I remember when I was in college I thought I didn't want to live past the age of 30. Anything worth knowing, thinking, doing could be done by then, I supposed.
Now that I am older than 30, I realize that I am the same person only with more experience. I had no wisdom, so I thought it worthless. But the years are only what I make them. If I become bored or boring it is my own fault. There is more than enough to do, to learn for one lifetime.
27 July 2012
18 July 2012
The Haunted Bank
A few nights ago I played a gig in Dubuque, IA with Ida Jo at The Bank Bar and Grill. A nice place with a nice sound system. I have played thousands of live shows in every imaginable venue and situation over the past 15 years - basements, back yards, concert halls and clubs - and never, NEVER have I experienced anything like what I am about to describe. I have no choice but to believe that it was not an ordinary acoustic phenomenon (like feedback) but a presence beyond what we are able to understand. AKA: a ghost.
During soundcheck the power turned on and off several times, inexplicably. When the power was on, it occasionally produce rhythmic thumping so loud that the sound engineer thought Ida was playing a drum loop (she was not). Then the power shut off, the thumping ceased. Then the power came back on. This happened three times.
Near the end of soundcheck there was the most piercing, shuddering bout of feedback I have heard in 15 years of playing live. Most feedback is of one frequency. Very high, very low, or somewhere in between. But this feedback was everything. It was high and it was low and it was in between. It made my heart race and the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Like I said, I have never heard feedback like that.
During our first few songs, there was an odd low howling that sounded somewhat like ringing feedback but didn't act the same. Sometimes it cut off abruptly, and sometimes it would ring on despite both Ida and I holding our instruments still.
Most eerie of all was what occurred when we played Ida's new song "Wham!" The chorus of the song includes the lyrics "Wham! like a shotgun." Upon the first singing of these lyrics, there was a loud howl in the speakers, so loud that Ida stopped singing the song, shocked. She looked back at me with a disconcerted look on her face. I played on. We continued with the second verse, and when she sang the lyrics again in the second chorus, the howl again. Ida stopped and couldn't continue with the song.
I have experienced feedback in many forms, none of it sounded like what I heard that night.
During soundcheck the power turned on and off several times, inexplicably. When the power was on, it occasionally produce rhythmic thumping so loud that the sound engineer thought Ida was playing a drum loop (she was not). Then the power shut off, the thumping ceased. Then the power came back on. This happened three times.
Near the end of soundcheck there was the most piercing, shuddering bout of feedback I have heard in 15 years of playing live. Most feedback is of one frequency. Very high, very low, or somewhere in between. But this feedback was everything. It was high and it was low and it was in between. It made my heart race and the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Like I said, I have never heard feedback like that.
During our first few songs, there was an odd low howling that sounded somewhat like ringing feedback but didn't act the same. Sometimes it cut off abruptly, and sometimes it would ring on despite both Ida and I holding our instruments still.
Most eerie of all was what occurred when we played Ida's new song "Wham!" The chorus of the song includes the lyrics "Wham! like a shotgun." Upon the first singing of these lyrics, there was a loud howl in the speakers, so loud that Ida stopped singing the song, shocked. She looked back at me with a disconcerted look on her face. I played on. We continued with the second verse, and when she sang the lyrics again in the second chorus, the howl again. Ida stopped and couldn't continue with the song.
I have experienced feedback in many forms, none of it sounded like what I heard that night.
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