Tales from the Jam Room

Trollheart · 05-13-2012, 06:27 AM

Yeah, I'll second that. You could teach this "band dynamic" stuff! Lecture tours? $500 a time? Think about it...

mr dave · 05-27-2012, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blarobbarg

Dang, Dave. Awesome last few posts. Your writing is fantastic, and you life experiences awkward/tragic, but make for a great story. You need to write a book.

Thanks dude (and Trollheart), but the last thing I'll do is make a go at commercial success. The next one is going to be whiny.

mr dave · 05-27-2012, 09:49 AM

I am the lobbed j!zz.

This past month has been rather substantial for me, I started a new 9-5 Monday to Friday job after working graveyard shift for the past 4 years last week, I coincidentally decided to stopped smoking weed a few days before finding out I had the job, and earlier in the month I got to enjoy the sound of a really old skeleton from my closet clattering its way to the forefront of my psyche.

So yeah, 2-3 weeks ago I walked into my kitchen to make dinner and notice there’s a message on the phone, I hit the button in hopes it was about a job, instead I get this…

Oui, Allo? J’appelle pour David LastName, le fils de Parent’s Names . Si c’est bien toi je suis Liz – aka the slut my father left us for j’aimerai bien te voir, j’ai parler avec ta soeur il y a quelque mois, je suis en ville et si tu veux me contacter…. blah, blah-blah, blah-blah.

Pardon the grammatical errors in my French; it’s been a while, but… yeah. The last time I’d heard her voice was a good 25 years ago when I was around 10. When my little sister got married last Summer we found out that she’d found her on Facebook and contacted her. My sister dealt with things differently and being that Liz was only 20 when it all went down back in 1981 I think she saw her more like a really cool older sister type person when we’d visit our father during Summer break, especially considering they worked in the entertainment industry and had to stay hip and fashionable. Either way she had her on Facebook and we all got to see what she looked like now and got banal details about the last 20 years of her life, married, works for an airline (hence being housed overnight at a hotel in town when she called – incidentally right around the corner from where I live). It was more of a ‘so yeah check this out’ as opposed to a ‘oh look at how she’s done’ thing.

She left her number in the message and asked that I text her or something, I’ve never even had a cell phone, never mind a smart phone, I was going to try sending something to her phone through email but then I had to reboot my internet connection and accidentally deleted the answering machine message when I flipped the power bar. It’s probably for the best.

On one hand I wouldn’t have minded getting in touch with her, but deep down I know not a single one of those useless f*cks would ever own up to their sh!t. The last time I talked to my uncle he ‘Didn’t remember that particular band’s name’. My paternal grandmother has dementia and I’d be the monster if I ever called her out on being a proto-Kris Jenner who’d screw over her grandkids to protect her family’s destiny to be publicly celebrated. My father did finally admit to having made ‘mistakes’ in the past but we were in the middle of a road trip and I just kind of tanked the subject because I didn’t want to risk flipping out and becoming stranded on the side of a highway. I mean really, it would hurt his feelings if I flipped out at the fact that he chose to screw over his family for pussy.

They will sum it all up in a sentence
A verdict made by those who know
I'm ready to make a commitment
I'm willing to make love to concrete

The fact that it still bothers me is entirely my fault. It’s always been my fault. There have always been plenty of kids out there who had it worse; I should be ashamed for even trying to talk about it.

That’s the verdict that got fed to me from every side while growing up. Everyone knew the details, not a single one of them ever came clean, not on my father’s side, nor my mother’s. Fact is, whether you’re drowning in a puddle or in the middle of an ocean you’re still drowning and if you can’t find the surface then it doesn’t matter how deep it is you still need help. My well meaning Aunt who was always the first to tell us we could talk to her about anything has yet to grasp this simple concept.

The first bit was only ever spoken once, by my mom about 6 months after it all broke apart. I don’t blame her, especially not now that I’m older than she was and can honestly try putting myself in those shoes. I figure it was close to her own birthday in March (the split happened in November), I remember being in the living room and trying to clean up with my little sister. I remember wearing my cowboy boots that were starting to squeeze my toes a bit too much and realizing it meant I was growing and becoming a bigger boy – something that often got stressed whenever my father left (While I’m gone you’re the man of the house and you need to help take care of your mom and little sister). I remember it was a dismal day, cloudy and pissing rain. I remember my mom in the kitchen making dinner and stressing out because we needed to get the place clean before my father arrived for dinner (he still wanted to be part of ‘our’ family, but wanted to maintain ‘his’ life on the side).

I don’t remember what triggered it, probably just being too slow at picking up the toys but she flipped, she started screaming at us then let out ‘YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY YOUR DAD LEFT!?!?! HE LEFT BECAUSE YOU’RE BAD KIDS! THAT’S WHY HE LEFT! NOW I’M GOING TO LEAVE TOO!!!’ then she grabbed her purse and walked out.

I remember standing in the living room, my mind racing, if I could keep my little sister calm we could be fine until my father arrived later in the afternoon then I could explain to him what happened and he’d fix things. She didn’t stay calm. She started bawling and ran to the door, once she started I couldn’t help but follow. My mom only made it to the end of the driveway. I don’t blame her for any of it, she was forced into a horrible situation and snapped. She hates the fact that it happened too, but it did.

My skin is a layer of soot
I'm spending my days scrubbing
I'm trying so hard to act like nothing happened(no one left to blame)
I'm trying so hard to find that fresh clean smell(no one left to blame)

It was like drowning in sh!t, while everyone around me kept telling me I was special and good and everything was fine and that it wasn’t sh!t it was chocolate. If it was really chocolate why did they always keep me at arm’s length and handled with gloves? I’d been conditioned to ignore the obvious for so long that when my late uncle (the one who took me Strat shopping for my 19th b-day) found out the truth he went behind his wife’s back (the well meaning Aunt) and tried to address it directly with me. I remember a kind of WTF? Look of shock in his face when I reassured him everything was OK and that it was all fine. Just act like nothing happened and be good and things will fall back into place eventually.

Later in life I’d always get comments like “So where’s your girlfriend Dave? / Why don’t you have a girlfriend Dave?” It took me a while to articulate my answer but it eventually became – You can only burn something so much before all you’re left with is a handful of ashes. I’m 35, I’ve had like 2 relationships if you count that insanity in Baltimore as anything. The other used me as a rebound Summer fling that, come to find out, was also getting me to sex her up the same way her uncle used to do her when she was a little girl.

I don’t even consider the possibility of dating anymore.

Cruel words sleep above me
Mounting and teasing

This is the other reason I’d consider talking to Liz. I want to be able to sleep without raging either when I'm trying to fall asleep or as I'm waking up. The drug abuse did help in the early days but all it really did was obscure the devils and demons with fog. They were always still there in the back of my head, the clattering of the skeletons could still be heard through the coughing fits, free to enjoy the pleasure of their sins and half-truths while all the guilt was filtered back onto my shoulders. And all the while the only thought going through my head…

I’M SORRY!

sssssssoooooOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!

Blarobbarg · 05-27-2012, 12:22 PM

I hate that that happened to you, and can relate in far more ways than I wish I could.

And you aren't whining, you're just telling it how it is... and how it is isn't always pretty. I think if you're still alive you're doing better than you think you are, and I encourage you to keep kicking life's ass.

Best of luck to you. And as always, great writing.

By the way, I freaking love your ocean and puddle analogy. It's getting sigged.

Trollheart · 05-27-2012, 01:21 PM

Holy crap man, you've certainly had a tough time! Hope the music helped get you through it, and that you're (sort of) over it now, though of course that sort of pain never really goes away; we just bury it and hope we'll not have occasion to dig it up again. But like all things hidden away it does eventually come back to haunt us, and there's no escaping your past. I know this from personal experience. When my father dies (let it be soon!) I will bring only one thing to his graveside: my dancing shoes.

I didn't get the message on the phone: not good with French. Was the woman asking you to meet her? Do you think she was going to try to explain things to you, or did she just want absolution, as many of these people do?

You really need to write a book; if it's too personal you can always change the names and situations, but this is deep stuff. You're one hell of a writer, Dave!

mr dave · 06-09-2012, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

I didn't get the message on the phone: not good with French. Was the woman asking you to meet her? Do you think she was going to try to explain things to you, or did she just want absolution, as many of these people do?

Thanks for the positive comments as always (both you and Blarobbarg)

As for the phone message it didn't go into details basically what she said is she'd like to get in touch, either meet up or text, and that she'd been in contact with my sister (through Facebook). I really don't know what her motives were.

I wasn't planning to shift my writing style with that FNM track but I think it worked nicely so I'm going to take the easy way out and repeat it (ironically with their public 'nemesis' haha).

mr dave · 06-09-2012, 01:53 PM

Soul to Squeeze was recorded during the Blood Sugar Sex Magik sessions, yet for whatever reason was not included on the album. Personally, I think it would have been a much better inclusion than ‘I Could Have Lied’ but whatever. It was included as a B-side to later versions of the ‘Give It Away’ single as well as ‘Under the Bridge’, but the song didn’t become a (unexpected) hit until it was released as a promotional video for The Coneheads movie. I also don’t understand why the Chili Peppers don’t make their official lyrics available to the public but again, whatever.

I've got a bad disease
But from my brain is where I bleed
Insanity it seems
Has got me by my soul to squeeze

That 2nd line seems wrong to me, the other common lyric is ‘Up from my brain is where I bleed’. I’ve always heard it as ‘Out from my brain is where I bleed’. Either way it seems rather obviously written to be about mental illness and/or depression. In a way the song also reminds me of Nirvana’s Lithium which also deals with finding solace within you. One of the toughest realizations I’ve made within myself is that the hand that held the whip to bind me to servitude was my own; the ‘want’ of my ego would trample the ‘need’ of my soul. Yet, without the ‘want’ we become stagnant, the ego is a fundamental aspect of our being and while it shouldn’t be ignored it also shouldn’t become the dominating aspect of our minds.

Drawing a parallel from the ‘want’ of the ego to the superficial and self-centered nature of the modern mainstream entertainment industry seems pretty obvious to me now, couple that with the adulating worship from so many within the listening public and it becomes clear why there seems to be so much crap on the pop charts. It’s as though our society is a reflection of the dominant voice of the collective ego of our species within particular cultures; and at this point the bulk of our culture seems to be about wanting anything without needing to accept the full responsibility or cost, but I digress.

Today love smiled on me
It took away my pain said please
All that you had to free
You gotta let it be oh yeah

I’m sure everyone has heard the old adage about how a person can’t really love another before they can love themselves. For me a big part of that was accepting my imperfections, or harder still, accepting my normalcy and the fact that we all feel hope and fear and love and pain and hurt and happiness in similar ways. The other challenge was the loss of familiarity, when the negativity is such a major element of your mental state it’s kind of terrifying to consider a clean slate, I guess that also explains why so many people end up in vicious cycles and why so many of us choose to abuse ourselves.

I think my subconscious desire to break that cycle I think is one of the main reasons I approached music the way I did during my 20s. In retrospect my drummer and I both saw it as therapy. The raw improvisation allowed us a cathartic release that we didn’t really see other avenues to approach from. While it didn’t always result in the most listenable music for people outside the group, it did provide us with a modicum of solace from our own internal struggles, and ultimately therapy is not for the primary benefit of others.

Oh, so polite indeed
Well I got everything I need.
Oh make my days a breeze
And take away my self destruction

I don’t believe in absolutes, everything is relative to the perspective of the individual considering the situation; right and wrong are simply reflections of the emotional reaction from the moral balance within the individual. It felt like a massive weight releasing from my head once I first grasped that realization a few years ago and marked a significant decline in suicidal thoughts and urges. That’s not to say I don’t still have bad days but it’s no longer a constant. In a sense it was a mental release of the pain I felt physically throughout the majority of my childhood, there’s still some residual frustration that I’m trying to free but I can definitely see light at the end of the tunnel now.

The sobriety I mentioned last time hasn’t really taken hold as much as I had anticipated or hoped. I’m using the excuse of wanting to cap off the work day with a puff after dinner, after a few weeks without I also realize I don’t need ‘that’ much. The new job isn’t stressful per se but at the same time it’s not without ‘room for improvement’, on the other hand the nature of the job also makes it that I’m far less inclined to want to sit in front of my computer so I’ve been picking up my guitar a lot more. This track happens to be one of the few I’ve learned recently, I never was able to find the tab for it back in the day (or really listen to it aside from the radio for that particular Summer).

Where I go I just don't know
I might end up somewhere in Mexico
When I find my peace of mind
I'm gonna keep it for the end of time

For a long time I thought peace of mind and happiness were fallacies by weak people who lied to themselves about the nature of their reality. I’ve also come to realize I used to be a prick. But like anything else saying it is easier than doing it, or in this case not doing it. Peace in my mind requires a balance. When I had substantial revelations about myself it would result in a momentary achievement of that balance, but in time the weight would invariably shift, the focus would be lost and the cycle would repeat. The difference being I’ve started being able to see the cycle, I can’t quite recognize its full shape yet; then again it’s never quite the same thing twice. One thing I am noticing is that the variance is diminishing and some semblance of balance presents itself more often. I guess what it really means is there are still a few issues to be addressed before the last door opens and I get to step out into the light.

Someday.

Trollheart · 06-10-2012, 07:05 PM

Dave,
I'm constantly amazed and humbled by the power of your writing. You write like I expect many an analyst or psychiatrist would kill to be able to: you can break down complex problems, be they social, political, musical or personal, into their component parts and sort out the jigsaw in a way that lets others see a picture they were previously unaware was even there.

Someone with your insight could easily be a leader of a cult, though in a good way of course. You should perhaps consider renaming this journal "The temple of Dave" or something...

Seriously, it's always a pleasure to read your material and it's the sort of thing we don't see here in this mostly music-obsessed forum, but great to see someone constantly stepping outside the boundaries and exploring, or to paraphrase Captain Kirk, "boldly going where no-one has gone before."

Keep it up.

You ARE the Universe.

TH

Dr_Rez · 06-10-2012, 07:33 PM

I have to dissagree with that. I could Have Lied is one of the more beautiful songs I have ever heard. Fruciantes simple solo is absolutely perfect for that song and place on the album. It was actually one of the first songs I ever learned on guitar too.

Antonio · 06-18-2012, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr dave

… or maybe not.

While the correct answer to that question will always be “I WANNA ROCK!” the truth is… hell if I know. There’s something offsetting to me in seeing a middle aged person trying to rock out like it still matters; whether it’s a complete refusal to let go of the styles and sounds of their youth, or the lame creepiness of being a 40 something still holding fast to being 21 and obsessing with the latest pop star drama, it’s just a little off for me. It’s like a comment I got on this site once about how cool it was that I was a 30 something who still puffed weed everyday and liked making shoegaze music, I don’t think it was meant as a back handed insult but it still made me feel like a stunted adult.

That’s not to say that I think there’s an age limit to particular styles of music as much as there definitely seems to be a correlation with the attention given to certain aspects of pop culture within certain stages of personal development. I’d go so far as to say adolescent rebellion is one of the most substantial phases of personal development within youths today, it’s when and how a young person differentiates themselves from their parents and really starts getting a true sense of individuality. For the most part (especially in the western world) rock/pop music is the soundtrack to that rebellion, it means so much to so many because I think for a lot of young people it’s their first taste of a grown up communicating at them like individuals rather than children - especially since the 80s. It provides the child with another perceived voice of authority and provides them with alternative options on how to deal with daily conflicts. Whether it’s some pop garbage talking about trends, or some heartfelt reflection of the soul is irrelevant so long as the young listener feels an impact.

The problem occurs when you get people who don’t recognize the underlying reason for the appeal and run with the belief that the personal pop culture of their youth IS the superior one that shouldn’t ever have to be remixed by the mainstream. Whatever, they’re the same kind of people who’d complain about Amy Winehouse getting added to the 27 club but were defending Kurt Cobain against the exact same ‘logic’ back in their own heyday. I don’t think we all need to become cranky old curmudgeons, but at the same time I sure as hell don’t want to be a frat boy forever.

Having said all that, if rock music is the soundtrack to adolescent rebellion – how do you rebel against a rock musician?

I’m still not sure, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s kind of like a magic trick, once you understand how it works it’s not special anymore, it just doesn’t matter. In my case, it was owning up to the realization that I was abusing music as a way of getting back at the old man. I know I’ve got ‘potential’, not enough to sell millions of records and tour the world but enough to have other people pick up and comment on it - I spent years burying that potential under a mess of noisy improvisations. Problem being, I was blind to the fact that I was actually following rather closely to his early path.

I don’t have that many memories of seeing my old man in action, in fact I only ever remember seeing him actually perform once (some promo gig in the mid 80s for a local tv spot). What little I do remember form back in the day were rehearsals and the unbelievable boredom within – STOP! START IT OVER AT THE CHORUS AND GO THROUGH THE BRIDGE! GOTTA GET IT TIGHT! 2-3-4! GO!... ALRIGHT! NOW FROM THE TOP!

…. Oh. My. God. It was so boring. I remember being like 5 and thinking ‘Why can’t you guys just rock out? Why do you have to keep stopping every time it starts getting good?’ Soooooo boring, and 20 years later, I had no intentions on reliving that shenanigan, or creating a new stage for some sycophants to latch onto. In my mind his music was lame and corporate, his focus on commercial success and his discipline towards the quality of their sound just turned me off. Turns out that boring level of discipline is kind of exactly what you need if you want to be taken halfway seriously as an actual professional working musician, and if you intend to pay your bills without having to work some lame day job you’d better believe you need to approach performing with the same attitude as a corporate professional.

But… I’m a hard headed idiot, so rather than learn specifics I worked off my assumptions. Here’s the kicker though, a lot of my initial rebellious attitudes were not only seen as correct and viable but actually encouraged; we were NOT supposed to want to emulate the past, as grunge kids we were NOT supposed to openly want commercial success. And with peers that shared those initial attitudes it took me a long while to recognize how foolish I was being and how closely I was actually following the path we all thought we had turned our backs on.

I’ll cut this rambling here for now, but I’m sure I’ll come back to this topic for further introspection in the future.

This was a great post, dave, and it expresses my feelings as to why I more or less stopped trying to start bands and "make it big". Personally I know that I'm not the type of person who has that strict business-like mindset, and quite honestly I don't really want to get that. That being said, I do wish you luck with your pursuit, even if it isn't the most serious of ventures.

Really, I'm kicking myself for not knowing you had a Journal and not subscribing to it sooner!

05-13-2012, 06:27 AM	#31 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Yeah, I'll second that. You could teach this "band dynamic" stuff! Lecture tours? $500 a time? Think about it... __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

05-27-2012, 12:22 PM	#34 (permalink)
Blarobbarg Do good. Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Posts: 2,065	I hate that that happened to you, and can relate in far more ways than I wish I could. And you aren't whining, you're just telling it how it is... and how it is isn't always pretty. I think if you're still alive you're doing better than you think you are, and I encourage you to keep kicking life's ass. Best of luck to you. And as always, great writing. By the way, I freaking love your ocean and puddle analogy. It's getting sigged. __________________ https://rateyourmusic.com/~Blarobbarg ｡･::･ﾟ★,｡･::･ﾟ☆　^my RYM^　｡･::･ﾟ★,｡･::･ﾟ☆ (◠‿◠✿)

05-27-2012, 01:21 PM	#35 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Holy crap man, you've certainly had a tough time! Hope the music helped get you through it, and that you're (sort of) over it now, though of course that sort of pain never really goes away; we just bury it and hope we'll not have occasion to dig it up again. But like all things hidden away it does eventually come back to haunt us, and there's no escaping your past. I know this from personal experience. When my father dies (let it be soon!) I will bring only one thing to his graveside: my dancing shoes. I didn't get the message on the phone: not good with French. Was the woman asking you to meet her? Do you think she was going to try to explain things to you, or did she just want absolution, as many of these people do? You really need to write a book; if it's too personal you can always change the names and situations, but this is deep stuff. You're one hell of a writer, Dave! __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

06-10-2012, 07:05 PM	#38 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Dave, I'm constantly amazed and humbled by the power of your writing. You write like I expect many an analyst or psychiatrist would kill to be able to: you can break down complex problems, be they social, political, musical or personal, into their component parts and sort out the jigsaw in a way that lets others see a picture they were previously unaware was even there. Someone with your insight could easily be a leader of a cult, though in a good way of course. You should perhaps consider renaming this journal "The temple of Dave" or something... Seriously, it's always a pleasure to read your material and it's the sort of thing we don't see here in this mostly music-obsessed forum, but great to see someone constantly stepping outside the boundaries and exploring, or to paraphrase Captain Kirk, "boldly going where no-one has gone before." Keep it up. You ARE the Universe. TH __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

06-10-2012, 07:33 PM	#39 (permalink)
Dr_Rez Registered Jimmy Rustler Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: USA Posts: 5,360	I have to dissagree with that. I could Have Lied is one of the more beautiful songs I have ever heard. Fruciantes simple solo is absolutely perfect for that song and place on the album. It was actually one of the first songs I ever learned on guitar too. __________________ Best chance of losing virginity is in prison crew Always Checks Credentials Crew nba > nfl crew Shave one of my legs to pretend its a girl in my bed crew