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After a last-minute decision to dine on delicious Indian food with Brö and Tom at The Clay Pit, probably my favorite Indian restaurant in town, we came home long enough to loan Nikki a mixer dingus and then dash over to Stevie's for a night of Rock Band. Yes, we; Eric decided he wanted in on the fun, and Stevie and I were both agreeable. The general rule seems to be the vocalist picks the songs, but there were some house requirements (a la Adventures in Babysitting... no one leaves without singing "California Über Alles") and we let the game pick a couple as well. So, continuing my obsessive chronicling, here are the songs we did. The first number is the difficulty rating for the vocal track (according to Rock Band, 0-6), and the other is my score (0-100). My intent was to do a lot of songs I was familiar with so I could stop paying attention to sight-reading and start listening to how I sing, so there's several repeats. I did all these on 'Hard' too. Maybe I'll try some on Expert next time.

"Man in the Box" Alice in Chains 0/100
"Here It Goes Again" OK Go 0/91
"Creep" Radiohead 0/98
"Pretend That We're Dead" L7 0/100 per Eric's request, since he's seen them live
"Interstate Love Song" Stone Temple Pilots 0/99
"My Sharona" The Knack (cover) 0/99
"Here Comes Your Man" Pixies 1/92 I didn't intend to sing this one; I punched the wrong button.
"See You" Foo Fighters 1/88
"That's When I Reach For My Revolver" Mission of Burma 1/94
"Black Hole Sun" Soundgarden 1/96
"Date With the Night" Yeah Yeah Yeahs 1/75
"Vasoline" Stone Temple Pilots 1/99
"Perfect Drug" Nine Inch Nails 1/89
"My Iron Lung" Radiohead 2/97
"Alex Chilton" The Replacements 2/89
"Nine in the Afternoon" Panic at the Disco 2/97
"Pinball Wizard" The Who 3/93
"California Über Alles" Dead Kennedys 3/89 Sung under protest, but Stevie's favorite song so it had to be done. I don't own punk well, but it was fun anyway
"Blackened" Metallica 3/91 Tough! And while I love Metallica, I also do not own their vocal style, so I was pretty proud of myself that I made it through this one.
"Seven" Vagiant 4/86
"Let There Be Rock" AC/DC 4/80
"Aqualung" Jethro Tull 4/96
"Spoonman" Soundgarden 6/93 I wanted to do at least one level 6 song, and I was familiar with this one. It has a really hard guitar part also, apparently, and we had to do it twice but we made it. That's What Bea Said FTW!

I have to run, but I've got more to say about this later.

Rock Band thoughts

Okay, first of all, because I'm so very proud of myself for my ongoing battle against my weird phobia of singing in front of others, I often will download the songs I've sung (you've already figured out that I write them down) and put them in a 'Rock Band' folder on my iPod and iTunes. For the record, I don't buy them from iTunes, because of that copy protection bullshit. Amazon sells them for the same price and doesn't hassle me if I decide to play them at a different computer. There's only been a couple I haven't been able to acquire, including "New Wave" by Pleymo, and "New Kid in School" by the Donnas.

This means I end up with some songs on my play list that I don't like very much. I've already complained about "Buddy Holly" and most punk doesn't really speak to me. I also dislike "Aqualung" quite a bit. "Feeling like a dead duck" is some of the dumbest lyrics ever written... and "dee dee dee, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee" doesn't win any awards either.

I've also been introduced or re-introduced to some songs I like quite a lot, or songs I didn't care for much when I heard them but got to love once I sang them... "Perfect Drug", "My Iron Lung", "Black Hole Sun", "Man in the Box" (these all seem to have some similar qualities, don't they? Hmm.)

In addition, I've increased my audience to two. The reason this is so much easier than, say, singing karaoke is because when people are playing Rock Band they're not paying attention to much else besides playing their own instrument. I have no idea why the idea of people listening to me sing makes me queasy, especially considering that I'm in a choir, but it does and I'm working on it. Dammit. Anyway, so Stevie has historically been silent on the topic of my vocal abilities, which is fine with me. But this time Eric came along, and he told me in advance that he was planning to listen to me. After we left, I shyly asked him to tell me what he thought. After blowing some smoke up my bum which any spouse with any sense would do, I pushed him to give me an honest critique. He said, essentially, that I was too timid, which makes sense. He said that sometimes he didn't even hear me if he wasn't making a point to pay attention to me, and he was sitting right next to me. This fits with my perception. I'm not sure how to man up and belt it out, but I'll be thinking about it. He also said he never heard me hit a bad note... though I suppose I could've been hitting them all very quietly.

What I noticed was that when I wasn't focusing on what I was doing, I tended to get lazy and... oh, how to describe this... sort of flatten my palate which makes the tone sound dull and a little nasal. When I caught myself doing that I tried to open it up and do it like the conductor at the church is always pestering us to do (which makes me sit up straighter just thinking about it), and it sounded better to my ear. It seems awfully square and, you know, does Trent Reznor and Chris Cornell do that sort of shit? Maybe so but they manage not to look like they are... well. I guess it will become an issue when I get pulled up on stage at a concert.

When we did some of the mystery setlists, where the computer picks random songs that I was often unfamiliar with, Stevie lent me a hand by singing the first line or so during the intro. This was immensely helpful, and on a few songs he sang along or sang harmony which was really cool. It made it more interactive, which like I said is something Rock Band really isn't. Before when I was going to parties where Rock Band was being played and staked out my territory on the bass, I would often sing harmonies very sotto voce mostly to see if I could. The notion of playing an instrument and singing at the same time causes me to be filled with awe; it's a coordination that doesn't come easily to me. Learning music on a French horn is partly at fault (when you play horn that's all you can do); I have similar problems reading multiple lines of music (like for keyboard) but it's not an impossible obstacle.

Anyway, here's one of my vocal role models- Paul Simon. John found this, and I'm glad he posted it. I haven't watched a lot of tv lately and I would've missed it, which would've sucked because this is one of my favorite songs of all time ("American Tune"). He was never a really flashy singer, but his vocal style has matured very well, in my opinion. The guy is almost seventy... it boggles my mind.

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For any of you who're coming to Thanksgiving, I'm going to have a donation box for The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (a human rights charity) available. I got it at services last week and have been throwing spare change in it; I figure at some point before New Year's I'll count it up and send them a check. If you want to bring a buck or two to drop in (either at T'giving, or any other time you happen to pop by) that would be swell. No pressure.

Here's their entry on Charity Navigator- they get a pretty good rating.

blaaaarrrgh!

As you are all surely aware of, it's gonna hit the fan in 2012 according to the folks who enjoy predicting such things. I've heard that this is because it's when the Mayan calendar resets, and Kirby tells me that in accordance with prophecy at that time jaguars will rain from the sky, which sounds neat at first but when you think about it is a pretty inefficient way to end the world. But that hasn't stopped someone from making a movie about it! I love a good shit-hitting-the-fan movie, and with them computer machines they're even more over-the-top. Check out the trailer:

Now, ( Read more... )