Urban Landscape In December

Sometimes walking through the streets of the city, I see all the faces of the winners and the losers. That was one of many thoughts I had walking through the hustle and bustle of Chicago this weekend. I had quite an interesting and long weekend.

Besides travel time I spent pretty much my entire weekend in Chicago, and for being a city I have lived less than an hour away from for almost 20 years of my life it is still much a mystery to me. I more I learn about Chicago, the more I learn how little I had known/understood of the city. I was in Andersonville, Wicker Park, Logan Square, and Humboldt Park over the course of this weekend. Five days ago if you asked me if I had ever been to these areas of Chicago I would have said no, but I actually had been to all of them or the vicinity of all those areas before and didn't know it until I was in these areas again this weekend, and realized I had been there before and I've even played shows in Wicker Park and i didn't even know that. My ignorance of the city astounds me. That ignorance has gotten me thinking about what else am I ignorant about and don't know, and it's almost a scary thing to think. I am ignorant and don't know it? It's almost something not even to think about, or I don't know how to go about thinking about it. How do you know you're ignorant until you've been presented with information/facts/news that confirms your ignorance. I almost see it as enlightening because now I feel more perceptive about my surroundings and is making me think I need to open up even more to try and make myself educated and well-rounded. I will get back to ignorance...

All and all is was good weekend. I hung out with a new friend of mine in Andersonville and had a lot of fun. Saturday night was the first time I got together with Ben Joyce and his band whom I'm going to be recording drums for in less than two weeks on his album. I got a little out of my shell though at a couple points during the weekend and was a little un-Billish. Usually I tend not to say or do much around people, which causes people to think I'm disinterested in whatever it is going on. This weekend I was trying to impress my new friend and come off as a cool guy, and then I was also trying to impress Ben Joyce and his band and come off as a cool drummer. Thinking about how I normally come off and am normally introverted, I did not want to seem or come off as disinterested or disinteresting to my friend or the band. My problem in thinking was I was trying not to be myself to impress others this weekend, when I got to where I was this weekend by being myself. I kind of stabbed myself in the back, and I hope didn't do any long term damage. I was hanging with my friend, and at first I was like really kind of intense and like hyper or something, I don't know I can't even describe it, but I wasn't being me and I was probably being annoying. I finally just stopped trying to act cool and just stopped overanalyzing my behavior and I got a lot more comfortable and finally like went back to myself, and then continued to have a really good time hanging out. He was a really cool guy, and I really hope to hang out again, but I just hope I didn't annoy him to death and I was interesting enough to hang out with again.

After hanging out with my friend I had my first full-band practice with Ben Joyce and his band. I was kind of nervous because I got hired on as his studio drummer to record his album, so I was still in a position that if things didn't go well in these first practices that I could be replaced. I was really out to impress, which might not have been a really good idea. When we started to practice I went guns blazing, I was playing like Keith Moon, I was all over the place and doing a lot more drum fills than the music called for. I had auditioned some of these songs and in the audition I played more of a groove/jazz style and didn't do a lot of fills and played the beat, but for some reason I abandoned that in practice and went to a more wild and free-form style, and I could tell things just weren't clicking. After a few songs, I had gotten more comfortable with the guys and the songs and went back to a groove based style and then everything started to click and really started to groove. I still don't know how they really feel about me as a drummer, and for me it is kind of a weird situation because I'm use to playing in and forming bands with friends. Being like a hired hand, an auditioned musician as it were, it makes it seem more professionally and not as foot loose and fancy free. It's something I'm still getting used to, but they did like me enough to ask me to join the band permanently as their drummer and play with them beyond the recording sessions. So that made me think, I at least did something right. Ben Joyce already has a news years gig booked in downtown Chicago, so that's cool and maybe I'm just over-thinking everything. It was a very surreal weekend, and I hope is start for good things to come in the future. With new years around the corner, I just have this feeling like maybe I'm turning some corner in my life and I'm entering a new, beatiful, and cool world. So we'll just see what happens.