People often have a preconception on what a home studio should look like. Spacious, sound proofing, glass partitions, and a mixer that runs from one end of the room to another. Just like the movies, or the MTV clips. I am a pragmatic perfectionist. That is to say, I aspire to attain perfection within my means. I have a home studio, but a humble one. Good enough to record our band’s jamming materials. Good enough to record a demo tape, I reckon. Above is a photo taken by our band manager Selrol using her brand new film camera that comes with a fisheye lens. It is amazing what a cute little camera can do. I said to her: Keep the film rolling and we shall have a montage of jamming photos for our upcoming album. Last week, I have designed a logo for our band. My band-mates Jason and Cynthia seem to like the design. It bears our band name wrapped with a guitar in abstract form. Jason said to me: What about some candy colours for our logo? What colours are the candies these days? I can’t remember when was the last time I ate one. I am a pragmatist. What are the benefits in chewing candies? I like Jason’s idea.
Have you heard the b-side song “Do You Believe in Me” performed by the Welsh band Catatonia? Many ask: What does the music of [your band] No Eye Candy sound like? It is dark. But what is dark? “Do You Believe in Me” is a good example. During our jamming break last weekend, between our practice session one and two, I said to Jason: I want to write some songs, just like that. We listened to the song in detail and Jason commented that this is the type of songs to be written by the band, as a whole. And not I alone, which is the case today. Fair enough. We shall have some song writing sessions. Perhaps after we are done with our practice sessions, perhaps after we are done with our recording sessions. Our long list of to-do items. Our multi-year project.
In our next gig, there should not be a constraint on our play time. And since it is an indoor dinning and drinking setting, we have reintroduced the slow song “Feather” into our playlist. What can I say? The legacy of our ex-drummer lives on, even after she has [temporarily] moved on. The song does not have the same level of impact without Wieke’s highly challenging arrangement. No effort, no risk, hence no glory. Maybe we shall dedicate this song to her from now on, whenever we perform “Feather” live. Our band manager loves the song “Jealousy”. And that too, has been added into our playlist. The original song lasted close to half an hour during the early No Eye Candy years. Since then, we have attempted to trim down the song into now a ten minutes long song. We change the song title to “(A Glimpse of) Jealousy”. No surprise.
We have not jammed “(A Glimpse of) Jealousy” for a long time. A song that starts with Cynthia’s steady bass line. Then Jason’s surreal, heart wrenching guitar sound tears the veil of our reality apart, sucking us into the dark void. Moments later, I join in with my rhythm guitar filling the air with an ambient of that repeated familiarity. Dramatic as it may sound, last weekend, as we jammed this song, the dark cloud broke open halfway through the song. And then the heavy rain poured.
Jealousy. Potent as it’s meant to be. It is a pretty dark thing, I kid you not.
One reply on “This Is How We Jam”
Looks like you’ve got some good stuff going on