My Band Story (part 5)

I remember the first time I played on mic’d drums. It was always this big dream to play on a real stage where everything was mic’d, including the drums. I just wanted to feel the floor rattle when I hit the bass and toms, because it creates this rush of energy—at least it did in my head, because I had never really experienced it yet. So when we showed up at this one venue on one of our “tours,” and found out they actually had a decent sound system, I was completely stoked. It really raises the energy level for everyone when it’s extra loud. People kind of got into that show, and we did too, because louder equals better. Pete actually kind of went crazy during that show and started climbing the speakers and amps and jumping off of them during the songs. I think it kind of pissed off the manager of the venue. I played on mic’d drums again at the theater in Indiana, where the guy told us he was an angel from God. Those drums had trigger mics, which are a bit fickle. They sounded pretty awesome out in the theater (which was packed out with a whopping 8 people during our performance, while everyone else who came to see the show hung outside and smoked cigarettes until the headliner played), but the monitors on stage were terrible quality so we couldn’t hear hardly anything while we played. That was a bit frustrating, and I’m not sure if we sounded good or were together at all, since I couldn’t hear jack squat.

(one of our shows in the Chicago area)

One of our most memorable performances was at this big outdoor party in Valparaiso, Indiana. How in the world did we get hooked up with these places? Some random connection with someone happens, and voila—we have a show lined up four hours away. So we drive four hours and there are probably 12 bands that have been invited to play throughout the evening. We get there at about 4pm, and we’re not scheduled to play until around 9pm. Then we have to drive back. So we hang out and listen to the other bands, and more and more people start to show up, which means more and more people start drinking--turns out there was a lot of beer at this party. By the time we got on the “stage,” which was just a cement patio with microphones and speakers wired up, the crowd was kind of getting into the bands and we had a decent audience in front of us. For reasons that stump even God himself, Christian convinced all of us that we should open our set with a spontaneous acapella “doo-whop” melody. I’m serious. The band that played before us was this metal band that played a lot of covers and kind of rocked the place, so what possessed us to agree to this, and think it was a good idea, is a mystery for the ages. You know where this is going… We get this big announcement from the emcee, and it’s our chance to at least rival the metal band with some punkish-rock music that, if nothing else, has good energy and can keep drunk people happy. Well, we all walk up to the mic and start acapella “doo-whopping,” thinking this would really win the crowd over. The looks on peoples’ faces turned from anticipation to utter scowl. Then they started booing us. I mean, they were drunk and we couldn’t just play our freakin’ songs! We did a doo-whop! The heavens wept that night. Realizing our grand mistake, we quickly ran back to our positions and jumped into our first song. Soon, people were starting to move a little to the music and we thought we might not get rushed and killed. I don’t think we even made it through the first song, when suddenly the sound system turned off and our attention was brought over toward the entrance of the property where we saw cop cars and flashing lights. The party had been busted and minors had been caught drinking. The party had to shut down immediately and so we packed up our stuff and drove home. Truth be told, those cops just might have saved us from getting beat up.

Later in the life of our band, we got access to a bunch of decent recording equipment because some of our friends worked at media services on the college campus. We had learned enough about recording to do it ourselves with the help of a couple friends, and we had a space in the music hall while everyone went away for the holidays. We had some new music to record and it sounded way better both in quality and musically than our previous recordings. We had access to sound proof rooms and lots of time. Those were some really fun times, creating and tweaking like we were in an actual studio. I loved the whole process of creating music and recording it, which is a rich experience for me to this day. Even just laying down some simple grooves and riffs on Garage Band with my iPad can get me lost in my own world for hours.

During that time of recording, we recorded one of Andy’s newer songs that he wrote, which was a crazy fast punk song, and he had this drum part figured out for me that included lots of tom toms in the beat. We had played the song many times in shows, so I knew it well, but when we actually recorded it, Andy decided to kick up the tempo about 50 notches because he thought it sounded cooler. Well, that’s all fine and good, but my drum beat went from easy to freakin’ fast! Then I kept messing up so we’d have to start the recording over. I finally got a good track laid, and then it accidentally got erased! I almost fainted. I can’t remember how many hours I spent on that part, but my arms were jello by the time I finally got a track we could keep.