{"id":464,"date":"2008-09-24T23:32:44","date_gmt":"2008-09-25T06:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/?p=464"},"modified":"2008-11-28T12:39:15","modified_gmt":"2008-11-28T19:39:15","slug":"finding-my-other-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/?p=464","title":{"rendered":"Finding my other voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid, I grew up listening to the Beatles. My sister Denise, older and wiser, exposed me to a lot of classic rock, but the Beatles were, by far, the toppermost of the poppermost. I found I loved the middle period the most — A Hard Day’s Night<\/em> and Help!<\/em> through Sgt. Pepper<\/em>. When I taught myself to play guitar, it was with a Beatles songbook that I’d found at a neighborhood yard sale. Seven chords unlocked a full third of the Beatles’ entire recorded output — what a thrill! Pete Townshend and Billy Joel offered even more polished songwriting examples; I particularly liked 1982’s The Nylon Curtain<\/em>, which wears its Beatles influence on its record sleeve. Side dishes of novelty acts like Spike Jones, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and Tom Lehrer<\/a> (in that order, from grade school through high school) gave my musical outlook a funny spin.<\/p>\n

College brought Kat, and Kat brought Barenaked Ladies. This was the first potent mix of my influences — funny pop culture and brilliant pop songcraft. Every time I heard a song like “If I Had $1,000,000” or “Grade 9,” I said “I wish I’d written that.” I didn’t necessarily think I could; I just wished I had. Most people found BNL through “One Week” but I’d been following the band for almost 10 years by that point; that was the least of their accomplishments to me. Meanwhile, I finally got to play live with a band of friends, doing covers at backyard parties.<\/p>\n

California brought Andy, who shared my love for the clever pop songwriting in bands like Toy Matinee (another of my sister’s recommendations) and Fountains of Wayne (which I didn’t take to right away, but Andy got immediately). And more and more, I found myself thinking, “God, I wish I could write that.” And I realized I had not only a dusty four-track, but a folder full of half-written songs, half-baked ideas, and half-clever turns of phrase. And there it sat, because I was afraid of it.<\/p>\n

Soon it became a question — or rather, an excuse — of gear. “Oh, I can’ t write my own stuff because not only will it suck, but this four-track is nasty! I don’t have a good microphone! I need a mixer! I don’t have a good way to record my guitar!” So I made that last as long as I could, and extended it even further by focusing on Fast Times — a gigging cover band with good shows and enough additional income to feed the gear addiction. As a cover band, FT gave me everything I wanted.<\/p>\n

I joined Fast Times to prove to myself that I could do it. I lost confidence in my voice after high school and didn’t get it back until I started screwing around with karaoke. Could I sing in a gigging band? With enough practice and the right people, the answer turned out to be yes. And it turned out to be yes a long time ago. In fact, I left the band about three years ago in a life panic, then came back 10 months later when invited to return. (It got comfortable enough that Jude and I spun off another cover project, Palette-Swap Ninja<\/a>, which I still find creatively rewarding.) All told it’s been four or five years.<\/p>\n

In that time, I’ve heard even more Fountains of Wayne, plus Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, OK Go, Jonathan Coulton…power pop, pop-punk, clever songwriters. More talented people I wanted to be, more inspiring songs I wish I had written. And that includes creative personal friends like Chris Mitra<\/a> and Joe Iadanza<\/a>, both of whom I made music with casually and socially, and both of whom sat down and did exactly what I have always wanted — but been too comfortable, distracted, or simply afraid — to do.<\/p>\n

So I guess it’s time to try. I’m stepping out of Fast Times because I do not want to be buried with a folder of ideas; I want to be buried with a CD of them. I proved what I set out to prove to myself with FT and I feel like it’s just time to prove something else. As my gaming friends will understand best: I finished the campaign and I got all the Achievements I think I’m going to get. It’s a great game; I just would like to play some other ones now. I’ll let you know when my last full-time gig is, and I’ve been invited to sub with the band when they need a male vocalist, which sounds good to me.<\/p>\n

I have a good eight or nine song concepts that are ready to go without even digging through the scraps in the folder; I have all the gear I need (and then some); and now I will have the time — and more importantly, the mental space — to make my own music.<\/p>\n

I don’t really care right now if other people like the songs I wind up writing. I just want them to exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid, I grew up listening to the Beatles. My sister Denise, older and wiser, exposed me to a lot of classic rock, but the Beatles were, by far, the toppermost of the poppermost. I found I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}