h&s' Summer's End

Thursday, August 31 – Spent the afternoon driving to Plattsmouth, listening to Zooropa, Secret Machines, Mylo, and the Bravery.  Rolled across the toll bridge early; wandered around downtown in a beautiful beginning of autumn.  Met ScoMo at 518 1/2 N. 6th, loaded gear in to the band room at the middle school.  Plugged in, set tones, set volumes, set recording levels and ran through a bunch of songs – there’s no way it felt like 2+ years since we’d played electric.  Scott’s drumming has really solidified, I’m strumming much less and ringing more, we have gotten bigger by cutting things out.  Focusing on the interplay, the conversation, the atmosphere – not popping, not rocking.  Running the GK bass synth through my amp now, which blends better and sounds vicious.  We ended up with a late supper at the retro diner (meatloaf, yes!) and watching Miles Davis’ “Call it Anything” Bitches Brew-era set on DVD.

Friday, September 1 – Rendezvous shortly after 8 a.m. to begin rocking – first period.  Our format is: play a song, introduce ourselves and invite questions, then alternate between song/questions/song until the class is over.  That means four songs in a 40-minute period.  The first set was a little rough, hard to rock the a.m. and coffee was just getting in to me.  Second set was better, there were keepers in it.  The students asked great questions, and seemed pretty amazed at just the sound of our instruments.  I know I hadn’t been to any shows when I was in 6th or 7th grade; I would have been blown away.  They requested AC/DC at an alarming rate, though, at least three out of the five classes, maybe four.

Ate school lunch after the third set, then finished out the day with #s four and five.  Loaded up inside an hour and hit the road for Doane.  I was listening to Guster’s new record on loan from Scott.  Load-in and set-up was kind of hectic.  Iris Ave. was playing and they sounded really tight, blending old songs and new, fresh out of Renee Studios in David City for their upcoming disc.

We got set and just played.  Think we started with “Astroblue” and didn’t stop, most of signs with “Wait, You’re Where?!”.  I’ll reiterate here that getting “Midnights & Tape Delays” out from the mothballs and realizing that it still matters made me pretty sad and upset and furious.  Ended with “Stop Walking” and I heard more voices than ours.  The set felt incredibly good, sounded good from where we were.  Folks were hanging around up close, on the steps, all about… I still can’t believe how many people were excited for h&s!  Weird and unexpected.  It’s the most… appreciated I’ve felt in a long time.  Another sign that we never know what ripples we’re sending out, or how we’re infecting the quantum field, or in what way paying it forward will return to us.  Call it karma / call it hope.  But thank you and LOVE!  -h