THE BOY WHO COULD FLY

This is a song called “WEATHER” by a band called CRUMPLER.  It is the band that I am a part of along with Johnny K. who plays the drums and Bryan L. who plays bass.  I sing and play the guitar.

I feel it is a great privilege and honor to be in a band with these individuals.  They are not only intuitively creative and talented musicians, but are also very supportive as friends and we have a lot of fun together!  We are still a pretty new project, so I am enjoying getting to know the way they both process and write parts for these weird and sometimes non-linear songs I’m throwing their way.

I haven’t been in a band for a long time so every little thing feels like a miracle!  I’m so excited about playing my guitar so loudly!  It is a good change of pace for me.

So, we are still in the midst of mixing this song, but here is a rough cut.  We are lucky to have some quality dudes helping us out with this.

Oh!  And we are playing our first show:

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH 2009

KILBY CT. SALT LAKE CITY.

We are playing with GOLDEN GHOST and JP HAYNIE.

Here’s another BOXCAR MANIFESTO untitled track.

There’s something about a band that has siblings in it that can lend their music a certain amount of magic. I extend this not only to people who are biologically related, but people who are close in some respect, whether through relationship, living proximity, or shared history. There can be an ease and fluency that wouldn’t normally be present in the creative collaborative process.

Maybe this is due to having an ability to read another’s subtle social cues or interpret their body language. Or perhaps it has something to do with a band creating its own micro-culture. Families create their own small cultures, as do collective houses, or groups of friends, or music scenes, or local communities. When musicians (consciously or not) are inspired by and draw from these insular micro-cultures,* they have the opportunity to bypass a lot of the issues and awkwardness that more contrived bands may take time to face.

OK, now that I’ve accidentally given you a thesis statement that may not make any sense, here is an untitled song from 2001 by a band called BOXCAR MANIFESTO. This is an important band to me, and one of my favorites of all time.

We used to have this warehouse space in Provo right across from the train tracks, called the August Arts Center. It was an incredible place and an exciting time for all who were involved. BOXCAR MANIFESTO was made up of four people who lived at August Arts. Not only were they four people who shared the same living space and had been through a lot together, good and bad, but they are also two sets of brothers. Kirk and Kris (two of my own brothers) both played guitars, while Brit and Ian (identical twins, at that!) played bass and drums, respectively.

I don’t know if it comes through on this four-track recording because I can’t listen to it objectively anymore, but they were incredible. The kind of local band people are amazed by and proud of. The songs were instrumental and completely and organically collaborative. I used to lay on a ratty couch in the warehouse and listen to them practice.  One of these times they were recording a song that they were still writing as they were playing, and all of a sudden, they just stopped. Each of them had automatically stopped, and not even in a place that felt obvious, not even at the end of a phrase. I remember sitting up, curious, and seeing all of them looking at each other incredulously, like, “How did we do that?” It was magic, I’m telling you.

Sadly, BOXCAR MANIFESTO’S lifespan was diminutive, only a few months as I remember. Brit moved to Olympia and became a light-weight boxer, Ian moved back to Europe, traded in his spray paint cans for art school, selling paintings to the likes of Yoko Ono. Kris went to school for a Masters degree in Library Science, and Kirk now co-owns a small letterpress printing business.

*I think these micro-cultures could be defined by the sorts of ideas, concerns, and general life experiences that the group is dealing with, sharing, and discussing; audio stimuli [music recordings that the group is influenced by, as well as the local sound-landscapes, both natural (birds and other animals, wind and other weathers) and man-made (industrial like factories and trains, incidental like traffic and people)], and visual culture (this extends from clothing style to the sorts of advertisements that are being displayed on bus stop benches, to the flora and fauna and topography of the area, to the kinds of images and symbols the group is using to make art), etc.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a free outdoor concert of TOOTS AND THE MAYTALS.  I never thought I would get to see Toots live, so it truly was a dream come true.

I’m so accustomed to the intimacy felt between performer and audience at punk shows, but I never expect to find that feeling at a huge concert.

All I know is that Toots brought it, like a prophet.  When he told us that we have to believe in ourselves and each other, it was somehow profound.  There was so much positive power and togetherness felt there, it made me weepy.

This song is called “Revolution.”