My yesterday, my yesterday and my "Yesterday"

My yesterday:

Yesterday night SFTD took on a different look, feel, and sound for our performance at the Northeast Pop Festival at The Elevens. With Ken, Brian, and Tony's voice absent, we still turned out a decent set but, if you couldn't tell by my use of the third person, I almost felt like I wasn't there at times, but somewhere else altogether. Although I never fancied myself as a singer, I don't like that feeling of not being able to sing. After all, I initially joined SFTD to provide harmonies. Mark Schwaber was the official lead guitarist back then and Ken, for whatever reason, wasn't intersted in singing harmonies when the group first formed. So many of Henning's wonderful tunes call out for a harmony part, even if it is delivered by Tony's quirky pipes.

Anyway, we began last night with "Uncomfortable," which uncomfortably began with a slow tempo and a hard groove devoid of Brian's normal swing. But we found that groove. Max locked in with Paul and I was able to alter my playing as well so that it worked. It was really, really cool. Instead of dancing in and around the downbeat along with Brian, which is what I usually do, I was able to really lean into the chords and stomp on the downbeat along with Paul. I don't prefer one way of playing it to another, I just really got a kick out of playing it differently. Having said that...


My yesterday:

I haven't played music with Paul Pelis in, what, seven, eight years? And it was great- to play with him, to hang with him, to catch up with him. He performed admirably, with very little rehearsal time no less, but it was during the Humbert era songs that I really noticed how much I miss that band. "Omnivore" and "Photobooth" and the SFTD songs belong to the essence of Brian Marchese, even when Paul so masterfully could put his own stamp on the tunes (as in "Uncomfortable") but when we harkened back to the '90s with a rock block weekend of Humbert tunes, it was delicious. "Thug" was thug-like, less XTC-esque and more Clash-ish, reflecting the more profound influence of each band on the two drummers. Again, I don't prefer one way to the other, it was just different. I found myself really missing Ari's guitar part in "The Screen Door," but when I heard Paul's snare riff in the choruses of "I Wouldn't Know," it was like having dinner at your grandmother's for the first time in eight years and those golumbkis fill you with this familiar warmth, make you feel young, transport you to another era. Note to Max: let's do it, even if it's only for ourselves.


My "Yesterday":

In order to make it easier on Paul, we decided to pull out "I Wouldn't Know" and add it to the set list, even though SFTD has played it maybe only once or twice. However, after making that decision, my voice mysteriously lost its range, leaving it up to Henning to take the lead vocal. So now that song has officially become my own "Yesterday" (the most covered pop song of all-time), in other words, the Westcott composition that has been sung in a performance by more lead vocalists than any other. Tony Westcott, Frank Padellaro, Samara Loewenstein, Erin Tridle, and Henning Ohlenbusch have all sung it somewhere at some point. I remember it fit Frank's strong tenor quite nicely, plus he always liked that song. He stuck to the original template whereas Sam and I played it acoustically, working out a pretty harmony duet version of it that made it one of the better Parents numbers while my student Erin reworked the phrasing of certain lines to make it her own. In that way, it really has been my "Yesterday." I also recall Henning playing the tune in an informal instrumental solo version on an electric piano once at his house and thinking what a nice little tune it was, that it really was among my best and that it deserved a bit more than my own ropey vocals. Nice work, everybody.