Unauthorized Biography

I had a rather transcendent moment today. I was watching the almost-gimmicky "Front to Back" reunion of Ben Folds Five. (Front to Back is a new mypspace-sponsored thing where a broken-up band gets back together for one night to perform the songs from one of their CDs--you guessed it--front to back). BF5 performed probably their most critically-acclaimed album, Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner for the show, which was recorded just over a month ago in Chapel Hill where the band started, and the video is now on myspace. Folds joked, "If I had known about this gig ten years ago, I would've sequenced [the songs on] the record a little differently."

Anyway, I was watching this performance of this downright amazing album and there was something so melancholy. Not terrible, just melancholy. I think I usually find it a bit depressing to watch a group who did (past tense) something immensely successful try to do (present tense) it again. Sometimes it just feels like a sad attempt to relive it or something. Not that I think in this case that it was at all a narcissistic endeavor on their parts--proceeds went to charity after all. But when they were performing "Don't Change Your Plans" at one moment I realized that Ben's voice was still conveying enough honesty to suggest this song still held something for him. That ten years later, this could still be quite a song to perform. And even with all the gimmicky, publicity stunt-ness of it; even with a trumpet soloist apparently from the college they were performing at and a cheering girlfriend in the audience; even with a crowd probably full of people who didn't even know who Ben Folds was when the original album came out... a song stood out as transcendent art. Every once and a while I seem to need to be reminded of the power of a song.

Let us write music that will still be something in ten years. And let that always, always, be our prayer.

Does anybody read this blog?

East Coast tour comes to a close.. Homecoming bash at Martyrs this Sunday!

Well, I'll leave it to one of the other guys to really put the cap on this.. but for the most part, our time on the road is over for this one. It was a fantastic tour though; you hear horror stories from other bands about stuff getting stolen or cars having problems or booking contracts being broken by managers/venues... and we didn't really have any of that. Other than Morgan, Vij and I being sick at points, it went incredibly smoothly. So we're pretty grateful.

In case you're in Chicago and hadn't heard, we have our big Tour Homecoming show coming up on Sunday at Martyrs. We don't really want to get in the habit of using this blog for show announcements or whatever, but this is a bigger show for us (arguably the biggest we've played in Chicago yet). It's been hard to really promote it at all because we've been gone and working on a lot of other stuff, so.. we just wanted to get the word out. :) We fully stand behind the other acts playing on Sunday too, they're really great. Sherri-Anne & Bird we met at an open mic, Micah Walk Band we played with at Cubby a couple months ago. Good times.

In other news, the lyrics "Pizza of my eye" and "BMX bike of my life" completely ruin a couple Motion City Soundtrack songs for me.

Weird and wonderful

We're playing my hometown tonight. For the first time of course. It feels weird.

That is all.

On the Road Again

Hey guys, Jake here. This is my first post, technically since the one I did with Vijay didn't count.

So we had a few wonderful days of rest at the Brooks' house(Mike's parents), where we ate like kings and were able to sleep in until our hearts' desire. And on Wednesday we drove down to West Virginia to stay at their summer home, which was a gorgeous cabin near a lake and an all around peaceful place to be.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we've been stopped by police several times in this trip, a couple times were mainly because both Morgan and Vijay's cars were missing a headlight. So while we were in Pittsburgh Morgan took his car in for an oil change and routine maintenence and to get his headlight changed. While for Vijay's car we decided to buy a headlight and do it ourselves, which begged the question: "How many musicians does it take to change a headlight?" So after reading the instructions multiple times, and struggling for what must've been at least a half-hour, we succeeded and were on our way.

Thursday came and we were excited to play our first college show down at Elon University. We have a friend (Carolyn) who goes to school there and we must thank her so much for basically setting this show up and inviting so many people out to it that we felt like actual rock stars. Also my parents drove 5hrs. to see us play for the first time(they live in NC also) and I think my mom is just glad I'm not in some crazy metal band.

Well, that's everything for now. We'll be off to play the Hard Rock Cafe in Pittsburgh in a few hours and we can't wait.

Tour Tally:
Run-ins with the law: 3
Items lost: 2 (Jake's hoodie, Morgan's powerstrip)
Lost and thinking we'd never find a way out: 2
Wrong turns: 10

Jake
commonshinerlovesyou

Different Worlds Part 2

So 4.5 hours after leaving the hustle, bustle, and utter terror of Jersey City, we arrived at Interlaken Reformed Church in Interlaken, NY. It was obvious immediately that this venue was far more excited about our presence than NYC when we were greeted by this:



Their little boys only got more adorable.

We loaded in and sound checked in the sanctuary of the church (and we're talking a for real sanctuary, not a gymnasium like our church back in Chicago). So I guess that meant we were gonna have to watch our mouths, since the 4 year olds running around weren't reason enough.

So after sound checking we went downstairs for dinner which they prepared for us (post service potluck style), and it was a veritable feast, especially when compared to the graham crackers and McDonald's that had constituted most of the meals we had experienced thus far. Then the pastor asked the kids if they had any questions for us (might be our first Q&A we've ever done). We successfully convinced them that we were far bigger rock stars then we are.

The show itself went well, though we started to realize that our stage banter has depended on people drinking and talking among themselves a little too much. When everyone just watches you in rapt attention between songs, your self-deprecating stories of breaking a string one time when you played outdoors seem a whole lot more shallow.

While it did seem odd to sing a couple songs about drinking, or a few about jaded neurotic romance gone wrong in a sanctuary, I didn't think it was at all out of place. Ministry can be done just as effectively in a bar as in a cathedral, and it has become more and more clear that we were not called to do the latter. Given the conservative feel of the congregation, the fact that a couple people later said our show turned into a wonderful worship experience is testament alone to the power of God through music.

Then after the show we went to our merch table to sell CDs and T-shirts, and we didn't have to wait long before a line of people wanting to purchase merch and get autographs formed. It was odd to have people want to talk to you, rather than willing to talk to you when you offer them a sticker and ask them if they want to be on your newsletter.

Now one question you may have had right at the start of this post was "What on earth were you doing in Interlaken?" (Names included as "shout-outs") Well my freshman year of college roommate (Jeff Jackson) has been a fan of ours for a while, and he converted his sister (Tina VandeSlunt) into a fan as well, and her and her husband (Derek VandeSlunt), who's the pastor of Interlaken Reformed Church, wondered if we would ever be able to play a show out there. So there you go.

So that night we hung out with them and another wonderful couple from the church (Charity and Mark) and we chatted about a whole slew of things, while playing with their aggressively attention starved dogs (Rupp and Arena). We learned that Interlaken was pronounced with a "lake" and not a "lock." We also learned that we had offended a few people at the church before we had even arrived (mainly with the song Rosalyn). The world seemed so calm compared to where we had been 18 hours or so before.

Also, I spotted this on the wall of Tina and Derek's house:

Sorry for the blurriness of the picture, but it's a poster of the South Haven Lighthouse (my home town in Michigan). I'd never felt so at home.

The next day we started the trek back to Pittsburgh, weaving our way through the Appalachian mountains on the way, realizing the crazy difference in experiences we've already had, and we've only been on the road 4 days. What a disjointed life this is.