co-lab(or)A-shun

yesterday, i met up with Eli (bass) Darin (drums) and Mike (guitars) and we worked on a new song that i wrote a week ago, called Pickett's Charge. Don't worry, I'm not working myself even further away from the mainstream with another Civil War song...it's an anti-War song, maybe more a Reflection On What War Is Doing To Us Song (I would like to say it's a song about peace, but it's clearly not.) It's theatrical, it's BIG. I want the sound to be big too. I'm excited to get it worked up so we can play it at the next full band show.

This is the most fun I've had in awhile at a rehearsal--working on the song together. Ideas were thrown around and tried and it was truly a collaborative experience, i thought. Plus, I've managed to get myself surrounded by some pretty kick-ass musicians. (However, Eli and Mike tend to talk to me about key changes and my brain cramps. I've blissfully forgotten 8 years of theory, happily losing the information about the Circle of Fifths. I'll be the lyric writer--I don't mind letting the actual composition part be some thing mysterious for me.) I also wrote the beginnings of another song, but only have a vocal line. I love it when things like this happen: I was singing it to them, got to the chorus and instantly realized--this chorus needs a horn section! I was stoked. My first song with a need for horns. rad!!

This weekend was busy. Had a gig with Nana Projects on Friday night for their fundraiser. It was amazing. Molly Ross and Co put on these incredible shadow puppet shows using cut paper and transparency projectors. It's brilliant. She has asked me to collaborate with her on a 10 minute cabaret piece about a train wreck south of Chicago in 1918. Seriously, is anything more right in my wheelhouse? i don't think so. I've been working on a new idea for that called Please Don't Sell the Piano. We'll see where it goes.

Then I watched these 2 movies:

Both good. One about an obsession gone wrong, then gone right....sort of. The other about words, and compulsions. The best part, in my opinion, about Wordplay, was when President Clinton continued talking to the filmmaker while filling in the New York Times Crossword Puzzle.

It was impressive to watch this ability to truly multi-task. (One wonders if the current occupant would even be able to find the section of the paper that contains the puzzle.)