Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

gina

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The sky is so very grey that i feel like it’s drowning out all the reds and oranges in my personality and just leaving me calm with layers of blue and purple with maybe just a peak of yellow underneath. Or, maybe i just didn’t get quite enough sleep last night and am looking for an excuse to be low-key. Life is moving by very quickly as of late and i’m just trying to put in an appearance in every day and hour so i can at least say i was in on it even though it will be a blur in my memory.

I seem to be performing in a bar on campus tonight for an hour but i couldn’t explain to you how that happened if you were to ask me so you probably shouldn’t. I’ll get a weekly invite if i do well with the patrons this week and next, so if you have id (that’s identification, not the thing that hides underneath the ego and the superego and makes you all primal and stuff) you should come (Buffalo Bill’s, 35th and Lancaster, $5 cover, i’m on near 11pm). Also, my beloved Treble Makers are singing at the Drexel a capella show Saturday @ 4pm in Mandell Theatre, and they’re much cooler than i am even after you allow for the fact that there’s 10 of them and just the 1 of me. But, enough advertisement.

If one thinks ahead (i know, it’s frightening) to me actually being asked to show up with my guitar on a weekly basis, one would realize i’ll eventually have to get up off my ass and learn some new cover songs to play. In the last 24 hours i happen to have learned three, but that’s mostly because i just got an Ani DiFranco guitar book in my teeny metal mailbox and so now i am in study to eventually have an entire set just of Ani DiFranco songs (as if anyone can really tell the difference). I’ll definitely be Trioing my new covers this weekend, so keep an ear out for them. Should be interesting.

In a tangent tangentially related to my slow but sure musical growth and exploration, Gina seems to be moving into the apartment directly above mine for the summer (after which point i’m probably moving out). The ramifications of having Gina and I stacked one on top of the other with all of our various guitars and cds and things are rather exciting (probably more like terrifying to our neighbors), and life should definitely get more interesting. Or maybe just louder. We shall see. But, speaking of vertical neighbors, my downstairs neighbor randomly showed up at my door last night while my mother was fussing over my newly installed air conditioner, and a strange and uneasy conversation ensued. I have never been one to have guests over, especially on zero notice, so my entire third of the conversation seemed to be geared at getting one or more of us to exit the apartment. It’s not that i’m unfriendly, i’m just not really used to people being in my space. But, downstairs neighbor is very sweet and she likes to listen to me through the ceiling, so i won’t begrudge her some time standing on my threshold talking about where to get good 2for1 deals on whole frozen chickens with my mother.

Wow, that post got much more literal as it went along.

Even the music i brought with me to work today is sorta greyish sounding, and it’s all new so it’s just flying past my ears as i try to absorb some little pieces of it. But, i think i come here to actually work, as odd as that might sound, so i’m off for now, into the grey. Wish me luck.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3673273/

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I’m starting to hate “Under My Skin“. Sure, it’s a wonderful song, and i love to perform it alone or with Gina backing me, but it’s starting to make me feel like a one-hit-wonder in training. Despite my playing a whole host of songs for my friends here at Drexel for well over a year, the one they always ask for when i’m playing is “Under My Skin” (or, if it’s Renata – “Play ‘legends of the flesh!'”). While they recognize “Never Say Goodbye,” “Deadweight,” “Crashing,” and “Lost,” “Under My Skin” is undoubtably the one that sticks out in their minds. UMS is the only song my mother has ever complemented me on, even after listening to my entire demo twice last night. I’m truly flattered by all of the attention, but i honestly can’t make a prediction on how long any song is going to be sticking around in my performances for; some songs like “Other Plans” seem to want to hang around forever, but other early favourites like “Touch” have fallen off the face of my musical landscape and are hardly every recalled.

I don’t play things just because people like them – i play them because i have something to say. While it feels nice to know that someone might be singing along to something, there are nights that UMS feels redundant in the face of newer material. Furthermore, i come from the Ani DiFranco school of performing that states that i can leave out any songs i don’t want to play, and that i can feel free to change the tempo and lyrics of anything people seem to be too comfortable with. Of course, at this point i shouldn’t give a fig about challenging my audience – i ought to just find one. It’s just that i see all the attention getting funnelled towards the middle of my new cd, where “Under My Skin” lies, and all the other songs that i worked harder and longer on are being ignored. I think i’m going to leave UMS in it’s pre-mix for the album … raw, and unfinished. It isn’t a perfect song, and there’s no reason i should try to make it sound like one.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3346623/

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How often do you see people walking around playing guitar? I mean… not while you’re walking around and they’re sitting down, but when they have a guitar strapped on and they’re walking down the sidewalk across the street from you while singing. I usually sing on my way back home from the office, and i draw odd looks most of the time (i don’t really endeavor to sing under my breath…), so today i was coming back from a rehearsal with Gina (for our show in the Quad on the 3rd) and i decided to play a few songs. I had gotten through “Punk” and into the outro of “Under My Skin” when i was flagged down and invited into my favourite pizza place by the chef, who asked me to play a few songs. I obliged by ripping into a bouncy version of “Under My Skin” in an attempt to hold the attention of the various patrons (which really was just two sisters with one’s child, the cook and his mother, and two young boys splitting a pizza) and at the end they clapped. I’ve been clapped at dutifully, or patronizingly, but instead they kept clapping after i smiled and thanked them and reset my capo for the next song and started.


Thirty minutes and four songs later i left the pizza place having promised to return with my new CD next week and having been invited to play at a restaurant downtown on Monday. I got several odd looks as i entered the more residential neighborhood while playing “Crashing,” but just as many people smiled and nodded as i passed them with a strum. I think i’ve found a new way to spend Saturday afternoons…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3307282/

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I started playing “Hold on Me” and Selina walked into the shop halfway through the first verse. Have you ever played a song written about your ex-girlfriend while you still really liked her in the same room with her after the breakup? Well… you’d think it’d be really fun, but really it was an exercise in subtly changing lyrics to reflect the current situation, and keeping your eyes pressed shut tightly so you don’t have to look at her. After i launched immediately into “Splinter” Selina eventually left the shop, and Gina got me to lay off the mean relationship songs. However, we then played “Under My Skin” again and i performed the “i don’t miss you anymore” extended mix (much to Gina’s confusion and delight). The first time i ever sang the song in this fashion was to Selina when we first started seeing each other, and the “miss you anymore” was my way of telling myself i finally was over Laurel. The demo version is much more conflicted at that point of the song, because it was physically sung to Laurel, who i was over but still very pleased to serenade. The version last night brought me full circle back to sitting in Selina’s dorm room with my guitar, pouring out my heart to her. It was empty for a while, but i hear refills are free.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3200004/

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Keep your calendars clear, my friends, because @5pm on Thursday May 3rd Gina and I will be playing our first “concert” as a part of the Spring Jam block party. While i’d been pestering the Campus Activities Board to book us for the event for well over a month, it was cemented last night when Gina and I were the only two performers to show up at an open mic event, which was quickly turned into “Live with Gina & Peter.” We traded a few individual performances (a new one of hers, and “Landslide.” “No Second Chance,” “Relief,” “Hold on Me,” “Splinter,” and a combo “Lucky Star” + “Lost Out” for me), but then joined forces for our standards: “Under My Skin,” “With or Without You,” “Sharks Can’t Sleep” (fun!), “Never Say Goodbye,” “Can’t Do Without You,” a new song, and “Deadweight.” It remains to be seen what songs we’ll be adding for our joint set at the block party, but last night was definitely fun and some of the better performing we’ve managed to put together in our several years of intermittent collaboration. So, keep May 3rd free, and show up not only for the music but also for the block party extravaganza!

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3199963/