Racer

Up until this April we used to rehearse at another place, not the Superior Street rehearsal studio we rehearse at now. We liked it there. It was cheap. The managers knew us and more importantly, they had a dog. Racer. Racer was a Viszla, a Hungarian hunting dog. A dog the color of caramel pastry. You knew he was there long before you saw him, because long before you saw him, he smelled you and from his orange chair in the office, he would begin barking – a howling bray that made you wonder where the prey was lurking. Until you knew him better and he knew you better, you weren’t sure if you were the prey.

I think of Racer now because last night at rehearsal a dried chicken stick fell out of the front pocket of my cymbal bag. Racer and I had a game. Twice a week, when we came to rehearsal and if I saw his car was there (actually, his owner’s car, but in my mind, Racer’s car), I would troop up the four flights of stairs with my cymbal bag, snare, and drum pedal and at the top of the stairs, at the end of the corridor I would stage-whisper his name.

“Ra-cer.”

A bray. A hollow bark from the office, and then the sound of dog toenails on the linoleum floor.

“Racer!” I would shout. Before I would hand him a treat, I would ask him to sit, as if I thought he should “work” a little for it. Racer would ease back on his haunches, tongue wagging, and as soon as he saw my hand lift, he would be up on four feet, chomping at my hand. I’ll work, he seemed to say, but not that hard. He would then follow us down the corridor. While we were setting up he would sniff inside Brian's pedal case looking for more chicken sticks. He lingered around until his owner would shout his name and call him back into his office.

Racer was the best part of rehearsal and many nights it was the only real reason I went. In those first few months of playing drums and learning to rehearse, I wasn’t always having fun and just anticipating the tedium and the disagreements (usually resolved) made me not want to go. But then I would hear that loud hunting bray inside my head. Racer. Okay, I’ll go.

It is almost impossible to describe my disappointment if I did put my coat on and drove with Brian to the rehearsal space only to discover Racer’s white 1970s sedan absent from its spot.

“Oh, Racer’s not here.” I would say and pout a pout that could compete with the best pout of an average four year-old.

“Sorry, honey.” Brian would say.

Our climb up the four flights would be punctuated with my disappointed sighs.

First floor: “How come Racer’s not here?” I would ask.

“He can’t work every night.” Brian would say.

Second floor: “Maybe he is here but he came in a different car.”

“No,” Brian would say. “He drives the white car.”

Third floor: “Do you think he’ll come later?”

“He might.”

Fourth floor: “I want to go home.”

“We’re here now. We might as well practice.”

I would move glumly into the practice room and set-up listlessly. Eventually we would begin, practice the songs, and I would learn new things or hear new things. And we would discuss the songs and compliment each other on the progress.

Then, sometimes, at the very end of the night, I would get lucky. I would be packing the cymbals into their case and hear the familiar scrape of dog toenails on vinyl floor. I would drop everything, grab a chicken stick from the front pocket of my cymbal case and run into the hallway.

“RACER!” I would shout.

From the end of the hallway, in mid-step, Racer would leap forward, his caramel-colored ears flapping.

Chicken strips!!

Yes, I knew. Despite how much I loved Racer, I knew that for Racer I was just a chicken stick delivery system, but that didn’t make me love him less.

Our games continued until this past April when the rehearsal space had a fire. A fire I’ll describe to you some other day. For right now, I want to remember Racer and his caramel-colored ears and his hunting bark and how he motivated me to keep playing even when I didn’t want to play.

So, thanks Racer, wherever you are.

The Management

We have a demanding management team. They demand that we work hard. They demand that we rehearse relentlessly. They demand productivity. And most importantly, they demand unrelentingly for liver treats.

Yes. This is the management team. Ben (left) handles security, promotions, and distribution. Rosie (right) handles strategy, public relations, and bookings. Both are so respected by SPiL that due homage was paid in song. Rosie is the subject of the song with the same name on Short Punks’ first CD, and Ben was honored in a short, instrumental piece on the second CD.

The production facility which produced all of the SPiL’s first CD, and half of the songs on the second CD, Good All Over, was named also named for them: Litterbox Productions. Litterbox is located in the spare bedroom of our apartment, and houses not just the recording equipment but also the catboxes, the food, and the odd stuffed mouse toy.

We wanted to take a moment to honor Ben and Rosie because without them there would be no Short Punks in Love.

Ben, Rosie – we salute you!

The First and the Last

On Sunday we played the Red Line Tap in Rogers Park, a bar behind the Heartland Café and owned by the same people. It’s a small place, next to the EL track and it’s the first bar I ever played. Ever. Three months after I began playing the drums Brian got us a gig there. I remember the way he told me. He was checking his e-mail at the kitchen table and as I walked by him, he looked up.

“Red Line just e-mailed. I got a show!”

“Great.” I assumed he meant a show for the other band he played with, until he peered at me over his glasses.

“Do you want to play drums?”

And without missing a beat, as if he had just asked if I could pick up milk on the way home, I said, “Sure.” Despite my nerves, I stayed cool about it. No big deal, I thought. Just a bar show.

But as I brought my drums in on Sunday, just two days ago, and talked to Kurt, the Sound Guy, and walked toward the stage where he told me to set-up, I realized playing here for my very first bar show was a big deal.

It was big deal because I could barely play. Even before the show, because I couldn’t keep a beat for very long, Brian and I agreed that I would only play 5 songs out of the set with time out in between so I could rest. Between songs I would sit down off-stage while Brian played solo a la Billy Bragg (who Brian doesn’t listen to, but I do). I remember being nervous the whole day, from the moment I woke up. I remember what I wore: a red jacket, white t-shirt, and black wide leg jeans. I remember I was wearing an amethyst necklace, which medieval folklore said offered protection and power. I remember that we weren’t even Short Punks yet. Our first band name was The Hours (yes, Short Punks is better). I remember also that I did not play my own drum set. I had one. A green Tama rhythm-mate bought off Craig’s List for $375. Instead, I played the drum set that belonged to the drummer of the band who was headlining.

The headlining band (the band that plays last) had arrived before us and because Brian had sent in a demo with mostly acoustic solo songs, the booking agent assumed he was a solo act. The Sound Guy told the band they could set-up first with their gear in the back and Brian would play in front of it. They were surprised then when they saw me bringing in my hunter green drums. They asked me if I would mind playing their drummer’s set. Sure, I said, not really knowing what that meant.

Now, I know. It’s hard to play another person’s set, especially if you’ve only been playing three months and you’ve spent hours and hours playing the same five songs on your own hunter green Tama drum set. In this case, flexibility is not an option. But there I was on that first night, facing a drum set with twice as many drums and cymbals as my own. I didn’t even know where to start.

I remember all this now. Now, after I’ve just played there again for the fourth or the fifth time and brought in my own blue Yamaha drums in their black nylon cases and my own Paiste cymbals in their cases and my 10 pairs of drumsticks and brushes in their case along with all the other drum paraphernalia. For my first show I had no cases for my green drums and every time we packed them into the car they got scratched. I carried my drumsticks, the two pairs, in my backpack.

On Sunday, I talked with the Sound Guy like he was our old friend – which in a way, he was. He had done sound for us 5 times or so and knew our sound and our ways. And we knew he had a good ear for us. He did the sound check on the drums – tonight, checking just the kick drum instead of all of them. Brian checked his mike and we started. Much different from my first show when the sound check was more involved.

My first show here was also my first sound check. And for the first time, I learned to “check the levels” with the Sound Guy, to play each drum as they request so they can check the mikes on the drums. At that time I didn’t know to ask for a check on my monitor. On Sunday, I did. When Brian began playing the first song, “Rosie,” I realized I couldn’t hear him in the monitor to my left, which meant, in essence, I couldn’t hear him at all which makes playing with him a little difficult. But without thinking about it or wondering how I should ask, I spoke into the mike and said to Kurt: “Could I get a little more guitar in my monitors?”

And there I was. A year and a half ago that would have been unthinkable but on Sunday, it was effortless, like I had been doing it my whole life.

Some days I forget how much my life has changed since I started playing the drums less then two years ago. I forget in the day-to-day business of life that we have changed a lot since our first show at the Red Line. But it’s a change that others may not be able see at first glance. I live in the same apartment, I have the same job, I’m married to the same person, but life, indeed, has changed. It’s only when we return to places we played at in the very beginning do I appreciate it.

The show went well. It was a quiet Sunday night. We played last because we were the headline act (another difference from our very first show) and we went home and had our usual post-gig meal. It was a quiet, routine, usual sort of night, just another bar show on a Sunday night. No big deal.

Why I Hate Rehearsal

I hate rehearsing. I blame this on a childhood of Suzuki lessons begun when I was in third grade after my brother, who had started Suzuki lessons with Mrs. Regis, came home with a pint-sized violin. He was a year younger than me and in the living room of our house next to the upright piano he scratched out Twinkle Twinkle Star and other favorites of the Suzuki catalog. I don’t remember when I became intrigued with the violin. I don’t have an epiphany moment seeing the violin bathed in golden light or of the sound of angels when I set eyes on it for the first time. This probably explains why even now, I play the violin reluctantly, as if it wasn’t really intended for me.

I began taking lessons with Mrs. Regis shortly after my brother began his. The first memories I have involve meeting Mrs. Regis in the drafty, under-heated auditorium of the public school I attended. For a reason I can’t remember my mother was also there. Perhaps because I was learning the Suzuki method which requires the active involvement of the parent in the student’s learning. In any case, she was there. I was there with my tiny violin waiting for our lesson to begin. And as I stood there with my violin stuck awkwardly under my chin, Mrs. Regis happened to look down at my shoes and said, “Those are pretty shoes.” I looked down at my own feet. I was wearing black patent leather shoes, Mary Janes with an embroidered red and white stripe across the top. Pretty shoes? It must have been my first compliment, I think now. The first time someone looked at something on me or in me and said “pretty” to it and I was puzzled. It created an odd feeling in me that I hadn’t felt before at the age of 8 years-old and I remember it still that odd sense of wonderment. “Ah, what’s this?” my brain asked.

The pretty-shoes compliment is probably what kept me playing long after it was fun. Taking up the violin with Mrs. Regis meant 8 years of Saturday mornings from 9:00-12:00 pm in the drafty rooms of public institutions all over the county. The auditorium of an old tuberculosis hospital, a seminar room in a local state college, a lodge room in the downtown district of a small town. In these rooms, Mrs. Regis collected all her violin students together to introduce them to orchestral playing. Even at those tender ages we were divided into sections of first and second violins and viola and cello. We learned how to play together and to watch Mrs. Regis for cues and to read music together. My shyness kept me from really enjoying this stage of my musical education. Playing in front of others terrified me and I would slouch down in my chair and try to hide inside the group. There were three different sections of string groups based on skill and even though I can’t remember all the names of them, I know that I passed through all levels until I ended up in the grown-up level of Swinging Strings. This group was made up of high school students who wore coordinating outfits. In the mid-70s this meant red polyester skirts that went to our ankles and blue blouses.

My ambivalent relationship to the violin began to end by the time I was sixteen. The eighties had started to happen and my free hours were spent listening to U2 and Police records on headphones in my bedroom. That was the first time I experienced that curious high-pitched ringing in my right ear after listening to WAR at top volume for hours. And that time, it was a novelty – ah, what’s this? – my brain inquired.

The violin paled by comparison. It didn’t rock. It was uncool. I stopped practicing. This lack of practice became noticeable enough that in 10th or 11th grade my teacher told my mother that I could stop playing now. The memory is distinct. The snow was deep and it was dark at 5 pm. My mother had pulled into the circular driveway of the lake house my teacher, now Mrs. Hollenbeck, owned. I had just sat in the car and closed the door.

Mrs. Hollenbeck leaned down and looked into the car, past me and towards my mother and said: “If Pearl’s not going to be able to practice, then it might be best if she stopped taking lessons.”

There it was. My plan worked. Yet I felt slightly reprimanded. I almost wanted to start practicing again to make her happy. The pretty-shoes compliment seemed to drift away from me and I was sitting there next to my mother with a violin in my lap, wondering where that feeling had gone.

So rehearsal, even now, with Brian, the man I’m married to isn’t always fun. Old feelings of being trapped in the drafty auditorium of an old hospital revisit me within the warm and quiet confines of a Superior Street rehearsal room. My moments of frustration, too, become apparent when I don’t learn songs quickly enough or when I can’t find the beat that would best suit a song. Rehearsal isn’t always fun. Many times it’s just boring. I remember watching a DVD of the Rolling Stones in a studio rehearsing one of their songs and after about minute I got bored. They keep starting the song over and over again. Mick tells them the beat is too slow or Keith has entered too late. And they start again. And then again. Then I realized something: rehearsals are dull regardless of who’s playing. The reality of rehearsal, a reality that I didn’t understand when I was twelve, is that it can be a slow, dull process. It’s a slow, dull process of finding how a song goes together, discovering where the beats go, listening to how the others in the room sound, and learning to find one’s place in the mix.

It comforted me to learn that other bands, including famous ones, didn’t always like rehearsal either. Andy Summers wrote in his book that the Police “were never the most well rehearsed band.” I know now why they wouldn’t be. In rehearsal, one has to be able to resolve disagreements. If I disagree with Brian about how to play a song, we have to find a point of consensus in order to move forward and just be able to play the song. The challenge is to be able to communicate the differences and resolve them. Sometimes that’s easy for us. Sometimes it’s not.

But we keep rehearsing. Three hours a week, once a week, at a Superior Street rehearsal space. We haul all our gear there, loaded into a four door Japanese sedan. And we rehearse. And sometimes we fight. And I get tired. He gets cranky. And usually I’m thirsty and sometimes, too hot. We play the songs we know, I try to learn the new ones Brian has written and we fight about the guitar pedals he uses and then we stop. We pack up our gear again and load it out. The next week we come back and do it again.

And yet, it’s crucial to playing live. Rehearsal only makes sense once you’ve been on stage (something else I didn’t understand when I was twelve). After I leave the stage I realize that without the rehearsal there would be no smooth performance. No song sounds effortless on stage unless it’s been rehearsed. I discover the point of rehearsal, later at the bar, getting a drink. Oh, I think, rehearsal paid off.

Now I rehearse less reluctantly then when I was twelve, more enthusiastically then I when I first began the drums, and more devotedly than I ever rehearsed the violin. For better or worse, I can credit the violin with giving me the early training to be able to learn the drums when I was older – at least, that’s what my friend Lisa tries to tell me. It gave me much and I’m grateful to it all. But generally speaking, despite all this wisdom, I still hate rehearsing.

The Morning After

The bright light of one o’clock in the afternoon battles its way between half closed blinds and wakes me. I blink. God, that hurts. Everything hurts. My knee caps hurt. My elbows hurt. That little muscle in my wrist aches. I’m in pain. After a moment’s pause, I try to remember why. Oh yeah, a gig. Then I remember. One set. Thirty minutes, between two other bands whose names I’ve momentarily forgotten but will remember later. What did we play? Oh right, the new song. Did it go well? Not bad, could be better. I missed the pick-up notes into the chorus. I blew a beat in the third verse. I remember now. My left calf was aching. I was playing hi-hat all the way through – the first time to do that – so now it all hurts. Hip to toes. It all aches. Augh. My back. My damn back. The little congenital defect in my lower back admonishes me. It says: “This is what happens when you don’t suck in your abs.” Abs. Right, my abs. I should do yoga today. Maybe tomorrow. No, today. Tomorrow…

Brian is already up. He’s at the kitchen table surfing the internet for new gear. That’s the routine. I sleep late. He gets up early to research new gear. Every show is an experiment for him in how to get a different or more refined tone and that requires research, a lot of research. He shouts at me from the kitchen, “So what do you think about a [insert gearhead gobbedly-gook here]? It would help me get a fuller sound.”

“Great. That’s sounds great.”

I lift my legs out of bed and place them on the cold hard wood floor. I feel the balls of my feet wince.

“Or how about a [insert incomprensible string of letters and numbers]?

“That’s good too.”

I swallow. My throat’s dry.

“You’re not listening.” He shouts from the kitchen.

“Yes, I am.” I shout back.

No. I’m not. I feel wrung out. All this and I didn’t drink a drop of liquor. Not a drop. All this comes from being 39 years-old. I’m almost twice as old as all the musicians who played last night, some of whom are young enough to be students in my college composition class. I keep waiting for one to turn up with a backpack and a pencil and ask me after the first class, “Hey, aren’t you?” I would look quizzically at them, almost haughtily, as if they had asked me to accept a late paper. “Me? Of course not. Who do you take me for?” I would swirl out in blaze of pseudo-professorial glory. I like to imagine that scene as if I was Clark Kent being mistaken for Superman. Me? In blue tights? What do you take me for? But that’s not now. Now, my toes hurt when I step on them.

Every show is a physical challenge for me. Since I’m older and my body has been through a lot already there’s a few things I learned that cannot do if I want to play at all. The first, drink. I can’t drink liquor. I’m not twenty-two years old so if I drink and try to play the drums my beats end up all over the place. I can’t hear the groove in the song and I seem to slur not my speech, but my rhythm. The second thing I can’t do is eat too heavily. During one memorable show at Hotti Biscotti, one of our favorite places to play, they have free food on Friday nights. So while I waited for the first act to finish I settled in to a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. By the time it was time for me to play I had completely slipped out of performance mode and was as comfortable there as I am at home. I was so relaxed that I had lost that little performance edge, that slight alleviation in all the senses when I think I can hear every noise being made in the whole world. That, I would learn, is the recipe for disaster. I blew the third song, “Olivia.” Even at that time, I would try to match my snare and bass hits with Brian’s strumming, a feat not easy for me to achieve at my novice level and yet crucial to the sound of the song. Halfway through, I don’t know how, I reversed the beats. Instead of BOOM-CHIK- BOOM-CHIK, I played CHIK-BOOM-CHIK-BOOM. Brian’s a good guitarist but not that good. The chords didn’t fit over the beat and Brian was left playing on top of a rhythm that didn’t match either the melody or his strumming pattern. Before I could fix it (as if I could have), Brian was waving his hands in the air. “Whoa! Wait! Stop!”

I stopped. There was an audible “awww” from the whole audience which on that night was just four guys at the bar. Well, I thought, at least they’re listening.

Brian turned to me, mid-set, in front of everyone, and said: “What the hell happened?”

I couldn’t lie. I pulled the microphone over to my lips. “It was the meatloaf. I had the meatloaf.”

Silence.

“Sorry.” I muttered.

Brian started the song again and we played through it and finally through the whole set.

I should be mortified when I think about. I should want to erase the memory from my mind. I should wish it never happened. But I don’t. I learned things that are very important to how I prepare for a show and even in the worst-case scenario that being “I made a complete ass out of myself,” it was still fun. Audiences, I believe, are generally forgiving. They want you to sound great and when you don’t they feel for you. The people who are hardest on the musicians are the musicians themselves. We want it to be perfect. We want it to sound perfect. We want it to look perfect. But, life’s not perfect. I’ve learned that in order to enjoy every night that we’re out there, I have to embrace my own imperfections. Thankfully, Brian’s comfortable enough with himself on stage that we can both stand up there together, flawed, and still play. There have been nights when we were on the verge of having an argument with each other, but we kept playing and we let the music do our communicating. There have been nights when he was tired or I was cranky. And we still played. The point though for me isn’t that we inflict all those bad moods on the audience, but that we express them to ourselves. Hey, I feel sad so this beat here, it’s going to be slower. Or, hey, I’m stoked – look at me! I’m on stage! Let’s speed up!

So the nights we get to play are the nights we get to hear ourselves and really hear ourselves – on a stage in front of people.

But that’s the bright side. Right now, my hips hurt. My neck aches. And I’m thirsty.

Brian shouts from the kitchen.

“Hey, the mega guitar store is having sale today! Do you want to go with me to get a [insert obscure gearhead lingo here].

“Sure. Love to.” I shout back.

No. I would not love to. My pinky fingers hurt. I’m hungry. I lift my legs back into bed. The balls of my feet thank me and I fall back to sleep with Brian still shouting at me from the kitchen.

“How about a [insert gearhead tech speak here]? Honey? Honey?”

“How I Stopped Resisting Monotony and Learned to Love George Stone’s Stick Control"

Preface

One of the questions I get asked after shows is “how long have you playing?” Just recently I used to pause, and then ask the questioner, “What’s the date?” The person would think for a minute and just as he or she would answer, the joke would become apparent. The proverbial light bulb would go off over his or her head and they would realize oh, you haven’t been playing that long.

One of the other facts about Short Punks in Love is that it wasn’t really formed until I could hold a beat for 40 minutes. Until then, we were just another married couple with a hobby.

The journey I took from never having touched a drumstick to playing a whole set is the subject of today’s blog titled “How I Stopped Resisting Monotony and Learned to Love George Stone’s Stick Control.”

~~~~

“How I Stopped Resisting Monotony and Learned to Love George Stone’s Stick Control.”

I touched my first pair of drumsticks when I was 37 years-old. Thirty-seven. Not twenty-seven. Not seventeen. 37. The age when, instead of learning new things, most people begin to wear rubber bands around their wrist to remind themselves to do things. I wasn’t only wearing rubber bands, I was writing notes to myself on post-its, sticking them in all my pockets only to find them later and wonder, “Hm… did I do that?”

In a nutshell, I felt old. And old, not in a good way. Not in the “oh, aren’t I wise?” way but in the “my brain has begun to ossify” way. I was feeling myself not remember as much as I used to. I was feeling my body not move the way I was used to. And not only had I been dating the same guy for four years, I had been married him to the whole time. Whoa.

So, learning to play the drums felt like teaching a really old dog a new trick. My nemesis in that journey from not knowing how to play the drums at all to playing a 45-minute set was George Stone. George Stone is the author of a book many beginning drummers know: Stick Control for the Snare Drummer. The first book the teacher gives you right after you buy the practice pad and your first pair of 5A drumsticks. A grey-covered book with a line drawing picture of (and I kid you not) a Colonial Drummer and “Colonial” in the sense of “America, the former colony of England.” It was first published in 1935; it’s an old book. I should have been comforted by this fact, but I wasn't and flipping through the pages didn’t make me feel better. Page followed page after page of black dots. Black dots in every configuration. Dots spaced far apart. Well, that doesn’t look too hard. Black dots squeezed together so tight I wondered if I was getting double vision. Okay, that looks hard. On top of that, in the introduction George Stone writes in CAPITALS: “The author recommends that each rhythm be practiced 20 TIMES WITHOUT STOPPING.” Twenty times without stopping? Could I play it even once without stopping? I walked away from the music store in the crisp January cold, wondering if I could pull this off. Could I really learn to the play the drums?

My first sit-down with George Stone happened in the converted back porch of our two and half-bedroom apartment. I was in the half bedroom part. George Stone’s Stick Control was propped on the metal music stand I still had from my childhood as a Suzuki violin student. The practice pad was on an office chair and two brand new drum sticks sat lightly between my fingers.

Page 1.

Right.

My right hand let the stick fall.

Left.

My left hand let go of the other stick.

Okay…

Then right again. Then left. Right. Left. Right. Left.

Well, that’s not so bad…wait what’s this??

Right. Left. Right. Right??

My left stick clicked against my right stick. My fingers seemed to catch each other in mid-air.

Fuck.

Two minutes into my journey into drummer-hood and I was stumped by a simple right-left-right-right. I would learn later that this was the infamous paradiddle.

That’s as far as I got that day. I put it all away. I was too old. I walked out of the converted back porch into the comfort of the apartment.

The next day I went back. I propped George Stone up on the metal music stand and ignored all the notes in the book except: RIGHT. LEFT. RIGHT. RIGHT.

For 15 minutes that was all I played. For the first 5 minutes I couldn’t do it. By the end, of 15 minutes I could play it for 2 minutes. When fifteen minutes was over, I put George Stone and the sticks away and went back into the apartment. The next day I went back to the porch and played it again. For 15 minutes. I knew George wanted 20 TIMES WITHOUT STOPPING but all he was going to get from me was a couple times without stopping.

The first 2 months of learning to use George Stone’s Stick Control time was just a matter of 15 minutes. Not an hour. Not 30 minutes. Not even 20. Just 15. That was all I could handle at the time, because after 15 minutes a thought would grab hold of me and each stick falling seemed to have a voice that said: too old. Right. Too. Left. Old. Too old, too old, too old. After 15 minutes I just seemed to hear too old over and over again until I had to stop and walk away. Then, miraculously, one day I was playing halfway down the first page, playing the same pattern I had been playing for the last week, when I thought hm, I wonder what the next pattern sounds like, and before I knew it I had jumped down and played it. Then I played it again. And then I skipped down to the next pattern. Before I knew it I had played the whole page. Sticking not just right-left-right-left, but right-right-left-left. Then left-right-right-left, then left-left-left-left and before I knew it, George Stone and I were pals. I skipped forward to middle of the book. Wow, look at this! I can play this! And that! And what’s that? That looks cool! I want to play that!

I wasn’t too old anymore. And that voice in the drum sticks that seemed to say, “too old” was gone, replaced with “why not?” Why not learn the drums! Why not pick up sticks! Why not?! Why not?!

After a month on the practice pad, I graduated to my first drum kit bought on Craig’s List for $350, a forest green Tama Rhythm-mate. Then a month after that, armed with the basic rock beat, I did my first show in public, one song, recorded in a studio for Chic-a-go-go. It would be another 8 months before Brian thought we were sounding like a real band, instead of singer-songwriter with a drummer, but that’s another story. For right now, all you need to know is this: anything you really want to learn to do, you can learn in fifteen minutes. Well… that’s what I keep telling myself and as long as it works I’m sticking to it.

What the Hell's That Sound??: Short Punks in Rehearsal

At a recent Chicago Acoustic Underground show (http://www.chicagoacoustic.net/) in which Short Punks played a set, another musician asked me about what rehearsals are like for us. This may seem like an odd or weird question until you recognize two important facts about Short Punks: 1) We're a duo --guitar and drums; and 2) We're married...to each other.


Issue #1: Where's Our Buffer?

On one hand, it could either be easier to rehearse as a duo because there are fewer people's schedules to coordinate or, on the other hand, when there are only two people in a band there's no buffer. You know, the third guy in the band that keeps the other two from fighting -- the guy who keeps everyone calm and reminds them to think of the bigger things. Like the bass player in Spinal Tap. Andy Summers in The Police. Instead, when we fight it's two people fighting with no buffer. Two people fighting who are MARRIED to each other... which brings me to issue #2.

Issue #2: Play That Chord and You're Doing Dishes for the Week

Being married to each other also looks like it could be a really sweet and romantic thing too. "Oh look, you can go to shows together and play music together and isn't that great?" Yes. And no. Yes, it's great to be able to share an experience like playing music live with the person you're married to. But...rehearsing to play that live show is a whole other experience. For instance, a typical rehearsal exchange goes like this:

The drums roll along on an easy groove waiting for the guitar to enter with its clean, melody-driven riff. But instead, the sound of breaking glass repeats over and over like a Mack truck has rammed into a bottle recycling truck.

"What the hell is that sound?" I say.
Brian looks up from his guitar, his face serene, nay, angelic. "What?"
"That crunching sound. What the hell is it?"
"That? Oh that! That's the my new pedal: The Heavy Metal Pedal."
"Why?"
"What do you mean 'why?' ?"
"Why are you playing it?"
"I just got it back from the guy who modified it."
"Well it must not have worked because it still sounds like a heavy metal pedal."
"No, no, but it's not 'cause you see I had him [insert gearhead gobbeldy-gook here]. See... so really, it's not a heavy metal pedal anymore."
"Whatever it is, it's giving me a headache."
This is when Brian gives me the look that I have come to term, "the boo-boo face." A thirty-three-year-old-man's best approximation of an eight-year-old's face when he's been told to stop bothering you and go out and play. Lips pursed and pushed out from his face about a mile. "Well, if you don't like it...I don't have to play it." He puts his foot on the button and the pedal shuts off with a loud click. Guilt isn't a natural occurence -- it was invented.

"No," I say. "It's fine. I just need to hear it more. If you're going to use it we need to rehearse with it more so I can get used to it."
"No. I won't use it. You hate it."
"No, it's fine. Just use it."
"No, I won't"
"Use it."
"No."
"Use it."
"No."
And this is when Brian has me exactly where he wants me.
I pick up my drumsticks and tap out an eighth-note beat on the hi-hat. "Just use it."
And Brian with a smile I'm sure is somewhere deep inside him but unreleased lest he show far too much of his hand, hits the button of the heavy metal zone pedal and we're off. Short Punks rides the Mack truck.

In the end, despite whatever happens in rehearsal, the live show is a whole other animal. Depending on the acoustics of the room, the quality of the P.A., the bass response of the stage, Brian himself might decide not to use the Heavy Metal pedal because it covers up the basic melody of the riff. One reason we play well live with each other (which I like to think we do) is because I ultimately trust Brian's musical instincts on stage. When we're in rehearsal, we experiment, try things out, but on stage, we play from the moment, the feel of the audience, the sound of the room, and also, from our own mood. And this is when being married to each other is a good thing. We know each other's moods. I know when he's had a frustrating day at work. Or, if he's been troubled or elated I know that will effect how he plays. That happy little lick in "I Wanna Live" could have an edge tonight. Or, "Olivia" may sound softer, sadder. At the same time Brian knows if I've been obsessively listening to Ginger Baker or Max Roach or Shelley Manne. "Jukebox Baby" could swing more. "Good All Over" could have a back beat. So even if we know the details of each other's lives and days, when it comes to playing the songs on stage, anything could happen. But more importantly, we trust each other enough to LET anything happen. For this reason, every Short Punks show is different -- the songs may be the same -- but the mood, the quality of what we're expressing is always different. Which is why I'm still doing it. Still hauling gear out of our house at 9 pm on a Tuesday. Still hauling gear to rehearsal at 5 in the afternoon. Still in the back room practicing beats on a rubber practice pad. Still married to a guy with a "boo-boo face."