The Living Rockumentary

Phew. Brian and I are back from our intensely busy two days in NYC. Exhale.

We went to NY to perform in this opera: The Rosenbach Company by Ben Katchor and Mark Mulcahy.

On Monday morning I got up extra early (6:00 I think, compared to my usual 10:00) and walked into the cold autumn air to go into town and fill up at the ATM and the bagel shop and then walk over to the car rental place and pick up our super duper van, one of those new Town and Country vans with the seats that fold into the floor. Man, that thing was great.

After getting the van, I met Brain at Midas where he was about to receive some bad and expensive news from the mechanics. While he was inside the office, I transferred his drums from his broken car to the sparkling van. We then went back to my partment and carried the rest of the stuff down the many flights and packed the van as tight as we could.

1 acoustic guitar
1 electric guitar
1 bass guitar
1 bass amp and speaker cabinet
1 guitar amp
1 effects board
2 keyboards
2 keyboard stands
1 entire drumset
1 glockenspiel
2 saxophones
1 flute
2 clarinets
stands and cables and accessories
and luggage for a two day trip

We drove the van to Mark and Melissa's place and loaded in his stuff, then drove to New Haven seperately and dropped off a car, then squoze everyone in the van and drove to Brooklyn, where we unloaded everything up an outdoor metal staircase and into a recording studio.

There we met Dave Trenholm and Ashley Grella and we quickly set everything up for recording and set out to make a record at Fire Proof Studios. We recorded for about four hours and then the rest of the cast of the opera showed up for a rehearsal. We set them up and began a two hour practice. By the end of it, I was so exhausted, I didn't know what I was playing.

After everyone figured out where they were sleeping that night, a few of us went out for some good late night Japanese food. It proved to take longer than expected but was very good and relazing. Eventually, I found myself under a sleeping bag on a futon with a sofa cushion for a pillow. I fell asleep almost instantly.

I awoke almost instantly as well, although it was the next morning and that exploding sound was just tractor trailer trucks whizzing by the window.

I was the first one up in the showerless place and I sat on a sofa and watched a DVD of the making of Dark Side of the Moon. It was pretty interesting. One by one, the rest of the gang filtered in and we watched a little bit of some good old Syd Barrett Floyd videos and concerts while eating some not-so-good-old muffins.

Then it was time to load out. We carried all the stuff back out to the van and packed it in and Mark went around and banged on some doors to try to find someone to move one of the three cars that had double parked and blocked us in.

We drove over to the theatre and pulled up to the loading dock and moved all the equipment into the theatre and set up for a sound check and very brief rehearsal that included lighting set-up and staging. By the time we were done with all that we had a little less than half an hour to run out and grab a slice of pizza before show time.

We came back and minutes later were sitting on stage while the crowd filed in. It was a good crowd in a beautiful theatre. The lights went down and we began the two hour opera.

After we finished, Brian and I went into the audience to visit quickly with Matthew Zapruder, Niall Hood, Meredith Ochs of the Damn Lovelys, and Matt Sutton of The Malarkies along with other assorted celebrities.

Then it was back on stage to break everything down and load it back into the van and head home. We got into Northampton at around 1:30 and I dropped off Brian, loading all his drums into his apartment and then went back home and carried everything else up to my apartment and fell asleep immediately.

I realize that this rehashing of events was not very focussed on the actual musical aspects of the two days. Take my word for it, it was wonderful to play all these great songs with these amazing performers. It was nonstop and busy and chaotic and exhausting and it was excellent. Perfect. It feels so good to expend that much energy in order to make something so creative.

Hopefully, we can do this show again so some of you can see it.