Spring Break

So I decided to stay in Colorado for spring break – partly for work, partly for laziness, partly for wanting to actually work on having a social life here instead of just missing the one I had in Arizona.

Then I realized that everyone leaves for spring break, and that the whole week was gonna totally suck.

Luckily, though, Cory was having the same prospects for his spring break in Arizona, so he decided to go on a spur-of-the-moment roadtrip and come visit me up here for a couple of days. Cory brought his friend John up, too, and he turned out to be a truly cooltacular person, as well. I won’t bore you with all the details, but Cory wrote up a good post summarizing their roadtrip from start to finish (photos included).

I really enjoyed having the both of them up. It was really nice having one of my closest friends around, since I’m still new to Colorado again. At the same time, it was really weird having people from the “Arizona world” sleep over in my dorm for a night. I guess I’ve always been used to having completely separate lives in different areas… I’m a child of divorce, I tell ya.

So I’m in Denver now for three nights of Steve Kimock concerts. Logical last night, he was sitting in with a different band, but logical tonight and actual tonight, he is having a reunion of sorts with some guys from one of his old bands. Tonight’s show really blew me away…. It was a very high-energy performance that I haven’t witnessed since at least the SKB shows for New Year’s Eve 2006. John Molo (Phil Lesh & Friends) is sitting in on drums. I hadn’t given him much credit before, but this guy is incredible – a rare example of high versatility in almost any music style. I want his chops, and his creativity. I want them badly.

I am definitely feeling the drumming bug right now. I really haven’t done anything in a year beyond playing along to albums on my electric drums. Nothing serious, nothing to actually practice, nothing to really challenge me or make me grow as a musician. I have definitely become aware that the thing I really need to work on this point is my creativity in a band setting – something where original tunes are being written, and the drum parts do not yet exist. Everything I’ve done so far has either a drum track or a pre-written part.

Which means that I need to find people in Fort Collins to play with. So far, I have had little luck, but you can’t really spend most of your time hanging around the College of Business and expect quality musicians to just drop from the sky. I need to find people who are proficient with improvisation, especially playing melody. Unfortunately, a lot of kids my age prefer pop riffs and technical licks over actual creativity. But that isn’t to say that there is a complete lack, I just need to start looking in the right places.