and saw Sarah Silverman's "Jesus is Magic" show at the El Portal. Really funny.
Gig day. Yesterday began with sound check at the Dragonfly. Everybody was there at 12:30 (except me, I was flailing and late picking up a videotape) I walked in and everything was all set up (a new one for me) and the guys were playing. It sounded incredible. Really loud, but not painful. The club bought new monitors for the show (damn!). We played the whole set (why the hell not!) and went our separate ways. I was wearing one of our new T-shirts that had just come in.
Hours came and went up until the show, nothing special. I was working on being as Zen as I could and focusing myself on 10pm.
Larissa and I rolled up to the club at 9:30pm and went to the backstage area. They had food for us and everything, you GO Dragonfly! Stephen and Cindy showed up closely followed by Chris and Tiff, then Dave and Carmen. We had no idea how many people were in the club or anything. My friend Dan Cleary (the MVP last night) showed up to handle the videotaping duties. He also sold our shirts after the show, whatta bro. He is also the proud papa of a moustache/sideburn deal that is really something to see. 10:30 rolls around and we hit the stage. The place was packed, but still seemed manageable, a relief.
The set list went like this:
Punish Me
(this song has no lyrics yet, but is great fun to play, so we did it as an intro)
Unholy Ghost
Loophole
Bloody Mary
She Won't last
Outsider
Go On
Half Hearted
Ashes
It went by in a...
blink
Color, volume, arms, faces. The crowd seemed to be pretty into it, even though they never had heard the songs before. I saw flashes of so many good friends in the audience: ones from High School, Kelly and Chris Cano from Skycycle, Sean Suicide, and so many more. Gigs are great cause you see everybody you know at once. Gigs also suck because you see everybody you know at once... and can't really get any quality time. The show went well. No broken strings, no amps blew up, no one died. That's good. It was also just awesome playing those songs with those musicians, and finally having an audience to share what we've been making.
Playing and looking back and seeing Stephen Perkins' smiling face has to be one of the best feelings ever. He is such a mighty drummer and so commanding, but right in the middle of a jam, he straight up beams. His arms are flailing around, and in the middle of all that activity his smile gave me this solid feeling of "everything is going to be okay, this is what it's all about". Such a great vibe to spread during a show.
No encores for two reasons, 1. We don't know any more songs (except the Who Medley "Pinball Wasteland", but I think it was cool to leave the first show to all originals), and 2. In my humble opinion, encores suck. They just suck. I find them contrived and fake. If people come to your show and pay money, guess what, THEY LIKE YOU. I don't see the need to make them clap for minutes and have the whole "will they come out again or not? ...MAKE SOME NOISE!!!" act. There has to be a better way. We'll see, maybe I am Don Quixote on this one, fighting a losing battle, but I always thought encores were dumb.
I got to meet some 6767'ers and Agents in the flesh. It's such an odd thing, this "starting a band in front of the internet audience" because I met people in person whose postings I had read, as they have read mine. It's weird knowing people you've never met. I said it onstage, and I say it again, thanks to all the online peeps who made the show, thanks for being so motivated about this band so soon. This includes everyone who couldn't be at the show (Hello UK!!!), we'll see you soon as we possibly can.
The Purple amp was there, my friends: off to the far left of the stage, past Chris's bass rig. When I would wander off that way to grab some feedback, that's where it was. I read that overall the sound was too loud for some people, and for that I'm sorry. The Dragonfly is a smallish room, and can be very noisy. I have seen a few bands there that had loud onstage volume and it just about caused brain damage. I am not a believer that the louder the better. The best combo is having the bass vibrate your innards if you are standing close to the stage, add the mighty guitar tone, but all the while having the lyrics understandable (very rare for a club gig). It did sound pretty different onstage from when we were at sound check. I couldn't hear my clean tone at all during the show, so God knows what I was playing during those sections. I heard from some friends that the vocals were too low too, but I am pretty used to that.
Afterwards we hung out for a while and talked to people, got to meet Wendybird, Toby, and a few more "Family" members. Also got to bro down with my old buddy Marko 72 from Sugarcult, always love running into him. Afterwards Riss, Dan and I went to Fred 62 for grub. A great night. Thanks to Anthony, Mauro, and everyone at the Dragonfly for bending over backwards to make this happen, Phil and Mark our techs, Dan for the merch/videography help, and Riss for absolutely everything, not the least of which, painting the black stripes on my shirt!
And thank you...
Video and pics to come...
Yesterday we played our first live show. The plan was to have a "secret" show for family and friends and our early fans, The "Panic Agents". As the date approached, we got excited to leak out some clues as to where and when the show would be. Dave posted the first one "SPANISH CASTLE MAGIC". This is a Jimi Hendrix song which has these lyrics:
“It’s very far away
It takes about a half and a day to get there
If we travel by my uh, "dragon-fly"
No it’s not in spain
But all the same you know, it’s a groovy name
And the wind’s just right.
Hey !”
This has the name of the venue we were to play, Hollywood's Dragonfly club.
The second clue was "hidden" in the source code of The Panic Channel site, (you could see it by choosing “view source” or “page source” with whatever browser you use):
!-- the second clue, to the date of our first show is this: a Tuesday in September.-->
Initially when I put this clue in the code, I screwed up and used the wrong code for the "hidden" comment, so some people with some browsers (including Sidekicks) ONLY saw the clue when they went to the site, alone on a blank page... oops. I fixed it, but already a bunch of quick surfers had seen it (and originally it said "the 21st" as well, so the secret was out). The next clue was from Dave on his "Camp Freddy Radio" show, he said "A FAVORITE CASINO GAME". While readers of my site know what MY favorite casino game is, he was referring to Blackjack, which gives you an answer of "21", the date of the show. The people who wrote in with correct answers to the clues were put on the guest list.
The final give-away was the artwork on 6767.com, then the flyer we posted on the Panic Channel website, and sent out to our Panic Channel Mailing list, it was for "The Drapes" playing Tuesday, September 21st, Dragonfly at 10pm. This was the name we were supposed to be playing under, but the 'Fly didn't update their calendar, so that bit probably didn't make much sense. "The Drapes" was one of the first band names were toying with, but found out that it already was the name of a couple bands already.
As the date approached, we were hoping that word didn't get out too much, and that the show wouldn't be full of industry-types, or too crowded for anybody to have any fun. I have seen many, many shows at the Dragonfly, and when it's hyper-packed, it can be a drag.
The day before the show, we had one last rehearsal, and it was my first day with the new amp. I went in early to set up the pedal board and to practice channel switching (clean & dirty) and set the knobs and volume. Man, that fucker is loud. I was kinda nervous that the guys would show up and hate it, and I'd have to take it back. As much as I might like it, the true test is how it sounds in context with the other tones. If it doesn't sound good with Dave's tone, it just won't work. And changing sounds the day before our first show is risky anyway.
Dave and Stephen showed up first and we went through some of the songs and tested it out. It seemed really ... LOUD. My doubts about a 37 watt amp being able to hold it's ground against Dave's 100 watt amp were forgotten. The problem seemed to be - how to turn it down? On this amp, with no master volume, to lose volume, is to lose tone. After Chris got there and we played the set, and Phil Hutson the guitar tech gave us some input, I ran the amp at 1/2 power and it seemed to fit in fine.
The good news is that it seemed to pass the rehearsal test with flying colors. Sonically, it is doing what I had hoped, it's fitting in a space of the sonic frequency (low and low mids) between Dave's sound and Chris' bass, giving us a more warm, full bodied sound, instead of my sound covering the same ground that Dave's does. All of a sudden, I can hear my guitar parts more, the tone is more focused, and isolated. The feedback was that we had more of a "wall of sound". What a relief. My little Purple amp looked like it was going to get to play a show.
Monday night I was up until 2am getting the mailing list all sorted and sent out. Thanks to everybody who has joined up so far (you know who you are).
Caution, another music geek gear post, prepare yourself:
I am in a mad rush to see if the new amp can be ready to assimilate into the band by gig time. Today loaded it up in the car and moved it to the rehearsal room. Set it up and did a bunch of playing. Worked the clean tone, fleshed out the dirty channel. ( um, ok, that sounds funny).
I set up the amp next to the Bogner I have been using and did a taste test. Had a few questions about getting good tones from the Div by 13, so I called Fred and he gave me some hints.
Got everything up and running, and had alot of fun playing really really loud for a few hours. At this point, all I can do is play with the band and see how the new tone fits in. Its odd because it's not just a new amp, its a whole new sound for me. The Bogner I was using had a great clean tone, and the dirty was super overdriven. When Brian Virtue came by last Friday, he thought I was running it too distorted. After really listening to both amps today, I realized he was right. Too much distortion (some might argue) is a bad thing. I would rather Dave have the super dirty sound, and have mine be more warm and organic. Thing is, I've never had a tone like this before. Hard to say if it's better or not, it's just different. Only playing with all the instruments at full blast will tell me what I need to know.
Tomorrow I will spend a few hours before the guys get there and suss out my pedalboard, make sure everything I run is needed, and get the kicking of the pedals all comfortable.
At the moment my pedal board looks like this:
Div by 13 "Dyna-Ranger" (overdrive pedal)
Boss Superchorus
Div by 13 "Switchazel" (Clean /Dirty Channel switcher, with Clean+Dirty simulataneously, and a Boost. "For that little push over the cliff...)
Boss Tuner
There was never any question about it. Like the Oracle said in Matrix II (before the series devolved in a mess of hokey mumbo jumbo) "You've already made the decision, now you have to find out WHY..."
Woke up and was unusually productive for the morning. Went for a jog around the lake, hit the gym like a good boy, and worked out. Came home and called Fred from Divided by 13 with some hesitation: "he said he would have the amp ready for me today, he hasn't called yet, is that a sign, should I hold on to my cash and keep mooching the Bogner off Dave?", "is spending this amount of money right now on anything a frightengly obvious act of stupidity?"
He answered and said it was ready.
...I said I'd be over right away.
Well, that was easy, "when in doubt, just act rashly and deal with the consequences later". The reality is that I thought it was the right amp, so fuck the money. Bad comes to worse, I can always sell my ass on Santa Monica. ...Uh, or do freelance web design. Was that my "out-loud" voice again?
Drove to San Pedro in the midst of the worst Los Angeles traffic I've been stuck in in years. Every highway was bumper-to-bumper, every street; packed, every light; red. Finally got to Fred's and walked into his workshop. There on the floor was the most perfect little deep purple amp head on top of a 2x12 cabinet. He looked like a proud papa letting me take his daughter to the prom. I unsheathed the cash for the amp, with a barely audible groan of deep financial pain under my breath. In the long view, a really good amp lasts for decades and only gets better. Marshall and Fender amps from the 60's and 70's are like gold, and the tone only improves with age. Hopefully my new purple baby will be with me as long as there is a ..."me".
Loaded it up and piloted my car back into the deadlocked Los Angeles stupidhighway. The plan was to beat the guys to rehearsal and set up the new amp and be ready to play and give it a healthy tryout. Didn't work out that way. Took a total of 4 hours just to go to San Pedro and back, total insanity. I am lucky and don't have a problem with road rage, but after 3 1/2 hours of stop and go traffic, I not only wanted to be dead myself, but I was imagining all sorts of creative murder scenarios for absolutely everyone I saw on the streets. Nice feeling.
Finally rolled up to rehearsal and got to work. Too late to hook the amp up, so I just played my existing setup. We ran the set twice. Riss and our friend, producer Brian Virtue showed up with a cake for Stephen (and Chris's) birthdays. They stayed to listen to the set. Including them, so far only about 6 people have heard us play. Looking forward to the show.
We finished up, and it was finally time to take my Div by 13 home and PLAY! Hooked it up to the new Telecaster and made some rock. Fucking shit, this is a wonderful amp. It's really beautiful. All my hesitations about it not being loud enough are apparently null and void. It's crazy loud. Just 37 watts and 2 12" speakers, but this thing was blowing my work room apart. Actually, without a master volume, it's almost impossible to turn down! I need to call Fred to see if there is anything I can do to turn it down while keeping the tone, but this is minor - I didn't get it to play in my room, I got it for the band, and what is important to the band is TONE. Wow, this amp has tone all over the place. Probably the prettiest clean tone I have ever heard. The overdriven tone is awesome, too. Very rich and warm, not harsh and white-noisy. The way I like the distortion on the last Queens record - very vintage, very classic and warm. More Cream than Korn...
Dave's sound is very identifiable, and there is a ton of guitar work going on in this band. His tone is really overdriven and chorused. I was surprised to find out that he really doesn't use many effects at all, even though he is characterized as having a very processed sound. My goal is to find a really warm natural overdriven sound that will fill in the gaps between the lows of the bass, and the "detail" and highs of Dave's parts.
Ahhh. Amplifiers. In Skycycle I had two amps I got from Black Market Music in Los Angeles (a great vintage second-hand store). A Fender Twin for my clean tone, and a Marshall 4x12 cabinet with a JCM900 head I'd had since '93 with it. The cabinet was orange leather. I played Strats all the time, and my tone was great, I loved it. It was really hard lugging two huge amps to shows, plus my guitar, plus a backup guitar and a pedalboard. Really sucked. To this day I've had maybe two or three shows in my life with a roadie or guitar tech. It's always been me shlepping my gear in and out of the trunk/street/stage/back home. One day during rehearsal the Fender Twin started spazzing out, as it would pretty often, and I had a fit and threw it in the pool.
My bass player thought I was crazy. Well, he was right, for that couple minutes I was. There the amp sat at the bottom of the pool til a gardener fished it out one day. I used to have a very bad temper. Many, many such items have met a similar or more violent fate. I feel much calmer these days, but some times....
Now the job is to find a new amp set up. I have a Line 6 at home, and sold that Marshall. This week I drove around L.A. and tried out some new candidates. Yesterday it was "Black Cat".
I went to meet John Ferrante the artist rep for Black Cat, who I found out I knew through Kelly. He had a space up in the Valley where you could plug into a few Black Cats and see what was up. Black Cats are a boutique amp, a "Class A" amp. Apparently Class A amps, are really really well made, and have impeccable tone, no substitute. My friend Luke from Penfifteen Club plays a Matchless (a class A) and has insane tone. Black Cats were started by one of the Matchless guys and are on that level or better depending on who you ask. They are also supposed to be better for rock and overdriven tones.
I played a Hot Cat and it was great, I really liked it. The overdrive was warm and aggressive and the responsiveness was great. I also liked that you can get it with almost any color leather you want on it. It looked solid, and while the look of the thing was a little bit retro for me, the sound was right on. My only criticism was the clean sound. There were only two knobs for clean - volume and "tone" a click pot. I didn't really find a clean tone that impressed me on the amp. The other drag is that there is a 1-2 month wait time on getting one. What!!?? We have a show and studio time booked in the next month, and (in Veruca Salt voice) I WANT IT NOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!
John was extremely knowledgeable and friendly and it was a pleasure getting to know the amps at his place. The price was pretty common for Class A amps: REALLY REALLY EXPENSIVE.
Today I tried out "Divided by 13" amps. These amps are made by one guy, one at a time down in San Pedro. The whole "one guy makes them one-by-one" mythology had me interested, so I called up "The Man" Fred Taccone and he graciously invited me into his garage/shop and schooled me on the ways of the Divided by 13 amp. He was the bass player for the punk band DI, and has rock cred for days. He is really gool guy, and I really appreciated his approach: He worked on so many amps as a technician, that one day someone just asked him to build the perfect amp, so he did. Then word got around. He's made something like 200.
It sounded good, but the price... hmmm, without telling too much, let's just say were I to buy it, that would be 50% of my total money, period. That is pretty scary. I will have to think about it.
The question now is, to buy or not to buy the 13. (which triggers all kinds of additional questions: "to eat or not to eat", etc...)
Rehearsal today. Our song "Skin of your Soul" is now "Go On".
I worked on "Skin of Your Soul" this weekend a bit more, and made a discovery: I didn't feel the chorus. It was fun to sing, but when the lyrics were written, we were working on two other songs at the same time, so some issues I had with the it never were resolved. We did some more work on it last week, but after listening to the rehearsal recordings, it still didn't seem right to me. I went back and listened to the early versions of the song and found that my main melody was different. I started playing around with the old melody, and it started opening things up.
I was still frustrated with it at 3am, and Riss came in my work room and I told her what was happening with it. I had all these things to fit together, this melody works here, but on the 2nd chorus, we go back into the intro and it won't fit there, etc. She was a big help with keeping me from getting pissed off with it, and staying the course. The excersise of talking it out with her broke whatever was keeping me from the right part, and after she went to bed, I stayed up and finished it. Once I had come up with a new chorus lyrics, the name of the song changed. It's now "Go On". The meaning of the song is the same, but where the chorus was leaning in an (overly) esoteric direction, it now is much clearer and to the point, and also much more satisfying to sing.
I brought the new lyrics into rehearsal today, and when we played it, it felt really solid. The new driving section after the 3rd chorus now feels fantastic and it is doing what I had hoped it would, making a higher peak for the energy of the song, right before the breakdown outro.
We also did some work on "Outsider" the song I am just going to sing and not play guitar on. This one is more spacious and delicate, and requires more finesse with coming up with the parts and arrangement, because it is so "naked". Dave and Chris did alot of tinkering with the dynamics, and where the bass comes in alone, where the drums start, etc. It was Stephen's birthday today.
"Close your naked eye, close your naked eye and see"
Obvious asked a good question in the comments just now:
Hi Steve,
it's been 3 years since Al Quaida WTC attack. i wonder where were you that day. what are your memories about that terrible incident.
love,
Obvious
It was early morning in Los Angeles, and my phone started ringing. I got out of bed and picked it up, it was my ex-bass player from Skycycle Kelly Castro calling.
"Dude, have you seen the news?"
"What do you mean? I'm sleeping... What is it?"
"It's World War 3, man... The twin towers, they're... dude, they're gone..."
I hung up the phone, and went to turn on the TV. It wouldn't turn on. I had just broken up with my girlfriend Lisa, and was in a bit of a self destructive phase where I wasn't cleaning the house, or paying the bills. The cable had been turned off. I called up the cable company and said my cable was disconnected and please to let me pay the bill and turn it on as quick as possible, I knew something big had happened, and I wanted to see what it was. I still didn't know what the hell Kelly was talking about. A little while later, the signal came back on and I, like every other person in America watched the news. For 3 days straight.
The slow motion footage of one plane, then the second crashing into the buildings, the fireball, from angle after angle, then the buildings sinking down into black clouds. The sirens and running people screaming. Tiny dots slowly drifting down the sides of the towers that were people's lives ending. Until that day, you never thought you would see something that looked like it was a scene from a disaster movie in real life. Those things don't really happen.
Certain times in your life you remember when really massive events take place and you see world-shaping images for the first time, and somewhere in the back of your mind you feel that "I will remember this moment for the rest of my life". For me, when Ronald Regan was shot, when the Challenger Shuttle exploded, The OJ Verdict, Columbine, are all unforgettable notches in my mental timeline. This was light years beyond, though.
It was completely unthinkable. My mind couldn't do the math on it. I remember needing to be around people, and to talk. Being alone felt alien all of a sudden. I lived off of Sunset Blvd, near Guitar Center and Denny's. They used to call it "Rock N' Roll Denny's". I walked over in the bright sunshine, like nothing was wrong in L.A., and nothing ever could be on such a beautiful day.
I sat in a booth and ordered lunch. I had expected a bustling crowd with everyone talking about the same thing, and making me feel more safe in the process. What was there were a few people, no one really talking much to anybody else. I wondered, "What the hell, do they not know??? How could they not know? and if they don't, how could they not be talking about this?" I ate and left.
Went home and started calling friends. We all said the same things to each other in varying orders and ways. We all needed to say what was on our minds, over and over again, "How could this happen?", "What now".
I remember anchorman Dan Rather (I believe) saying that "Nothing would ever again be the same". I thought, this is an unbelieveable tragedy, but how could he mean that?, but he was right. Never again would we as a country be so naive. A voice was heard that day, one that we wanted to ignore, and in the midst of the insanity of such an evil hateful deed, it was hard not to wonder if our arrogant foriegn policy hadn't in some way brought this on.
That night was disturbing in a different way. I felt a kind of dumb shock, like the hours of TV news and isolation in my apartment had made me fuzzy, disjointed. I had to drive down Sunset for some reason, and I couldn't believe what I saw. Hundreds of people lined up along the streets in some kind of mass expression, a discharge. American flags absolutely everywhere, people lighting candles clustered at the bases of streetlights at every intersection. Loud music. Almost seemed ...celebratory. It didn't make sense to me. It wasn't a demonstration, there was nothing to demonstrate. A catastrophic mass murder had taken place. I felt like there was something wrong with me, that all this activity was making me feel more isolated from everybody, instead of closer.
My jaw dropped when I saw an organized group of roller blading/roller skating Angelenos all cruising up Sunset Blvd. Some kind of insane group of people merrily skating up the street with a general joyous air to them. Jubilant, even. My isolated feeling was pushed toward anger. What in the fucking universe were these morons thinking? That thousands of dead people and a marred national psyche were a rad time to pick up skate and candle and whizz around the streets laughing? I still have no idea what the hell was up with those people.
I went home and truned the TV back on and watched, and watched, and watched.
I remembered when I lived in New York and worked at MTV, for a few months I did all my VJ segments from different parts of the City. One day we used the restaurant at the very top of one of the towers as the location. It was empty exept for us. Giant floor-to-ceiling windows all around gave a view of the city that was heart stopping. Not just beautiful, but kind of scary, too. When I got near to a window and pressed my forehead to the glass to get the clearest view down, it was hard to imagine actually being that high. Like flying with no effort. Like humans shouldn't really be that high without ...consequences. I thought about that day, and that that view was gone forever. That that building was so alive, too, so much space those giant masses took up on our planet, and that they were filled with people. People who had no debt to pay another country, no wrongs done. All murdered. As these realizations were sinking into my mind, so they were with everyone else in America, and also the world.
As a nation tries to absorb something so overwhelming, the mood everywhere changes. More somber, more fragile, more tentative. That was when the national moritorium on anything humorous or lighthearted was silently invoked. Late night comedy shows became morose and news based, or simply went off the air. No shows at night, except the news. For the next week or so, every conversation I had was dominated by 9-11 as well. I have to give it up to Howard Stern, he dealt with the disaster like no one else. He was on the air for the whole day of 9-11 and while many, many other broadcasters hid from the difficulty of public commentary in the weeks that followed, he was on every day, and even found some laughter to pass on, precious to those who needed it in his city. Firefighers and public workers are very vocal about how he was there to ease the pain for them in the tough days that followed.
After the shock settled, there was a hushed sense that people in general might have some kind of awakening as to the impermanence of life, and be ...nicer to eachother. It seemed that that really did happen in New York. The event seemed to peel off the hard shell that comes with living there, and make people realize their interconnectedness more. New Yorkers really showed the rest of the country and world as well, what is wonderful about America. That we can all join together and get through anything.
It seemed that everything was different. That feeling would in months, drift away. Healing began, and the national attention began to scatter like had been before, and people got back to their "regular" lives. We now had a tough, gung-ho, flag waving President, terror alets, and a creeping distrust of Arab-Americans. I felt so bad for all the good, hard working people from Arab countries, and the people who even looked an any way Arab, as Americans can be dumb and prejudiced to begin with, but now had an actual reason to be.
Now I see the New York skyline, and it still stings. Still makes me sad. When I lived in NYC, I used the towers as my compass, my lighthouse in the sea of my own horrible lack of a sense of direction. All those late nights, wandering the streets back to my apartment, and to find out which way home was, I would only have to look up to regain my bearings.
Back to work today, so nice to hear the songs all good and loud again after this last week off.
We ran through the songs for the set, then took some time to tinker with "Skin of your Soul". The other night I spent some time re-working the choruses, and that led to a a new part for the last chorus, we played it today and it worked. We played "Half Hearted" and Dave did some work on his guitar part. All in all the tunes are sounding really good and we're getting excited to play. On Monday we will get the set list together.
I need to get some gear before we play, if possible. I have decided to play Telecaster guitars. While Dave is a guitar nut, and has a variety of really cool and beautiful instruments, I am into having one type of guitar and playing it all the time. I also feel better with a beaten up one, I never have been very good at taking pristine care of guitars, and feel more relaxed with them if they have a scratch or two. At the moment I am playing the 2nd guitar I ever got, an 80's black Tele that has been covered with layer after layer of stickers. I love this guitar. Didn't forsee playing it in this band, but after playing my Strat for a while, I just plugged in the Tele for fun, and it sounded much better in this context. Just felt right. So the plan is now to buy one more, a new one, and use those two for shows. I also need to buy an amp. Sold my Marshall to my friend Nate last year (and it was such a great amp, too) so I have been borrowing one of Dave's. I use a Line 6 at home, but it's not right for shows. Thinking of trying out a company called "Bad Cat", they are like Matchless amps, but apparently better. I am going to go try some out next week. Chaney reccommended an amp called "Divided by 13"... hafta look into that. If I can, I want to get all this stuff locked down by showtime, but if I can't, I'll probably use Dave's Bogner. It was about four thousand degrees in the jam room today and I sweat enough to fill an Arrowhead bottle.
Afterwards, I took some photos of Stephen behind the drums for his upcoming Banyan CD.
We are getting ready to play our first show, we're doing it somewhere in the Los Angeles area and we plan on only telling afew people... in a hidden way.
The first clue can be found on 6767.com, look in the comments of the "NYC" post.
This is Cleb.
 Ok, I don't want to get all TMI or anything, but tonight was fantastic, and I need to let you in on a detail or two you can see exactly why.
I'm a little broke right now. Like, really broke. It's no big thing, Don't cry for me Argentina, been here before, this is what happens when you quit your job to join a rock band. Obviously, I have a lot of faith in the band I am helping to build, so I don't believe this is a permanent situation, but for now... YO NO TENGO DINERO.
When Riss left for New York, I asked her to give me 30 bucks so I could go play poker - a monthly home NLHE tourney run by a nice guy named Brian M. and his girlfriend Debra. I have played his tournaments for almost a year now, and only cashed once - I came in 5th or 6th and made my $30 dollar buy-in back. Whoopie. It probably seems pretty careless, getting some precious cash and using it for poker instead of food and gas, and that would probably be the case...
IF I DIDN'T WIN TONIGHT!!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
That's right, just when Steve needed them most, the Poker Gods shined down and got him to first place out of 28 players. I took home 415 bucks, and everything is okay. I did have a feeling that tonight was the night I shouldn't miss Brian's game.
(Listening to "Pretty (Ugly Before)": Elliott Smith "From a Basement on a Hill")
I just think it's funny, every once in a while ya get lucky at the exact perfect time.
Riss is packed and ready to go. She and Dave are flying to New York tonight til Thursday. Seems Usher called and asked Dave to play on a song with him on a VH1 show taping this week. I am excited for her, New York is the greatest city in the world, and as time goes on, I miss being there more and more (I lived there for 2 years while I worked at MTV). I am a little envious, but I am also looking forward to the alone time. I am an only child, and while Riss and I get along incredibly well, sometimes I like solitude.
I have found that in my life I get creatively inspired when I am bored. In school I was an awful student, and spent most of my time talking or drawing for hours and hours in the back of the class. When I have had jobs, I daydream about song or band ideas. Maybe this week's alone time will prove productive, we'll see. I have begun hitting the gym again, so I plan on doing some good physical work, and maybe I'll take the subway downtown again for a writing excursion.
We have booked our first show, and will be playing sometime this month. Our intent is to keep it low-key for friends, and Panic Agents (no business people) so we are playing under a different name. We will leave clues as to what and where we are playing, so if you are in L.A. and you'd like to come, you can. The plan is to play a few "secret" shows, then begin to play under our real name. The first show will be free.
We are in a unique position, usually a band plays for months and months (if not years) before the business and press people start to show up, but with this band, we very much want to play just for music fans and friends for as long as possible. We will be testing out songs to see how they go over, seeing how our stage vibe flows, and I am going to be testing out which songs to play guitar on and which to just sing on. In Skycycle, I played guitar and sang 100% of the time, that was an integral part of our sound, but with The Channel, Dave's sound is so BIG and full-featured, that I can have the freedom to just sing the words sometimes.
Today I got the honor of sharing the stage with some of my favorite musicians ever, and had an amazing time in the desert heat. Camp Freddy, Dave's All-Star (except for me) cover band played at a big NASCAR race at the California Speedway. Dave picked Riss and I up, and we met all the Camp Freddy guys at a Krispy Kreme in Fontana. (I was tempted, but no, I didn't give into the KK).
Our multi-car convoy got stuck, like everyone else on the freeway, in the push to get to the speedway. Chaney got in a fender-bender on the way. Rock blocks on the radio, waiting. Led Zeppelin. Air drums (my first instrument).
(Now Playing: "Sea Song" from Doves)
Finally got to the speedway, and checked out the stage area, it was really big, had a giant PA system, and a large area for the crowd. No one had much of an idea what to expect. The race was just tying up: apparently, a Busch race, a minor one before the big one tomorrow. There were stands stretching out to infinity, and the alien sounding machine hum of the cars was omnipresent for the first hour or so.
The was a big RV for the band, and all the various hangers about. I don't know what the temperature was exactly, but to me, it was just a shade to the left of completely fucking unbearable. The race ended at around 3pm and the band was to go on at 6:30pm. We wondered why people would come back for the show, then discovered that they never leave. An ocean of RV's, tents, campers, and vans stretched on for what must have been miles in the parking area of the speedway, and that's where they were. Seems that NASCAR fans converge at the site of each race and make a community. It reminded me of the days when the Grateful Dead would play and the Dead Carnival would follow them nomadically from city to city, bringing their buses, vans, and tye-dyed t-shirt booths with them. It was a whole society, I found it really interesting. Never seen anything like it since. NASCAR is worlds different, though. Where at the Dead Carnival, you could walk around, buy drugs, play guitar around someone's fire, and hang with spaced-out hippie chicks, at NASCAR, you ride from RV compound to RV compound on a bicycle holding a Coors, and maybe stop off at a vending truck to buy some Dale Earnhardt memorabilia on your way to a midnight wet t-shirt contest on top of a Winnebego. I expected to see a really vast selection of different mullets, but sadly only saw a couple.
I took off and investigated the city with my camera, met some people, and looked around. Everyone seemed to be having a really good time, and despite all the alcohol being consumed, I didn't get weirded out, or see any fights or sketchy scenes.
Camp Freddy went to do their radio show and I warmed up my voice in the car. At this point the other singers started showing up, Josh Todd from Buckcherry, and Juliette Lewis. The RV area was full of people. The opening band played, and 6:30pm rolled around.
(Now Playing: "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot" from Grandaddy)
Here's what I remember from the show, it's a bit of a blur:
The NASCAR Carnival crowd came out in droves: it was packed.
Donovan (Camp Freddy's resident singer) started off the show with "Ballroom Blitz", then Billy Morrision did "Should I Stay or Should I Go, they did "Search and Destroy", then Juliette Lewis came on and owned Van Halen's "Aint Talkin Bout Love". That chick is some serious rockstar trapped in the body of a Hollywood actress. She went nuts all over the stage in a bright red skin-tight jumpsuit.
I was up next.
They called me up and we busted our medley of The Who's "Baba O' Reilly" and "Pinball Wizard". The crowd was fantastic; lots of people were singing the words along with me and I felt right at home. Dave and Chris on my right, Stephen kicking ass on the drums, and Mr. Billy Morrision playing on my left and pitching in with the harmonies. It went by fast, too fast, but I enjoyed every single second of it. It was the first time that The Panic Channel was onstage together, and I can't wait for it to happen again. I was stoked that we got the Who songs together, not just because of my experience singing Who songs, but becuase that music just does something to a big crowd. You can't really go wrong, ...such power.
Next, Josh Todd and Jerry Cantrell came up and did "Man in the Box". I got my video camera and taped the rest of the show. The PA blew a fuse or something, and they had to stop the song and restart it a few minutes later when it was fixed. I am a big Alice in Chains fan, so I was really happy to see Jerry up there rocking. Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols came out and they all did "God Save the Queen", and later Billy Duffy joined them for the Cult's "Love Removal Machine". At this point, it's dark, everybody is really warmed up, the crowd is flipping out, Dave had a pink bra on his mic stand that some woman tossed up, Perkins is fucking on fire behind the drums, and the stage is so packed with tattooed rock stars that there is hardly room left on the stage (or virgin skin left on the rock stars). I creeped around with the camcorder and got some amazing footage. After my song was done, I genuinely had a blast watching all these people jam together, one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. Some of the other songs they played were Iggy Pop's "I Wanna be your Dog", and Led Zep's "Whole Lotta Love".
The set ended and off over the RV city, a fireworks display lit up the summer night. Dave, Riss and I drove back to L.A. and got some Indian food. This was one of those days that was so much fun, that you never want it to end. A day I was lucky to experience, and I hope I never forget.
Late summer, the Valley. The short period of the year when L.A. weather can be a pain in the ass. Sweat.
Tomorrow, Camp Freddy is playing a NASCAR event at the California Speedway, and I am doing a song with them. We worked out a medley of two Who songs (Baba O' Reilly and Pinball Wizard). The song(s) sound good, and singing Daltrey is always a blast. So officially, this will be the first time that The Panic Channel is onstage together (with the addition of Mr. Billy Morrison). I am not sure who else is singing for the band, but I know Jerry Cantrell is playing. I also hear that maybe Paris Hilton will do a song. Meh.
The event is some crazy race (Jeff Gordon will be there) in Fontana, CA, and apparently from what I am told, what I am feeling right now, is not heat. That's heat.
I worked out my arms on Wednesday and can't really bring them up to my face. Hoping this clears up by tomorrow, so I can properly operate a microphone.
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