January 05, 2006

11:59 p.m.

What You Asked For

It was one of the most interesting band days in recent history. Poolagirl's entry of a couple days ago opened an avenue of thought that I brought to my bandmates this morning, and we talked for a couple of hours about the group's raison d'etre. What's our throughline? What are we actually doing on the earth besides making well crafted music and having fun and being in the spotlight? What is it we want to do for the world through music? When someone interviews us and asks us what we do, what's the answer?

Chris read passages from the new Eckhart Tolle book, which he's loving. We woke ourselves up a little, shook the dew off. Then we had a phone interview for a West Virginia publication that will come out next week prior to our gigs there, and we were so pumped and talkative I hope the interviewer was taping the call. He'd never be able to write that fast. Then we rehearsed a bit, and did an exercise in preparation for our first schoolkids songwriting workshops, coming up this month and next.

It was great. We employed the methodology we plan to use with the kids, and we wrote a song together. That's never happened before, the three of us coming up with something spontaneously. We'll have an hour or a little more with each class at these things, sometimes multiple classes in a day, and in that time we have to open their little noggins, pull out inspiration, story, and music, and get it organized into a song they can sing and record with us. It was fun, got our blood flowing and gave us a little confidence towards when we actually have kids involved. We'll do this again and again until it becomes familiar.

Then home... had dinner, watched a couple of episodes of SFU, began another hat (I finished Dar's last night!), checked email, and now I'm all done. Headache again today, yesterday. Bloody nuisance. It's not so bad right now, though; I think I can sleep.

One other recollection of today: Just before I arrived at C&C's house I was listening to Gladys Knight singing "Midnight Train to Georgia," and hearing how her Pips supported her, responded to her, affirmed her (I know you will!). It's such a corny song, I know, but I was crying because they were so unified. There's so much power in that.