HEY!...I'm In a Band...

At the beginning of the year, I was contacted by a bassist named Cody, interested in starting up a psychobilly group.  Over the next couple months, we e-mailed back and forth, and yesterday, we finally got together for a jam session.  I've been in contact with a couple other musicians, and they bail out before we even met, so it was starting to get a little frustrating to find people who wanted to play.  Given that, I was skeptical that this would pan out. 
It turned out much better than I expected.  As soon as I got there, he was asking about my guitar.  He was very happy to see me bringing out a Gretsch, then said "mine's over there".  I opened the case to find the very same sparkly-silver Electromatic that Karissa wanted me to buy when I was first shopping around!  The only reason I didn't buy it was because I didn't care for the color. 
While I was drooling over the guitar, he got out his bass.  I have no idea what brand it was, but it was big and black, and looked awesome.  We didn't waste alot of time getting down to their basement and getting started.  The basement is an old bare-finished basement--concrete floors, low ceilings (at least I can stand up straight without kerbonking my head), badly placed outlets, and a little colder than the rest of the house.  Being used to playing in conditions like these or worse, I found it perfect.  We tried out Police Truck by Dead Kennedys first.  I expected there to be a few false starts, but once I got through the intro, we kind of just took off on our own. We didn't sound great by professional standards, by given that we had just met in person 15 minutes before and hastily hooked up the amps, I'd say right out of the gate we kicked ass. 
Unfortunately, his drummer had class (and is also running for student-body president at UND) and couldn't be there, hopefully next time.  The potential singer also was absent due to scheduling conflicts which may affect his even getting to sing with us.  Those duties would then fall on me.  As much as I'd love to do vocals too, I have to say I was getting a little comfortable just playing.  Then again, once we got into Misfits territory and I knew te vocals, I was singing along to our jam session (sans microphone). 
Cody impressed me with how proficient he already was, having only started playing upright the previous month.  He had double-slaps down, was goofing around on scales and making shit up as he went along.  He learned Mifits songs quickly, and that helped us get used to each rhythmically & tonally in a huge way.   
I don't know when the next practice is just yet, but we seemed equally excited about building a pscyhobilly band out of this.  We'll see how things go with the drummer and singer before I say we are 100% a band, but this time I might just be holding my breath.

Living Down, Playing Up, Drawing Out

It's been good to get back to doing Open Mic night again.  The last couple times, I'd close the bar with the punk guys, then wind up back at their apartment until about 5:30-6am.  Then I'd go home and get Isabella ready for school, and go to bed.  This is one of those times that my usual night schedule benefits me, and by the time I get home, I'm not dragging ass and irritable toward my kid.  In fact, given the performance and the "after party", I felt accomplished and pretty damned good about myself.  Once my head hits the pillow, I'm the most comfortable guy in the world.  I'm grateful for it, since Saturday brings with it a broken sleep schedule that leaves me tired the whole day. 
The prospective band that I've been in contact with may be getting together next week some time.  I'm still having trouble keeping my hopes up, but we've gone farther with planning this than other musicians who contacted me in the past.  We've got a reasonable list of songs to work through, and my confidence is pretty good right now.  The Open Mic nights did a ton for that.
The whole "looking at publishers" thing, now that's not going so hot.  I keep having doubts about who would take Golden Brown without asking me to completely revise it.  I know I'm supposed to be prepared to compromise on things like this, but I've worked on this story for a total of over 4 years, including hours of revision, editing, rewriting, redrawing...I'm DONE doing that.  I want it published, I want it out there for others to be able to thumb through and laugh at.  Oh well, keep trying.
On a related note, I received a paycheck from the Farmer's Union paper in Bismarck yesterday, for an editorial cartoon I was asked by Mike Shirek to draw.  Not my first paid illustration gig, but it is my first paid comic gig.  I keep forgetting that when someone asks what I do for a living, I can technically call myself, among other things, an Illustrator!

More About Those Things That Don't Bring In a Paycheck...

I have almost 2 of 4 panels drawn of the next page, hoping and praying I'll get it done by Friday...well, hoping, anyway.  I'm in the middle of a 3-day weekend, so one would think a little productivity would work itself in.
I managed to get the last page out a day late, hopefully that won't be the case here.  Ironically, I'm learning a bit more about Lucha libre after having drawn those first few pages, but other than mangling the spanish language, I didn't stray much from what it really is.  This story is difficult to work on, because it isn't a joke-a-page like Golden Brown was.  It's more involved with the general misery of the characters and their struggle to make something of themselves (gee, not digging into the ol' subconscious or anything, are we?), therefore there are pages of them doing absolutely nothing but remembering or coping, which can get kind of boring.  Oh well, it's my story, and if you don't like it, you're entitled to your go-fuck-yourself opinion.
 
I'm still in contact with those musicians, though we haven't got together yet.  I've gone farther this time than with other musicians, even to the point of making up a song list and practicing it on our own.  On one level, I'm excited, because I haven't come this far yet with musicians I didn't know.  On the other hand, it drives me crazy because since we haven't got together yet, I still believe I could get phased out before I could even get a chance to play.  If nothing else, I still have Open Mic, at least.