Yes, it can be. Sometimes life gets hectic and a busy schedule makes you forget why you started playing music in the first place. Simply put, it’s fun. Being in a band is fun sometimes, stressful other times, annoying lots of times. The majority of the time, it seems, we play music only on a serious or “professional” (quotes for a reason) level and rarely get a chance to just bust out some jam sessions or dick around for fun. 99% of the time practice consists of organized set list run-throughs or painstaking attempts to learn or write new material. That said, yesterday was very refreshing and reminded me why I started playing guitar and writing music in the first place, long ago at age 12. For that, I’d like to thank the members of the band Lights Resolve.
Lights Resolve is from NYC and has taught us a lot over the past few days about being in a band and having fun at the same time. At times we take ourselves too seriously and it strains our friendships, our creativity and our ultimate output as a cohesive unit. The members of Lights Resolve seem to have a good balance of taking themselves seriously as a band, but also having a good time and making the most of their experience on the road. After we played with them last Friday night at The Velvet Lounge , we invited them to crash at our house for a few nights while they were in between shows here in DC and in Richmond. For those interested, they’re playing at DC 9 tonight , Alley Katz in Richmond on Wednesday ? and then with us again on Thursday at TT Reynolds for the Locals Only Radio Showcase for Elysium Productions.
Matt, Neil and Sherman enjoy playing music, it seems, more than anything else in the world. They are happy to share stories, give advice, take part in impromptu jam sessions, or just hang out. While The City Veins usually sit around bitching about things, Lights Resolve really seem to have their shit together and their attitudes reflect this “we know what we’re doing and we enjoy it” feeling. On Saturday, the guys went down to Georgetown and played on the streets to passersby while selling some CDs and promoting the band and their show on Monday. When they got back we watched some of their day on video and most of it was them just having a good time doing what they love to do. Matt sang a song to George W. Bush at the gates of the White House before being unceremoniously booted by the Secret Service. The agent did, however, let him finish his song. This approach may seem very simple and logical to many, but for me it was sort of a wake-up call. Why am I in a band if I am not having fun the majority of the time?
All of this positive energy came to a head yesterday when Spencer and I plugged in and jammed with the guys for about an hour in our basement. We didn’t play anything pre-arranged, everything was made up on the spot, with Matt singing when he felt like it, Sherman and I switching instruments, Spencer and Neil and Matt rotating on the drum set, and everyone just messing around. A lot of it actually sounded really good, and you can probably check some of it out on Lights Resolve’s video blog on their myspace page in the upcoming days. I realized that we in the City Veins have never really just jammed like that, which is a shame, and it’s something I want to do in the future. At first everyone is tentative and wondering what to play, but within a few minutes we were all goofing around, playing riffs we might deem stupid or lame, but going along with it with no real direction. Musically, our bands mesh well together and we were surprisingly on the same page most of the time. I’d love to collaborate with them at some point.
It’s rare to find other musicians you can be comfortable playing with, which is another reason I value playing music with Charles and Spencer and Aaron. From a writing standpoint, I’ve never felt comfortable with other bands or musicians the way I do with Aaron. I haven’t written as much with Charles or Spencer, but the group dynamic is definitely there moreso than my previous bands. Aaron and I have this McCartney/Lennon thing when we write and our minds work very cohesively. His mind is a little more out of the box than mine, and I think I am more willing to lend a friendly melody here and there. The combination works. Charles makes our music non-standard and adds a very important dynamic to the band. Without him, we would sound very cookie-cutter. Spencer challenges us to be different, and comes up with ideas we would never think of. The slowed down dynamics of Oh, Backwards are totally Spencer’s creation and the orgasmic build of that song makes it brilliant and the most fun for us to play (in my opinion). The challenge then is to get everyone feeling the same emotion when we try to finish new songs with the band and make them presentable at shows. There is a point to this rambling, and the point is that we need to have more fun and jam more often. No agenda, no set list, just a non-sexual feeling each other out musically. I will admit I am jealous of the interaction and experiences of Lights Resolve, and I only hope that The City Veins can reach the same “place” Matt, Neil and Sherman appear to be at right now.
I wish Charles and Aaron had been there yesterday for a refresher course in “Playing Music Is Fun? 101, but hopefully we can take a step back and remember that we are friends who enjoy playing music together….all that other stuff (writing, performing, fighting) is just a great added benefit. Who knows though, Lights Resolve could be could be beating the shit out of each other right now in our living room as I write this.
That’s all for now and the touchy-feely fest is taking a break. Come see The City Veins and Lights Resolve this Thursday at TT Reynolds in Fairfax at 8 pm. As always, check out our myspace page for updates, new songs, shows, thoughts, etc. A big thanks to everyone that came out to Velvet last Friday, it was a very successful show and lots of fun as well.
