Long Weekend

Hm. Friday afternoon 'till Monday morning in Akron--I looked forward to it for a long time, but when it rolled around it left a little taste of dissipation in my mouth. I think because we didn't have a severe time limit we wasted more time and didn't rip through practices leaving zinging arrangements and resounding tightness in our wake like normal. It sorta started Friday night when we "came up for dinner" from practice at 7:30. When Steve rounded the corner at the top of the stairs he was greeted with a "SURPRISE!!" from the group of friends against the side wall. It has his surprise surprise 18th birthday party! Surprise surprise because he already knew he was getting a surprise party, he just didn't expect it Friday night during practice. That was my doing :-)

So Friday night was filled with a whole lot of people in the Hoffman's house, and random spats of jamming very loudly, playing spoons, giving Steve his guitar (my doing too, with a lot of monetary help from everybody. Best present I could think of to give him.), eating food, drinking Dr.Pepper, talking, taking lots of pictures, playing acoustic guitar, and that certain special kinda wandering around nosing in on groups of talking friends and fishing for something to do or say that characterizes parties in my mind. We ended up in the den with a pared-down group of people singing songs and doing a sort of impromptu Bible charades. Brian was king of that :-) Eventually everyone was gone but me, Brian, John Lavery, Mike and Steve. We kicked around ideas and movies to rent, and finally the Boss Boys ended up driving hurriedly to Blockbuster and careening through the sign-up procedure so we could rent "Dumb and Dumber" to watch. Funny movie yes, but Jim Carrey just weirds me out. *shudder* Lots of funny stuff, though. I don't remember what it was, but I remember at one point being doubled over on the floor rolling into Brian, gagging with laughter. Cressy, mahn.. cressy.

I fell asleep halfway through "Pirates of the Caribbean," and slept till pretty much noon. Sometime in January I broke my watch band, and since then I've been far less aware of time in certain settings. Weird. Sometimes freeing, sometimes frustrating. Anyway, we lazed out of bed, and then pretty much murdered a couple hours eating pancakes (Thank you Mrs. Hoffman! You rock, Mom #2), watching "Pirates," and generally flopping around the den, which was littered with sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, dogs and boys. Finally we rounded ourselves up in the dance room and started practice.

We played around a few standard songs, but mostly focused on "Hit the Wall," a new song by Stephen (and me). We played through it several times, fiddled with the arrangement, and at one point we crashed the final note of the song, and as it rang out looked around at eachother with wide eyes and wide smiles. This is the kind of song that can make a band famous, and we had a KILLER arrangement. There was power in the music, and meaning in the words. Disregarding its preppily cliched overuse, "stoked" is an accurate term for how we felt about that song. God has given it to us, and I'm interested to see where He takes it.

Time was pretty irrelevant Saturday. It felt like morning when we practiced, 'cause we'd gotten up and eaten breakfast. But when we breaked for Taco Bell it was about 4 o'clock! Weird. Regardless, we spent an hour or two......

Playing acoustic guitar,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . writing a song,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IN TACO BELL!!!

That's right! I asked sweetly, blinked my big doe eyes pleadingly, and the nice people behind the counter said we could bring our guitar in and play it quietly. I pretty much think that according to the laws of physics, life can't get any better than playing guitar with your band in Taco Bell :-) Good time, even though our lengthy efforts only yielded a shaky idea for verse 1 lyrics. Ugh. The prechorus and chorus have been written since the summer, but the verses are stubbornly mocking our attempts to put them into cold hard words. We've got a good start, though.

We practiced some more when we got back home, but the fire was pretty much gone, and Brian left around 6:30pm. Steve and I jammed a bit, but I was in a half-ticked mood, I think because of too much incessant loud music and not enough food (I get low blood sugar easily, and become effectively dead to the world). I had spit out an idea of seeing if Craig wanted to come over, but later wanted to just let Steve do some homework and me rest. But the call had been made, and Craigory was on his way. It was fun to hang out with him and Steve (two of my best friends in Akron), and we had some cool jams downstairs, but in general I was kinda out of it and feeling rather dissipated and wasted. I hope I wasn't a pain for Steve and Craig. Oh well. At 10 o'clock I kicked Craig out, and Steve and I retired to the den. We watched the "Nothing is Sound" DVD, which.....confirmed and escalated many thoughts and feelings I've had about that album, and recording and producing in general. Then we worked more on the song, in the timeless lit-up den with dark windows and unchangingly-quiet house above it. At some point I fell soundly asleep on the couch, and when Steve got me back up to work on the song I was desperately tired and groggy for a strange period of time. Oy. That night was long, tired, and only stranglingly productive, as we finally managed to squeeze out a verse 1 that seems to work quite well. If I had that night to do over again, I'd do it differently, but I don't. Ah, memories can be tricky. Everything I did that day was enjoyable, and some of it was intensely productive and exciting, but a few events left a taste of waste in my mind, which now colors all my recollections. Ah well. Times like these I let my memories go under the truth of God's sovereignty.

Sunday Steve and I made it to church only 3 minutes after 10, which was pretty good IMO. Worship was pretty good, there was a time of prayer for folks, and then John Joyce preached about evangelism. "Invite and Invest" was the phrase that stuck in my mind, as far as being a good friend to folks in my life (as opposed to being a "Christian secret agent"). Then the walking around and talking to various people I know, catching up with those who talk more seriously, exchanging coolio comments with those who don't, and (yay!) meeting some new people. I was glad to be back for a Sunday again. I like that church :-)

Steve and I wandered around Montrose for a long time trying to find somewhere to eat lunch that didn't have a huge line, and eventually we ended up deciding to go home and eat Mrs. H's chili. Arg. Wasted time and wasted gas. Ah well. The chili was good, and 'round about 2pm Brian arrived. The menu for Sunday was RECORDING. Yes! We're not "starting the second album," per se, but we're starting to work on a song or two, taking our time to get all parts RIGHT. This day we were laying the drums. So we set them up in the living room, Steve wired up all 8 mics, Steve, Mike and I painstakingly placed each one (some within only a few millimeters precision), we wired up the dance room for Steve and Brian to play and here, and finally, after much much work and time and snacks from the Duchess and patience from Brian (thanks so much, man!), we recorded.

We recorded!

It was a year ago when last I sat behind Steve's mammoth drum set in the Hoffman's sparse living room, with mic cables snaking up the hall to Mike's room and headphones connecting me with Brian and Stephen. A flood of tactile and visual memories came back as I sat on the drum throne, listening to the mic in the basement and hearing the artificially-articulated sounds of my drumset coming through the headphones. I was genuinely excited (pumped)! And the best part? Dude, I give us six clicks, and we come crashing in to the intro of "Hit the Wall," and it just rocks! We all knew it so well that we were able to fine-tune it, record it several times to get out small mistakes, and end up with a drum track that I can be proud of (except that one half-late kick drum in the fill going into the third prechorus...). It was a great feeling to play it that well, and to know that we were getting it on tape with precisely-placed mics and EQ settings landing us a drum sound that socked and rocked, even without compression and additional EQ. SWEET!

So, aye—we recorded Sunday. First drums for two songs, and then we crammed into Mike’s room (the “studio”) and Brian and I worked on recording the guitar for “Summer Song,” the second one we recorded. Pretty sweet, and we’re majorly looking forward to have a finished product.

Then the arduous task of taking down all the sound stuff, and then I packed up, and then the Hoffman and adopted Hoffman guys retired to the den for sleep/watching “The Net.” Turned out to be a cool movie, unfortunately. That’s bad because I means I stayed up and watched it all, and thus got less sleep than I should have. Oh well—story of the weekend. Monday I got up at about 5:30, loaded the car, ate some pancakes, and drove to work. No longer do I feel pangs when I leave Akron, whether it’s because I’m used to leaving, or I know I’m coming back soon, or I’ve been too frazzled to feel anything that deeply :-P Regardless, I got to work and hit my second straight day of working on the annual Tier II report. Crazy times.

It was a long weekend, we got some great music stuff done, Steve has an acoustic guitar, I didn’t get enough sleep, and life chugs on relentlessly. I’m finishing this up Thursday night (Friday morning, dangit), and tomorrow I go to Akron again for practice. Oy! More on that later.

Happy Birthday Steve! Happy band! Happy music! Happy God!

--Clear Ambassador