{"id":6307,"date":"2012-05-12T16:27:12","date_gmt":"2012-05-12T23:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=6307"},"modified":"2012-05-12T16:27:12","modified_gmt":"2012-05-12T23:27:12","slug":"breaking-bad-as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/12\/breaking-bad-as\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Badass"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Snap\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I snapped a string on stage last night. The Castaways<\/a> were playing Loverboy’s Working for the Weekend<\/a>. It’s a fun song to play, it’s fast and drives, and even though I don’t know how to do the fancy chord progression, I feel like I’m part of it because of the beat underneath. I was hammering on that D chord hard, fast, when the string went. It stung my wrist, sharp and fast, and surprised the hell out of me. The fretboard felt naked without the string there but I couldn’t quit right in the middle of the song. Apparently, I am a consummate professional because I literally did not miss a beat.<\/p>\n

When we were done, I leaned into to the mic and said “Can I tell you guys something? I broke a string.”<\/p>\n

Everyone in the room burst out laughing and howling and whooping. A lot of PG-13 jokes followed, references to virginity lost, and I confessed to the room of 30 or so people that “I was glad it happened like this, with all of you. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.” Then I skittered off stage to get the extra set of strings I had in my bag (see above under consummate professional!) while the boys carried on.<\/p>\n

I did a bad job replacing the string. In my hurry I used the wrong one, I did not wind it properly, and I had it tuned to the wrong key for the first two songs I played when I was back on stage. I have yet to walk away from a show feeling like I have played as well as I would have liked. In my nervousness at the front of the room my hands go to the wrong place or I can not hit the high notes. But while it’s a clumsy weird feeling, it’s also always hugely exciting. The mistakes I make share space in my head with the mad fun of playing live music.<\/p>\n

I joke, often, about my fast track school of rock. My lateness to live music, to being in a band, means that I want to do everything, now, to make up for not doing it when I was 22. I want to make calls from a phone booth while a tour bus idles at a truck stop. “Yeah, baby, I miss you too, just a few more weeks….” I joke about getting a regrettable tattoo and writing up a tour rider that includes perfectly ridiculous things like a requirement for organic strawberries dipped in 77% dark chocolate, no more, no less, I swear to god, is it so hard, it says on the label 50%, and that is not what I asked for did you read the contract? I joke about rehab and trashing hotel rooms and rumors of liaisons with professional athletes. I suppose I should want band drama, too, but I honestly, I’d prefer to skip that and stick with the comedic chemistry we have, the absurd email exchanges and rehearsal banter and onstage silliness.<\/p>\n

When I snapped that string and had to deal with the aftermath, I did not immediately think, “Oh, this is rock star material, right here, check this off the list.”\u00a0 I thought, “This is hilarious, this is possibly the funniest thing that has ever happened to me in public.” I joked about it for the rest of the night, about how it was like crossing the rock star equator, and now, I was going to have to get that regrettable tattoo. (I’m thinking an anarchist “A” because unlike what we said publicly, it was not the G string, but the A that snapped. A G string is inherently funnier, so I let the fiction stand.)<\/p>\n

Later that night, while we were breaking everything down, a few people asked me what was next, now that I’d broken a string.\u00a0 I said, again, without missing a beat, “I think I’ll set something on fire.”<\/p>\n

I might be joking. But after last night, I think, hey, it could happen.<\/p>\n

[Thanks, Barry, for the great picture.]<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I snapped a string on stage last night. The Castaways were playing Loverboy’s Working for the Weekend. It’s a fun song to play, it’s fast and drives, and even though I don’t know how to do the fancy chord progression, I feel like I’m part of it because of the beat underneath. I was hammering … <\/p>\n


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