best compliment ever
so, yesterday, we’re playing at creation east festival 2008 and my wife, toni, is hidden away somewhere down amongst the various machinery that causes video images to appear on the enormous jumbo-tron. see, we typically have lyrics to the songs projected on the screen so the good people can sing along and she is the one who pushes the buttons that cause the lyrics to be the ones we’re actually singing rather than ones we are not singing. and she is good at this, since she knows the songs and all. in fact, if there is a mistake made and you hear me singing words that do not coincide with the ones projected forth from the screen you can count on it being me who is at fault as my mind is feeble and lends itself to forgetfulness occasionally. so, she is sitting there, pushing the buttons to make the words go forth and instructing the video director as to what is about to happen on stage so he can make sure a camera is pointing at the appropriate person, like, say, if a violin part is coming up, she would announce, “ok, there is a violin thing coming up,” so that when the violin thing is happening the screen is showing the violin, instead of, say, mike d looking for the guitar pick he just dropped or something. and this is useful, we think, the image of the action coinciding with the aural material. and, so, toni is punching buttons and giving cues when we arrive at the part of the song “you are my joy” where jack appropriates a guitar solo, as in a shredder, you know, finger tapping and such. so, toni announces, “guitar stage left” which means, “you should now show the guy playing the guitar solo.” instead, the image projected forth from the jumbo-tron is one mark waldrop who is, in fact, playing guitar, but is not “shredding” per say, and who is located stage right. and, so, toni reiterates, “guitar stage left”. the video director again speaks into his head-set-microphone-thing that is connected to one of the camera man’s headset-mic-thing, assumedly the camera man who is still steadily shooting one mark waldrop, who is still not shredding, per say, and the video director says, “guitar, stage left, he’s got the solo.” to which the camera man, still shooting non-shredding m.w., responds, “well, all of the guitar parts are in the programming anyway, they’re not even playing them, i mean, you can’t even tell who’s supposed to be doing what.”
toni, my wife, hears this, the statement made by the camera man who is still shooting m.w., the band member not lit up by the huge spot light shining from 100 yds away, while arguing his case, that he is not at fault, that in fact it is us, the band, who apparently don’t even play our guitars, that has made his job infinitely more difficult, you know, to locate the guy shredding with a spotlight shining on him. and, so, she, toni, responds. she turns to the director and says, “actually, none of the guitar parts are in the programming, in fact there isn’t even programming or click or anything on this song, they’re just, you know, playing.” the director feels awkward, since, obviously, he knows the camera guy has no idea that the guy-who-is-singing’s wife is overhearing him say such blasphemous things, all in the name of diversion and blame displacement. the video director meekly pushes his com button and says, “uh, they say that there aren’t any guitars in the programmed material and that actually there’s no programmed material at all in this song, it’s just them playing.” the blasphemous camera guy, who is now shooting the band member who used to be shredding and who used to have a spotlight on him, because of the shredding i’m guessing, but now does not, since the shredding part has come and gone, retorts, “they’re lying.”
this is awesome; the, “they’re lying,” part. it, surely, ranks as one of the most amazing compliments we, as a band, have ever received. it denotes that our musicianship is so mind-bogglingly fantastic that it endows us with the capacity to dupe camera men of average intelligence into concluding that what they are hearing can in no way be originating from live sources. and, so, camera man, we receive your words with open hearts. thank you, sir, whoever you are, and wherever you may be. may you live long, to shoot ever more incongruous imagery and shout ever more blatant ignorance through clear com channels near and far, to bring joy and laughter and small amounts of embarrassment to those in your proximity, to have stories of your reign passed down from generation to generation, forever and ever, amen.
all of this now causes me to recount the happy news that soon, yes very soon, we shall have our live dvd available, which, in fact, has a 3 hr bonus feature section full of captivating video instruction and detailed information from each band member as to how exactly we pull off our songs in a live setting and showing exactly how to play each guitar part and what effects we’re using on them and what exactly is in the programmed material. if only august were upon us, i could send it to this guy, our champion, that is if i were wanting to ruin the magic. but yeah, aug 19th. mark the calendar. i’ll let you know soon what the deal is with it and i will state now that i haven’t been this excited about a release of ours, ever. there is seriously so much music on it and the plan for the release is just ridiculous. i hope i can give you the news soon! until then, hopefully we’ll see you at one of these festivals or summer stops and you can try to figure out who’s playing what.
favorite comment: from
endoftheroadj "that was like the scene from a christmas story, where they are giving ralphie the code so that he could decode it via his decoder pin. it then turned out to be an advertisement for "crummy ole" ovaltine."
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