Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

Archives for 2013

We Are Young

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Last night while sitting in my studio I found myself thinking about how my adult life is a lot like kindergarten.

I have only a few specific memories of my Montessori kindergarten, which coincidentally is more or less down the block from our present-day house.

(One is of my refusing to partake in nap time, instead preferring to gossip with the teachers about their social lives. Oh, five-year-old me, always the middle-aged adult.)

The only classroom memory that really sticks out has a lot to do with the Montessori method of pedagogy, which is basically to let kids loose in an environment with a number of potential learning activities to discover things for themselves. Our room had a number of low shelves on the wall with different sorts of things – blocks or puzzles or dioramas, and we could pick up whatever suited us.

In my memory, I picked up a small model of a mountain and an accompanying lake. I’m not sure what I was supposed to do with it or learn from it … maybe something about evaporation or the source of rivers or glaciers? Clearly it didn’t make a huge impact.

What did make an impact is essentially, “WTF, what a weird thing to play with as a kindergartner.”

(We also learned about fractions by slicing apples at lunch, which I then declined to eat because they had already begun to oxidize. Oh, five-year-old me, always the fussy one.)

Fast forward to modern me sitting in my recording studio. It’s not just a studio, really, but our converted attic which serves as studio, gear depot, and hang-out lounge. There’s a lot to do there. I could mix our newly-recorded vocals on the Arcati Crisis EP. I could rearrange my pedals to work on a new signal chain. I could make more lead sheets for Smash Fantastic. Or, I could just play music on an number of guitars, basses, or keyboards.

I decided to rehearse to my vocal warmups and then make some new playlists for my commute. Afterwards, I moved onto other open activity rooms like my office and the kitchen.

That’s my whole life right now. Once I get home from work and fulfill a few basic needs like laundry or grocery shopping I’m free to play. I’m still roaming from room to room, picking up new things and learning about them, then working with them for a certain amount of time.

That’s just my nature. Or, is it my “nuture”? It looks a lot like the model of my two years of Montessori schooling. Now my interests are a little more specialized – I still don’t know too much about mountains or rivers, but I know a lot more about words and music.

I’ve been learning and schooling and rehearsing all this time just to get back to what my days were like at age five, when all I wanted to do at age five was grow up.

Gigging the Smash Fantastic

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When I started my musical journey half a lifetime ago if you had asked me if I would ever play “Eldery Woman Standing Behind the Counter in a Small Town” to a packed bar at a post-Christmas party in DelCo, my answer would have been, “Hell no.”

I mean, there are few things I enjoy less in life than 90s Pearl Jam, the fickle music tastes of bar crowds, and Christmas. Also, half a lifetime ago I was straightedge. (I’ve always thought Delaware County is pretty decent, though.)

Yet, half-my-age Peter would have been entirely incorrect in his judgmental utterance, because that is just what I found myself doing on the day after Christmas as Ashley and I played our first legit headline appearance as Smash Fantastic.

And you know what? I liked it.

Smash Fantastic mid-song, as shot by Tara B.

All last year Ashley and worked on our repertoire of cover songs as our non-work project together (the teamwork of which made us an even more killer pairing in the office). What started out as a sparse 30 minute set in June has now blossomed into more than three-hours of a mega-pop acoustic jam in which you will quite certainly recognize nearly every song.

This presented a dilemma. Ashley is a Clarkson-level trooper when it comes to wailing through the tricky vocals in our set, but not even The Original Idol herself can rock for that long uninterrupted without getting a little hoarse. Thus, when we scored our DelCo bar gig, it was left to me to quickly add some solo covers to our repertoire to give Ashley an occasional mid-set breather.

Except, Ashley is singing my solo cover repertoire – all Madonna and rocker chicks! She’s doing my “Like a Prayer,” my “Bad Romance,” my “Since U Been Gone” … we even mashed up my formerly solo “Man in the Mirror” into a righteous duet in the original key.

That meant I had to learn to sing songs original performed BY OTHER BOYS. Ugh. Even worse, they couldn’t be a bunch of obscure Rufus Wainwright and Elliott Smith, because the whole point would be to keep the bar crowd interested while Ashley caught her breath.

Thus the Pearl Jam. Everyone knows it and, despite my enduring disdain for Mr. Vedder’s vocals, I can match him pretty effortlessly right down to the warble.

(Not as good as Wes does, though. I really need to record that for posterity at some point.)

After an opening salvo from Ashley, “Elderly Woman” was the first song I played solo. As I started the circular 5-4-1-4-1 chord progression I took a moment to reflect. This is the first time you are ever in a bar playing a song they want to hear, I mused. And they did. I think. It wasn’t the biggest crowd-pleaser of the day (which was surely “We Are Young” or “You & I / What’s Up,” and maybe my “Forget You”), but people nodded in recognition and kept on drinking.

No fleeing the room. No snide, very-audible remarks about my bad singing or theoretical sexual orientation. None of the stuff that I always hate about bar gigs.

At the end of three hours we closed with a killer “Like a Prayer” and encored with “Behind These Hazel Eyes” and a roaring “Rolling in the Deep” and I pronounced with great certainty that we had just played one of my favorite gigs of all time – yes, complete with Christmas and bar and Pearl Jam and all of it. It was 100% fun and 0% stress, and I got to hear three hours of music I love … it just so happened that I was also playing it with one of my friends.

In a weird and slightly twisted way, “Elderly Woman” was the highlight. I might write my own music and prefer to cover Gaga to any guy out there, but when it comes down to it I now have the performance chops and the confidence to hold down the mic on just about anything – whether I actually like the song or not.

As for our repertoire, next up from my most-loathed list is a little number by Jason Mraz.

10 Commandments for 2013

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Happy New Year, et cetera, et cetera.

The last time I was at work (mmm, 4-day weekends), a few of us clustered around Ashley’s desk and tried to name all 10 Commandments. I was brought up on that stuff, a mind full to the brim of bible verses, but now it’s all been replaced with key changes and X-Men errata. I only got five commandments in before I ran out of steam.

What struck me as we tried to name the remaining commands is that once you discard the obviously godly ones, you’re simply left with sensible suggestions to live at an even keel. That’s why they got codified into religious texts. It’s not like they’re god’s most notable oration, you know? They’re about balanced living.

I don’t make resolutions. Or, more accurately, I made a perfectly sensible set of them nine years ago and see no reason to change them at this point. However, that doesn’t preclude me from having guidelines or goals.

Or commandments.

Thus, here are my 10 Commandments for 2013. I don’t think I’m going to obey each one every day. But, I do think if I keep them in mind most of the time I’m going to enjoy this year more than the last.

1. Establish a Vision. Know the shape of the future you’re living towards, even if that vision is vague and shifting. After shrugging off so many potential apocalypses in 2012, don’t live towards a vacuum.

2. Value What You Have. The next best thing might make life great, but before you go after it take a moment to consider what you did with the last best thing.

3. Create Opportunities (To Create). Find time in your routine for creativity, but also know when to break out of your routine to create a unique opportunity.

4. Deliver More.  Years and careers and lives are better measured in achievements than attempts. Find a way to mark every month or week with something completed rather than five things started.

5. Fail More. The quickest path to mediocrity is only trying things you know you can do and delivering things you know are great. Do more. Stop worrying so much about if any of it is going to be any good.

6. Engage in Social Penetration. Value the narratives of others as you would have them value your own. We’re all stuck inside our brains at the center of our own universes, and everyone loves to have a visitor in their galaxy. Try engaging in other people’s stories more often and more genuinely.

7. Consume Appropriate Portions. Whether it’s food, work, sleep, exercise, or time spent with a good book, there is always too much of a good thing. Listen to the voice inside your head that says, “you may have had enough for now.”

8. Acknowledge Your Body. The voice inside your head does not always take your body into account, but if you listen you’ll learnt that your body rarely lies. We’re physical beings. If your body says “run,” go for a run. (If you’re body says “ice cream,” try to figure out why it’s saying “ice cream.”)

9. Good Habits Don’t Have to be Obsessions. Having a good habit does not mean it has to be the focus of every single day. You can skip a day of blogging or a week at the gym without shattering your habit. The only thing that can break a habit is you.

10. Focus on the Positive. It’s so easy to be a critic – to define your life by what you dislike. Stop doing that so much. An average day should have as many positives as negatives. Try grading things up from zero instead of always docking points off of unattainable perfection.

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I don’t have a single resolution for 2013, but if you want to know how I plan to live my year I can’t say it any more plainly than that. They don’t address everything and I might not obey them every day, but I think I could do a lot worse than use that list to guide my actions.

But, enough about me – what about you? Would my commandments work in your life? What is my list missing that’s essential to yours?