Tonight, my band Calico will play a full show, live--with a drum set--with all its core members again intact, for the first time in five years. We--for various reasons, like most other bands--have had our set of problems. Members have been kicked out, members have dropped out, we've broken up, we've gone on hiatus, we've practiced for months on end to play in front of completely empty houses, and we've even thrown picks out into a (sparse) crowd only to have them returned to us ("Sorry--I think you dropped this"). After all this, I've often asked myself, "why try?" It's not for the time spent away from home. It's not for the packing and hauling. It's definately not for the money ('cause there's been none). I think I continue to persevere, to continue to practice with the band two/three times a month (even though we rarely play anywhere) because every now-and-then we create a spark of sublimity. We'll reach a moment while playing where all the right elements seem to coalesce at just the right time; sometimes that moment lasts just a second or two, sometimes it lasts for several minutes. It washes over me in waves, and I know the others feel it as well, though we don't speak of it as it's happening. We know, after we've finished playing, that we've created something not of use, not of purpose, but of meaning--we've created art, however briefly it lasted.
I get the same feeling when I listen to "Hey!" by Home Blitz, Daniel DiMaggio's own personal recording project. Recording project? Yeah, well, kind of. Sort of. A few years ago, Daniel DiMaggio (who's been recording privately in his bedroom since he was three) wrote the songs, named the band, then recorded the songs all by himself, playing every instrument. He made a couple of seven-inch singles, and he shopped them around the old-fashioned way, sending them to this journalist, that radio-station. He soon began garnering enough attention that he realized he'd need some additional musicians so that he could play live. A couple of his buddies asked if they could play with him, and he agreed (though I think he still hasn't officially let them be in the band yet). Somehow, he convinced a record label (Gulcher, a tiny independent label) to buy, distribute, and promote his CDs, and soon he saw his band name-dropped in a couple of brief, positive reviews in Spin and Rolling Stone. He got his CD (whose cover depicts DiMaggio's drawing) on iTunes...and he (surely) produced it all himself.
It sounds like it, too, but the home/garage low-fi (someone termed it "no-fi") production gives the album a sense of innocence, a go-for-broke naivete'. In "Hey!" (which, originally, was the B side to the Home Blitz's first seven-inch single), the poor production values help hide the band's obvious limitations. The record's gloriously distorted, and the overdubs are mis-timed, all of which distract (somewhat) from the band's instrumental ineptness. What shines through the sludgy sound are DiMaggio's shaky, vulnerable, yet excited vocals; the rugged yet sweet and pretty guitar solo; and the best complete in-the-middle-of-a-song halt since Elvis Presly told
Scotty, Bill, and D.J. to get real, real gone for a change (and DiMaggio does it just so he can get some gum). When the band comes back from the mid-song break, they amp up the speed and energy, and they light into the performance, and it's transcendent--it's art.
Plus, listening to "Hey!" (and the other songs on the Home Blitz album) reminds me of listening to tapes of my band from when we first started seven years ago. I discovered these last week while stumbling around in my office (I think I saw a rat kick 'em to the curb). My, how we good we thought (and said) we were; and my, how we were wrong. I spent several late-night hours hearing us miss notes, rush tempo, sing off-key, recite inane lyrics, and thrash around like we were creating something magical. Ooh, boy. But you know what? In a sense, we were creating ar... whoa--I gotta get some gum.
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1 comment:
Lovin' the blawg, dawg!
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