3.11.10

The Briscoe Baseball Academy

Welcome to your second online tutorial in "Baseball As I Have Come To Understand It Through Exposure To Eighties Pop Culture 101". I know this has very little to do with music but I actually just felt guilty for making a baseball reference in the previous post without mentioning my favourite RTBOM* film of all-time. So, if the first lesson tried to cover a bit too much ground a bit too quickly, this one should fill in the gaps for you: the best scene from the best RTBOM film of all-time... in italian. Congratulations, graduate.



*Rag-Tag Bunch Of Misfits - the noblest of Hollywood genres

1.11.10

the long and winding larynx

It's a weird thing to write a whole bunch of songs that you can't really sing. We've pretty much recorded all of the instruments for the album and now i just have to sing it... i'm at the plate, bases loaded and someone spiked my gatorade with polio. No matter how hard my little atrophied arm swings, i ain't clearing no fence.

There's an intense paradigm shift required to make the switch from drummer to singer and this inconvenient lack of skill is being a real pain in my arse. It's so frustrating to know what's meant to be happening, to have written a melody for god's sake, and not be able to sing the bloody thing.

I spent Friday hurling myself into take after take- voice weakening by the minute, space bar being hit with increasing fury as it executed the next in a long queue of condemned waveforms. The last time i tried to lay down these vocals, it wasn't so urgent, so when my voice started to tank i just finished up for the night and tried to pretend the horrifying notion that my house was built on sand had not just reared its ugly head.

That was weeks ago, and enough time had passed so that I could approach Friday with some sunny hard-won ignorance.

Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I would probably include "...and throwing faeces" in that definition, but that'd just be a self-serving addition to disqualify myself from a diagnosis (despite getting very close to displaying that symptom on Friday night).

I guess i have been a bit crazy to think you can become a singer just by saying "i'm a singer now". Singing is hard and unless i invest in an autotune plugin and learn to lip sync, i'm gonna need to do some serious work. To return seamlessly to the analogy: i've been hoping that this guy on the mound will walk me for an easy base hit - a few wayward pitches, maybe a curveball into the ribs - but he's been throwing down strikes all game and he hasn't even broken a sweat. I'm gonna have to hit this damn thing whether i like it or not.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the rules of baseball and hence could not have received the full illustrative benefit of these rich metaphors, please see educational video below.