Aug272008
Strings, Dice, & May-guses
Filed under Band,Gaming,Music by Kim at 2:48 pm on Aug 27 2008
Last weekend exceeded expectations; on Friday I met up with my potenetial (actual?) new bandmates from rock camp. I picked three up at the metro; for future reference, 3 folks + guitar + cello + driver is totally doable in the hatchback. The fourth joined us directly and we all played musical instruments… wait… I mean we swapped around and traded out and everyone took a turn on drums, bass, & guitar. Only two of us wanted to step up to the mic and we left the cello to its fine, fine owner. But for a first meeting we kind of cranked out a song we liked (lyrical inspiration: the Time Life Home Repair encyclopedia of the 70s) and lo, it was good. Of course, since this coming weekend is ProgDay, they will probably get together without me. But since there’s another Kim in the band, they’ve taken to calling me Ringo, and affectionate nicknames are a good sign, right?
Saturday was also spectacular. I got up early and had my first drum lesson in about 2 months – summer kind of got in the way – and I was so anxious about it. I needn’t have been, it was like no time had passed, and we worked on triplet fills, and played along with some Allman Brothers spontaneously. I felt more like my lack of confidence is the only barrier to achievement, not some kind of natural rhythmic disability.
Post-lesson I ran straight out to visit Fred and participate in session 6 of Faith, Faces, & Fingerprints. In thinking about it, the latter two titular nouns have not come into play nearly so much, which I should be creative about remedying next time. I got to do a biggish scene and our heroes saved the city and the bad guys rolled poorly which is really quite fine with me since the scale of jeopardy was high this session. 
This reminds me of a rock camp anecdote: I was explaining to some other volunteers at the after-party-thing that I could out-nerd them. My first bid was that I’d made and worn anime costumes at a convention. My second bid was something to do with mass market paperbacks by certain authors. My third bid, and the one which sealed my achievement of total geek outclassing, was my declaration that I play in a tabletop role playing game currently. Everyone bowed out at that point. When I leave the context of my gaming friends, I’m always surprised at how sheepish I feel about this point! Comic books are chic now – but role playing games, those are still the hallmark of High Dork. It’s interesting.
Having had a splendid lunch with the GM and Xie, I grabbed Jack and fairly flew out the door to the Atomic Music. See, they close at 6 on Saturdays! They shoo crowds of people out, it’s kind of insane. I wanted to look at kick pedals. They had some really beat up ones but nothing with a strap drive (most have a chain drive and I prefer strap for no reason I can explain – see the pic halfway down this page) and they don’t have new things, I guess, so we left. But all this musical fiddling had gotten under Jack’s skin, so by the next day, we would be dropping some cash.
But not before we attended Bad Movie Night! Which is where the may-gus comes in. I had been waiting for years for the release of the Dungeon Siege movie, and then somehow it went by me unnoticed (go fig). But I’m a huge Matthew Lillard fan and this movie looked awful in a way I knew I would appreciate so I *had* to see it. Fortunately I have good friends who are willing to endure this kind of thing alongside me. Oh, it was everything I had hoped for, and more. Leelee Sobieski wears the best outfit ever made for a woman in a fantasy world. Lillard tantrums up the whole show. And Ray Liotta is the best goodfella you can be in a movie based on a video game set in a place called Ehb. I don’t care what anyone says; knock back a few beers and find some people who like bad movies and you, too can have fun watching a Uwe Boll flick.
Sunday was a day for getting Jack a present. After being surrounded by all the musical business, he decided he’d had it with borrowing my guitar sporadically, and decided he wanted his own guitar. I was still on a pedal quest, so we decided to try Bill’s in Catonsville this time. Since I bought my first drum kit there, they seem to have scaled back – they are only in one of the buildings now, but they still have a great selection. 
I found a strap-drive double pedal… but it just didn’t feel right. I have a feeling I am going to have to get one new and that is not cheap. But that’s not why I’m telling you this story – Jack took his time and patiently played lots of guitars until he found just the right one. It’s a Paul Reed Smith, but it’s the low-end one that’s not made in Maryland. For my part I found a cheap Casio keyboard so that now I have a full band’s worth of junk in my house… this also would hypothetically make it easier for me to write songs, since I am ignorant on the guitar. But we might be remedying that – after we got home Sunday Jack & I spent most of the evening restringing guitars and then trying to learn stuff … and we’ve already practiced again this week. I have to say, I vastly prefer this mutual activity to say, watching Grey’s Anatomy or leveling up druids or what-not.
