Keep It Modest

[Today's post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox. Today's prompt: We're all writing the story of our lives as we go. How can you make your story interesting in 2016? And if you can't see around the bend, it's okay to dream. Let's make 2016 one of the most riveting parts of our tale, shall we?]

I love planning trips, a meal (usually the day of...), and in the past...even a tour. But I also love living in the moment, wandering to wherever sees or smells good. I guess what I'm saying is – while I like to outline my own story, I prefer to fill in the details day-by-day. Here's a list of three modest things I'd like to accomplish in 2016:

1) Visit an island.

I've got Hawaiian in my genes (more on that later), friends and acquaintances extolling (heck, even living in) Iceland, and Amelia has family in the U.K. Did I mention sometimes I just want to get away? I'm not even going to pick an island right now – let's just say it's gonna happen, one way or another. Time to set up flight alerts.

(I mean, look at this. Photo via Jacinda! Hope it's okay I used this!)

2) Make another record.

Wooves has been sitting on a finished record (forthcoming PEEP – spoiler alert – which is totally my fault) for months. Not to mention, life has taken its toll on our writing & recording schedule. Three friends in different cities moving into their thirties...it's not worth making excuses, but shit gets busy and then you realize it's been 7 months since you played (a pretty dang good) show. But then the Universe hits you with reminders that ...well, creativity is important. And what better scene to embrace it than with two of your oldest friends?

(...the only known photo of Wooves performing?!)

3) See more live music.

While I'm on that wavelength...aside from achieving a life goal by seeing KRAFTWERK (not to mention a pretty sweet Madlib DJ set) – I didn't see a whole lot of music live this year. Indianapolis is still a flyover town for most artists that I seem to be actually excited about seeing perform live. Hoping to rectify that and start off the year strong by seeing two of my favorite current acts in Chicago in February: the previously written up Bitchin' Bajas opening up for the soon-to-be-written-up Holly Herndon. Needless to say, I'm pretty psyched – now to decide whether to roll the dice on Big Ears. Faust is calling...

(Just before Kraftwerk started at Nashville's historic Ryman Theater.)

Stage Fright? Yeah, Right.

The domestic creature I have morphed into (sorry for clogging your feeds with pictures of a loaf of bread...) may not pass muster with the reality of my early twenties: more weekends than not, you would've found me on the stage (or in the corner of a room) with my brothers-in-sound, plying our woolly version of garage-psych-pop across the South...the Midwest...the East...the Plains...pretty much anywhere that would have us (and a few places that wouldn't). By my amateur count, not including practices, the number of shows I was physically present to play at exceeds 400.

For whomever is keeping stats: that's 3.7% of the nights in my entire life.

The halcyon days of thoughtfully rocking.

Fast-forward ten years or so: I took the stage twice this year. Twice. My percentage must've taken a hit. Those two performances though, would've been highlights in many past years, and included a magical aforementioned set with Athens, GA-based Circulatory System, and our seventh or so set at the annual Second Helpings Tonic Ball, which was ten feverish, sweaty minutes of Velvet Underground chord-bashing.

"Oh yeah," my body said, while gripping an ice-cold Hamm's in the overfull backstage room, "that's a helluva lot of fun." Which brings me to my realization for 2015: I like to play shows, and I should play more of them. And go to a few more, along the way...

But, like any artist knows, reality is an illusion unless you plan to go do something. So, I'm hoping a couple key things transpire that will be the impetus to sling some gear around in my hatchback and hassle my friends with a minimal amount of shameless promotion (just enough to let a hint of guilt into their conscience should they choose not to attend).

• a new Wooves record. Yes, I've talked about this before – the band formed from close friends who needed an excuse to hang out in a decrepit Eastside basement. Then, it turned out that we weren't that terrible (though, fair warning, it's still basement-produced-slacker-rock). Despite having but a single show under our belt (a year ago in October), we finally finished a second ten-song album, which should be out late this Winter in early 2015. And! We had a successful rehearsal, to quote a witness who was upstairs whilst we fogged the cellar with incense, Old Overholt fumes, and practice amp fuzz, "It sounded like there was a real band down there." That's basically a Christgau A+ for us. Springtime should see our new set unleashed upon the Illinois-Indiana highway corridor.
• some weirdo-skronk-experimentalism-turned-exercise-in-excess-and-restraint that gathers in a garage in-town to record noises to tape. It's a secret but it's not a secret. Rumor has it that a set will be carved out of the cut-n-paste spliced sound memories so that we may inhabit the corner of a stranger's party, or other such non-stage-space. I'm even contemplating a gear purchase for the first time since I had to buy a double-keyboard stand some five years ago.

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Day #9 of Think Kit!

Out There, In the Yard: ...Wooves

Wooves started out as a joke, a riff; and a completely different name (abbreviated "D's P"). Two old roommates, friends from High School, that I didn't befriend till after High School–riffing is what we do best. Either everyone's life is a well-written absurdist comedy, or we really are the funniest group of males since the Blues Brothers. Rapier wits, and all that. Anyhow.

(The first EP. Crucial real Polaroid.)
We all love music. I've played in a band for years, as had Andy. In the meantime, Tyler had listened to more music than the both of us combined. It seemed only natural that, more than four years after moving out, now living in separate cities–now was the ideal time to make a record together.

(Breaks are essential to refueling your creativity. And tacos.)

Perhaps originally inspired by the album-in-a-month challenge, and then later inspired by late nights that began with pints and ended with Jim Beam Rye, we decided that we should try our hand. We were literate, students of rock and roll, played rock and roll–but aside from Andy, had never really written before. And certainly never recorded/engineered anything beyond aborted attempts at tape collage. The year of 30 was beginning to stare us down, and we were creatively unfulfilled.

(Writing is hard. Especially in a dark, dank basement. With curtains leftover from the 60s.)

In November of 2011, we locked ourselves in my basement with a drumset, some rudimentary amps, and a 4-track. We emerged with 7 tracks, I slapped a few overdubs on top, and we released them as basement demos in February. Somewhere in there, we decided, "Hey, this isn't as bad as it should be. We should probably get a real name." We made a pact to record a full-length by Thanksgiving 2012–with the caveat of not writing anything aside from the spare weekends during which we'd bury ourselves in the makeshift basement studio for 8 hours.

(Jim doesn't judge. But he does make singing easier.)

"Wooves" (a Hoosier-esque mispronunciation of "wolves") won unanimous vote over Belgian drafts, frites, and a sausage plate at the Hopleaf. Though Andy tried to naysay the following day, it was sealed. Over the coming months, we had four or five sessions, including a two-day affair that challenged our creative wells, busted our equipment, constantly edited, revised, and revisited, increased my drumming skills, and, against all odds, resulted in a batch of songs that we were surprisingly...proud of creating. By ourselves.

I hope I'm not exaggerating when I describe it as illuminating.

No, they weren't anything glamorous or refined, just honest portrayals of the creation of something from naught–forming glass out of sand is impressive, no matter how crude your glass. Oh, and it was a lot of fucking fun. So much so, that we've already started planning for LP2, while firming up release plans for the first one, YAWN.

(Part of SmallBox's ThinkKit project.)