music to my ears

Finally, a personal post from me!

Not really too personal, not like past entries...

I was looking over some of the old ones yesterday, especially the ones around the holidays last year, and I was somewhat surprised at my candor, my willingness to let people into my world.

This post will be personal, but in an acceptable manner.


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I ran into Evan, our drummer in the Holly Golightly Band, a few months ago. I was at a rehearsal for the now-defunct ICON when he showed up at the rehearsal space. He was there to practice with his new band, Ninefinger. I hung out for a song then went to look for the guys from ICON.

Ninefinger invited me to see their show at the Lava Lounge in Hollywood. I couldn't make it that night but I told them to keep me posted on future gigs. Well, they must've thought I meant it literally, because Evan called me a few days later and asked me to join the band.

The drummer that Evan was filling in for had left, so after the Lava Lounge gig was done the bass player (who was close friends with the drummer) vacated also. Evan brought me in and I got along well with Josh and Mike, the respective guitarist and singer of Ninefinger. We rehearsed and prepared for the show this coming Thursday.

Josh and Mike are big guys, roughly the same age as me, and have been playing as Ninefinger for about three years. Josh moved here from Rhode Island, Mike from Arizona, and they met around the time they both arrived. The music they make is unabashed grunge-era rock: Josh cites Nirvana as his biggest influence and favorite band of all time, "the reason why I started playing guitar in the first place", as he puts it. I'm not sure what Mike's influences are, but his voice has a tinge of Glenn Danzig chased with Scott Weiland from STP.

Because they are not native Angelenos, they have an easygoing demeanor and only want to make music, possibly even get some exposure for it. They don't have egos, they don't have unstable living arrangements, and they are both motivated to get this show on the road.

Oh, and they rock, too. Josh's guitar work is strong without being flashy, and Mike is the kind of lead singer that most bands need: he's good-looking, charismatic, can sing in key, and (most importantly) he's shockingly humble and down-to-earth. He has nine fingers-- he lost his right index finger in a construction accident back in Scottsdale... hence, the name Ninefinger.

They were extremely grateful to Evan for filling in for their absent drummer, but even at the first practice I could see that Evan had not really changed much: he's a cool guy and fun to play with, but takes direction badly and brings his personal dramas into the rehearsals. He never contributes to the band financially, eternally claiming poverty-- yet he has enough money to go to the bars in Studio City every night.

It's a shame, really, because only five months ago I went over to Evan's to grab my DAT machine and noticed a 180 degree turn in his lifestyle. His apartment was clean and well-kept; his attitude was positive, his eyes gleaming... he had his new girlfriend move in with him, and she was laying her feminine touch on him. I was genuinely happy for the guy, and he seemed like he was ready to take life by the horns and do something with his time.

Then, when he asked me to join the band recently, I went over to his place to receive a copy of the songs I needed to learn. The girl was gone-- she'd moved out, and the place was once again a disaster area. He seemed less bouncy, maybe even a tad bitter, and he was extremely scatterbrained.

Oh no, I thought to myself. This isn't good...


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So now Evan is back to his old habits. He isn't a drug abuser or a major alcoholic, but he definitely has a demon inside of him that needs to be exorcised. He is in his mid-thirties and also served in the military during the Kosovo conflict. His stories from his stint in that war are harrowing, as most war stories are, and I suspect that he bore witness to some terrible atrocities that imprinted themselves on his psyche quite firmly. I would go so far to speculate that any post-traumatic stress he is experiencing currently is having a profound effect on his drum playing.

Evan's biggest problem playing the drums is that he speeds up the tempo too much. To be fair, he keeps it steady enough, but he still gets complaints all the time. When we were playing with Holly, the guitarist in that band had it out with Evan on several occasions over his erratic timing. This is a very significant flaw in the minds of the people who are writing the songs we play, because Josh and Mike echo Holly's guitarist's concerns.

Personally, I'm just the bass player. It doesn't affect me. Yes, Evan does speed up, but I don't care. Then again, these aren't my compositions, so obviously it matters less to me than it does to everyone else. And I don't blame the others for expecting Evan to be steadier on the beat.

However, my theory is that something happened to him that scarred his psyche a bit, possibly during the war, that put his sense of timing off in a major way. He's a good drummer-- his fills are exquisite, he has a good sense of how to arrange parts, and he is enthusiastic. But coupled with the financial selfishness and his dissolute roller-coaster of a life, it only makes people like Josh and Mike look elsewhere.

And it doesn't help that he announced to us, last Thursday at rehearsal, that he might not be able to make the show that we're doing two days from today.


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The same issue came up with the hair metal cover band that I am playing with-- the guitarist (who also happened to be the axe-slinger for the late ICON) doesn't have the time to dedicate to music anymore, especially with his weekend off-road racing and his desire to go back to school to learn a computer-related trade.

So Andy (the singer) and Joe (the drummer) let him have it. They really want this to get off the ground. Like Josh and Mike, they are transplants: they're both from New Jersey. Andy has a house in Santa Clarita where we can practice for free, and he only wants to make money playing covers. Not that it's his only goal, but he is hurting for cash, what with a family to feed and payments to make.

Joe is a family guy too, and they clearly love the '80's hair metal that has been on a revival as of late, what with tongue-in-cheek acts like Metal Skool making cash hand over fist. But what's endearing about playing with these guys is that it isn't ironic.

They really do love Dokken, Slaughter, Warrant, Motley Crue, Ratt, Poison, and any number of bands that ruled the airwaves in the late '80's, before grunge came around and devastated the pop cultural wasteland. I used to hate those bands when I was growing up, because I was supposed to hate them: being a half-breed Mexican/Asian kid from the San Fernando Valley meant aligning myself with hard rock, thrash metal, hardcore punk, and gangsta rap. Hair metal was The Enemy.

As I've grown older, I've come to drop my biases against popular music, especially since (now that I can play the bass with modest skill) those kinds of songs are fun to play... there's nothing simpler than a heavy metal bass line, unless it's Iron Maiden or some prog-rock influenced nu-metal group.

And that brings us to Mike, whom I will refer to as Mick so as to distinguish him from the millions of Mikes that I know. Mick is the guitarist Andy called to auditon for us last Sunday. He's pushing 40 but doesn't look a day over 30; he is tatted up and down on his arms, and sports a baldhead and a goatee-- a real goatee, not the Van Dyke cut that everyone calls a goatee nowadays... his facial hair growth is all chin, baby!

The motherfucker is sick when it comes to the git.

We bashed through "Mr. Brownstone" and "Rocket Queen" by G'N'R, we ran through "Living After Midnight" by Judas Priest, and we slammed "Man In The Box" by Alice In Chains down to the ground. Mick was on point, asking us in between songs if we knew this or that song. He played "Hot For Teacher" by Van Halen note for note, but Joe said to hold off on that one because he needed to practice Alex' infamous drum parts a little more.

I know what you're saying: "Those aren't hair metal songs..." And you're absolutely right.

Mick's got energy, enthusiasm, and a wicked style, and his leanings are darker, faster, harder. He played the riff for "Stop!" by Jane's Addiction, and brightened when I threw out the bass riff to "Three Days". He expressed his wish to one day start a Ramones cover band, which echoed my sentiments a year ago. He got down with some Sabbath-- "War Pigs" of course --and jammed with me when I casually slapped the intro bass part to the Chili Pepper's version of "Higher Ground".

I like the dude's style, and so did Joe. Andy dug him too, but I can see a little rough sailing up ahead, mostly because Mick isn't into the soft hair metal stuff that Andy wants to do. He'll play it, I'm sure, but it will have to be balanced with some good old-fashioned grimy-and-gritty rock and roll.

Still, what's a band without some turbulence? I feel bad that the guitarist who brought me into the band can no longer be in it, but this line-up looks like it will be both fun AND profitable.


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A similar thing is happening with Evan. He brought me in, and now (in the wake of his announcing that he will be out of town on Thursday) the others want to get another drummer.

I went one further and suggested getting a fill-in for the show. I called up The Wolf, a mutual friend of mine and Down Low. The Wolf (or Wolfie, as he is known) plays drums, and he plays them hard. About a month ago, he asked me to play bass for a band he was jamming with, a band that wanted to cover The Stooges and The MC5 and New York Dolls. I sat in and had some fun.

Now I was calling Wolfie to return the favor. I didn't have to get very far in my pitch.

"Whatever it is, I'm down to do it."

"Nice. You think you can learn 9 songs by Thursday?"

"Maybe. Is it a paying gig?"

"Yes."

"Fuck, bring it on. Why can't your regular drummer make it?"

"He's claiming that his work wants him to go to Indiana and do a shoot. He works for a film production company. I suspect that he totally blanked on the dates and didn't realize that the gig night was going to conflict with his work, because he asked us to change the night of the gig. When Josh and Mike said they couldn't, he aid he might not be able to do the show at all."

"So what did you say?"

"I straight-up said that I was going to call a drummer to fill in. All of a sudden he starts saying he might be able to fly in the day of the show, but I'm not really comfortable with that. I'd rather you play with us than him at this point, even though he knows the songs better than you."

A little back story here...

You see, in the Holly band, we'd had these types of discussions before concerning Evan. Holly was persistent in the beginning and wanted Evan to play, despite my recommendation to have someone else play the drums. She pulled rank and said it was her band and that she was the boss, so I washed my hands of it.

Months later, after finding out what kind of person Evan was, she was asking me if I would be the one to fire Evan.

I laughed at her and said, "It's your band. You're the boss. You fire him."

She didn't, although she came close to doing it when I was able to bring Buddah, the drummer I'd originally wanted to use, to a rehearsal one day. However, Buddah couldn't make the show we wanted to use him for, so it never happened. We stuck with Evan, and Holly ended up regretting the day she brought him into the group.

After Evan's bombshell, I arranged to have The Wolf rehearse with us. Last night, we drove out to Pasadena to go over the set. Wolfie picked it up fairly fast, although one rehearsal might not be enough for him to be 100%. Josh and Mike really liked The Wolf's playing, though, and so now the dilemma we are faced with is as follows:

If The Wolf wants to be our drummer, then Josh will break it off with Evan. But, who will play on Thursday? If Evan makes it into town tomorrow, then Josh wants him to play with us, but that might insult The Wolf, who is assuming that he will be in on the show Thursday night.

If The Wolf plays with us, then Evan will feel slighted... not to mention that Wolfie is still learning the songs. He is a great drummer but he might not be up to snuff come Thursday evening.

It doesn't matter what happens after Thursday-- Mike is getting surgery on his nose to open up his septum and will be out for a month, so we won't be playing any shows. But it will give us time to get the songs tight, and it looks like Wolfie will be the man for the job. But it all depends on what happens in the next two days.

I dig Evan as a human being, but I fear a repeat of some of the drama that made the Holly Golightly band such a bad trip. Wolfie digs the band and wants to play, but I fear that he will feel put off if we have him practice but not perform with us at the show.

It's up in the air, really.

Ah, music-- so simple, so uncomplicated...


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So that's been what's going on with me lately. No romance, no intrigue, nothing on par with my past exaggerations and anecdotes. Just plowing through the day, running through the motions, with my focus fixed upon the road ahead of me at all times.

I mean, there ARE things happening, but on subliminal levels, intangible tiers of wonder that I am only halfway aware of, smoky wisps of energy emanating from everyone around me...

And yet, it's music to my ears.