Animal House

I went to a party last weekend, the one, because of which, I had to DVR the Pens/Bruins game. Some friends of Pinky’s and mine were throwing a birthday party at their house for another friend. Normally, I wouldn’t consider this “blog-worthy”, in and of itself, but the host is quite a musician. In fact, his garage is converted into a nice little rehearsal studio.

Now I have absolutely zero musical ability. I’ve had a guitar for almost 20 years; a very sweet red Ibanez electric guitar, the kind Joe Satriani plays. (It’s actually autographed by Satriani too… I won it from his record company, back in another life.) I’ve tried to learn to play via how-to books and tablature books, but music has always been like a secret code that I just couldn’t crack. That, and a bad left hand that just will not obey, has left me on the outside looking in. I can play a lurching, fat fingered version of "Louie Louie", but that’s about it.

We had a piano for a while when I was growing up, but that was inscrutable to me.

Anyone can play a harmonica, right?

Wrong. Not me… even with more how-to books… no can do.

Instead, I’m just left to just “appreciate”. In fact, I parlayed that into 13 years worth of career, working in and then managing record stores. But Saturday night, I got to play with the grownups… The little studio-garage had a drum set.

OK, it wasn’t quite that big, but it was bigger than the usual 5-piece beginner set.

When I went out to the garage, the host was playing his keyboards (which seemed to be able to make any musical sound under the sun) and everyone was singing. So I slid behind the drums and just kind of joined in. First of all, I had to take care NOT to play like my drumming idol:
It would not have been appropriate for the James Taylor/Eagles songs they were playing. So I was subtle and under-played, with a couple of small runs and light cymbal crashes. They actually did me a favor by keeping the songs simple… That way, I got to appear competent.

You should have seen the look on their faces when I actually was able to sit down and do a decent job. They had no idea I could do that. (OK, I didn’t either.) I guess all those years of Air-Drumming finally paid off!

I was fine, as long as I didn’t have to do anything with my feet. I am utterly incapable of keeping a different beat with one or both feet. In fact, I consider it a “win” if I don’t crack myself on the knuckles with the sticks.

What was especially surprising to me was that I was able to keep up on our host’s original songs, which I obviously didn’t know. Of course I didn’t do anything fancy, just kept the beat and added the occasional flourish when one seemed appropriate.

When I was a teenager, I had a buddy that set up his full drum kit out in our barn, so we could fool around on it. It was a pretty big set that just surrounded you.

We used to play along to songs on the stereo. (This wasn’t any ordinary barn, but that’s a future blog post in itself.) I wasn’t any good, but it at least taught me where things were and what my limitations are. And to wear gloves with knuckle pads. So I guess a lot of that came back, mixing in with a lifetime of paying attention to the construction of songs. It also helps that you don’t have to read music or recognize notes or chords or anything. You just have to beat on stuff. I can do that!

Anyway, it was fun. We probably didn’t do more that 4-5 songs, but I felt like I could have played all night. I probably should have… it worked out much better than my pool-shooting the rest of the evening.

“We’re getting the bahnd back together!”