The City Veins

It’s Monday Night Football time and time for normally genial band relations to put to an acrimonious test for several hours. Though the other three guys in this band were born and raised in the DC area, I’m from Allentown, PA; an hour north of Philadelphia and officially a part Eagles country.  Tonight the Redskins will be humiliated on national television at the hands of the Eagles, a team that has haunted Redskin dreams for about 6 or 7 years running, and the odds are fairly high of me alienating Aaron as a friend, roommate, and bandmate all in one night (the same would go for Charles but he’s not yet back from Europe). I can’t wait.

In all seriousness, though, this should be a good game as both teams are probably so-so at best. In Week One, the Eagles looked like a team in the “autumn” of their good years.  In what was considered blasphemy just 2 short years ago, I’m seriously starting to think Andy Reid should be replaced as Eagles coach; not only does he appear not instill any discipline at all into his players (yellow flags fell like rain), but he appears to be totally complacent with the lackluster team he’s put together.

Meanwhile, the Redskins’ performance was debatable. On one hand, it could be argued that they like a team that may be finally coming together under their great savior Joe Gibbs (and in only the fourth year, wow, really terrific job Joe).  On the other hand, they were playing the freakin Dolphins, a dreadful team where the average age of their defensive players is 53, and they barely squeaked by in OT.

So that brings us to tonight - let the battle of mediocrity begin (and lets hope our band survives it)!

After getting real angry at Charles dick-dom for chiding me from 3,000 miles away, I decided to actually post rather than ignore him out of defiance.  This is not my normal way of proceeding, but I decided that  our numerous fans should not suffer a lack of my innermost thoughts simply because Charles is an ass.  Most of you already know that to be the case, so I’m sure I’m surprising no-one.

Charles claims that our blog-posts can be about whatever we want, even matters unrelated to the band, so instead I’m going to hit you all with something I’ve been observing in the classes I teach and try, in a roundabout way, to relate it to music.  Our maybe this will have to exist as two separate subjects within the same blog.

Primarily, I have become concerned that the portentious claims made by George Orwell and Ray Bradbury might be true:  that human beings have become overly concerned with ways to save time, with their own lives, and are beginning to avoid meaningful human contact through the arts.  I’m not sure blogs are symptomatic of this process, but the growing prevalence of multi-media apparati seems to be making people dumber in the ways that we traditionally have measured intelligence.  For instance, the fucking kids I teach can’t read books.  They just can’t.  They’re not flashy enough.  They can’t focus without an I-Pod in one ear, and then they can’t hear what you’re saying to them, which is a bit of a catch-22.  Our generation, I believe, uses the internet to supplement traditional forms of receiving information.  Or perhaps we remain cognizant of the fact that more than half of what is on the internet is crap.  But generations after us will not see it that way.  If it is on a computer, it is codified knowledge.  This essentially makes the masses responsible for truth, and not intelligentsia of any kind.  Like Michael said on the office, about wikipedia:  “anybody can write on it, so you know the information’s good”.  I’m not trying to be elitist and say that only the people who know stuff should voice an opinion (especially since that would likely rule me out).  I am saying that our growing need for instant gratification of all types is going to kill what we once considered human.  I thought for a while that the variety granted by increased media sources would give us further insight into the expanse of the human experience.  Now I’ve decided that all things that once illustrated that experience (art, literature, music) will become overly simplified so that they can murmur in the background of the everyday.  No one will listen with a critical ear when music becomes background for daily operation.  The intention will be sensory gratification, not complexity.  I’m sure I’m not the 1st to be an alarmist on this because many people have been freightened about this process before me.  And while many of these things that I think will destroy culture COULD actually make us smarter, I’m pretty sure it will work for current 20-somethings but fuck up everyone else.

That’s my rambling.  Suck it, Charles. 

Before this band started, I spent most of my time playing classical guitar. I didn’t play in a band for the first couple of years that I spent with the guitar, so I gravitated towards music that could be played alone. My style is really built on the fact that no one wanted to play music with me for about the first 4-5 years of my music career. For example, I currently don’t play with a pick because I spent most of my time fingerpicking and playing classical pieces.

I am currently in Belgium for my friend Darren’s wedding. He learned a week ago that the keyboardist at the church where the wedding is taking place doesn’t know a lot of, or any, classical pieces. I got a text message at 4 o’clock in the morning last Friday from Darren asking if I could play at the service. Of course, I agreed, and I have spent the last week learning and arranging “Canon in D” for the procession.

Darren and Emilie have also asked if I know any other pieces to play during the ceremony. We went over some pieces tonight, and it was interesting to think of some of the pieces that I play in terms of a wedding context. For example, I love playing Caprice, Carcassi Method op. 59, part 3, no. 16) by Matteo Carcasi, but I am not sure that capriciousness is an appropriate feeling for a wedding ceremony. Similarly, we have discussed playing “Fandango (Dans Espagnole) (op. 73, no. 2) by Ferdinando Carulli, but I tried to make the point that the song was more about lust than love. Interestingly enough, the bride an bridegroom feel that that sentiment is fine.

I will also be playing “I Need Thee Every Hour,” (words by Annie S. Hawks, Music by Robert Lowry) which has to be one of my favorite hymns. The melody has an excellent mixture of spiritual longing, and romantic longing that I feel is appropriate for a wedding ceremony.

When Darren first called me, I remarked that playing rock music had ruined my musical chops, and it is true. This is not to say that one form of music is superior to another, just that there are different ways of playing both. I have really enjoyed getting ready for the wedding, and getting my fingers back in classical shape. In many ways this is one of the more important gigs that I have played. If I make a mistake at the Velvet Lounge, who really cares? Members of the audience are obviously going to be going to more concerts. If I make a mistake on Saturday, that will be Darren and Emilie’s only wedding. I just don’t want them to look back and think, “God, Charles really shit the bed on that one.”

That last post about Charles was not very nice. I like Charles. He’s going to Belgium this weekend. Have a good trip Charles.

This is a new day and new era for this here City Veins weblog (or as the kids call it, “blog”). Charles, who is such a nerd he uses phrases like “bloggy”, regularly nags us to post more blog entries. A lot. I mean I have an full-blooded Italian mother and even I’m impressed with his ability to nag. That Chaz can nag with the best of them.

But he is right. Our blog is not updated as nearly as it should be, nor is it as interesting as it could be. We’ve basically only used it as a promotional vehicle or as an update on what we’re doing as a band. However, that kind of stuff is not always all that interesting to people outside our band and families (shout out to Aaron’s dad for reading this thing, see if you could get your son to post more regularly).

Well, per Charles’ advice, we’re now going to make an effort to blog about ANYTHING on our minds. I don’t think he quite knows what he started. There are any number of weird thoughts in the brains of the four City Veins and who knows what will spill out into this thing. I, for one, have a very opinionated inner monologue that runs through my head on an almost constant basis. And God knows what goes through Adam’s and Aaron’s heads day-to-day; I’m not sure that I want to find out. (Side note: we know what goes through Charles’ head (think of the curly-haired nerd’s voice from the Simpsons): “gee whiz i love blogging….100011100001110001111…someday i’m going to marry a computer.”)

Anyway, I would love to indulge my inner monologue further but I have stupid work. Good freakin god I just want to be a rock star already.