Wednesday, March 26, 2014

My Musical History, Episode 6: Ground Zero and The Krayons

Zoning Chinchilla may have been over, but I was definitely not done playing in bands. In fact, I was just getting started.

Soon after that last ill-fated dorm banquet performance, I found myself in a new lineup with two former ZC members (the guitarist and the guitarist-turned-bassist), a new singer, and a new drummer. One thing that we all had in common was a fondness for metal - thrash metal, not the hairspray stuff that ZC had been playing. As I mentioned before, I basically started playing the guitar because of bands like Metallica and Megadeth.
Not Ground Zero
So, this new group - dubbed Ground Zero - threw together some metal covers and a few originals, and then got right back out on the gig circuit. We hit up most of the places that ZC had previously plundered (Jazz Cellar, C-5) and basically had a pretty good time, which is hard not to do when you're cranking out thrash classics like Four Horsemen and Tornado of Souls. We even managed to record a cassette demo of our three originals, which I'm pretty sure is lying around somewhere in my house.

Ground Zero didn't last very long, however. After a few metal-filled months, I found myself back at square one. Deciding to try yet another direction - isn't experimenting fun? - I recruited the former Ground Zero/ZC/R.F.H. guitarist (remember when it seemed like our playing relationship wasn't going to work out?) and formed a duo called The Krayons. The idea was that we were going to minimize the potential for drama and error by performing with pre-recorded bass and drum tracks that I would make in my bedroom with our own bass, a Roland drum machine, and a four-track. Oh, and I would also - gasp - take over the lead vocal duties.

It seemed like a good idea. Armed with a new set of more alt-rockish covers and originals (think R.E.M. and The Cure), we played our first show at a shopping mall (I know, I know) and got a pretty decent response. A few weeks later, we even ended up opening for The Krush, a band that was quite popular in Hawaii back in the day. Who knows, maybe we got the gig because of our similarly misspelled names, but nevertheless, it was still pretty cool.

Something just didn't feel right, though. Eventually, I had to concede that rock music - at least the way I wanted to play it - just wasn't rock music without an actual living, breathing rhythm section, even with all the potential for conflict that comes with it. So with that in mind, we scrapped the pre-recorded tracks and set out to find (insert resigned sigh here) a real bassist* and a real drummer. I didn't know it at the time, but that search would eventually lead to some of my most awesome and memorable musical experiences to date.

Next: The Start Of Something Big?

* Or, at least, a real guitarist who we could con force trick talk into playing the bass

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Scientific Evidence That Spectraland Is Real?

As all of you know, there is a scene in Book One - on pages 142 and 143, to be precise - where Joel, Felicity and Marshall face off against a creature that resembles a "cross between a tyrannosaurus rex and a chicken." It has a feathered head and body, big sharp claws, and is very large: "(it) filled up the passageway with its tremendous height and girth."

And now, scientists have announced the discovery of a dinosaur that they have dubbed the "Chicken From Hell." If you will notice, the description of this prehistoric beast sounds a lot like our rooster-saur from Book One:

"Or you could characterize it, as Lamanna also told CNN, as a 600-pound cross between an ostrich and a velociraptor..."You might think this was a really, really weird-looking bird," Lamanna said. "... But, in fact, this was a very bird-like dinosaur ... with a really long bony tail, very large hands and really sharp claws."...the 11½-foot-long, roughly 10-foot-tall Anzu wyliei had a bird-like beak and apparent feathers." 
"Hey, that one will probably fit in the Caves of Wrath"
How about that, huh? Remember that Book One came out in July 2012, nearly two years before this announcement. Even though the fossils of this dinosaur had been dug up a while ago, the official unveiling only happened yesterday, and I solemnly swear that I had no idea about this until today.

Now, I will make the official declaration here that Spectraland is not prehistoric Earth. But, we do know that Wavemakers have been capable of bringing beings over from Earth to Spectraland, like they did with Marshall, so perhaps the ancient shamans who wanted to protect the Songshell imported this fine creature to the island. After all, as Marshall said: "Someone left it here as a guard." Seems like more than an uncanny coincidence, hmm? Something to think about...

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Spectraland Q&A

Today, in this blog post, I'm going to answer some of your questions about Book One. This post is a super-special, direct-from-the-author event that is so exclusive, it will self-destruct ten seconds after you finish reading it!*

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS. BUT YOU'VE ALREADY READ BOOK ONE ANYWAY, RIGHT?

Q: Is that Fireflower on the new back cover?

No Marshall, she is not amused

A: It's a fairly accurate representation of her, yes. Some readers were a bit surprised to learn that the villagers of Spectraland looked more like regular people than, say, the Tharks of John Carter lore, but as Joel pointed out on page 27, they're "like Poison Ivy" - the Batman character, not the plant itself.

Q: What is Joel's birthday?

For the record, it's July 17, which - coincidentally, I swear - was the official release date of Book One.

Q: Is Felicity older than Joel? And what's the deal with her scorpion tattoos?

Yes, she is older than him - eighteen to Joel's sixteen, to be more precise. On page 31, she's described as a "teenage Earth girl," and on page 163, she mentions having "graduated" - although, I admit, she didn't specify what she graduated from (she meant high school).

Her scorpion tattoos, one on each shoulder, are a tribute to her deceased parents, who were both Scorpios.

Q: So what really happens at the end, in the epilogue? It doesn't seem like a happy ending.

After Joel gets back to Earth, he starts up a band called "Joel Suzuki and the Wavemakers." They book their first show at a small Seattle club, where Julio sees their flyer taped to the window. The two boys that Julio sees by the overheated Mustang are Mitch (the bully that broke Joel's guitar by running it over with that same Mustang - see page 4) and his friend. The CD that Julio finds on the ground under a landscaping bush is the CD that Art burned Joel's song onto (see page 16), which rolled away after Joel dropped it (page 19). Julio wouldn't have found the CD if he hadn't crossed the street to avoid Mitch and his friend. Julio is blown away by the song, and the idea is that there's a good chance that Joel and his band will now get a recording contract and become rock stars - ironically, after Joel figured out that he can be happy without being a famous and successful musician.

I admit that it's a bit open-ended and subject to interpretation, but remember - it's a series. And speaking of which...

Q: When the heck is Book Two coming out??

I'll have some cool news about that soon. Stay tuned...

* the post will actually not self-destruct

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

My Musical History, Episode 5: It's A Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll

Fresh off our successful dorm banquet show, we thought, "hey, this is easy." Or maybe we didn't. I can't remember. Either way, as it turns out, it wasn't.

At that point, we had enough momentum and enthusiasm to secure another gig at a school function being held at Andrews Amphitheater, which is this sweet outdoor venue located on campus. Pearl Jam even played there. In preparation, we expanded our set list to include more hair metal ("Nothin' But A Good Time" by Poison - yes, really) as well as some actual cool material ("Rough Night In Jericho" by Dreams So Real - check it out).

Andrews Amphitheater
The show itself, however, didn't go so well. There were P.A. problems and the energy just wasn't there. The mid-afternoon time slot was probably partly to blame, but watching a tape of the show afterwards, we realized that if we wanted to take this thing to the next level, changes would have to be made. Personnel changes. (cue ominous music)

Bands are like relationships. Heck, they are relationships. And breaking up with someone is never easy to do.* But that's probably a topic for a future post of its own. ANYWAY, we cycled through a bunch of potential bandmates until we settled into a lineup that featured a new singer and a new bassist - who, unbeknownst to us at the time, was actually a guitar player who hadn't touched a bass in years (he replaced another guitar player who was moonlighting on bass, who had replaced another guitar player that we had talked into playing bass. Remember, no one starts out actually wanting to play the bass).

With this lineup, we wrote new original material and managed to book a show at (cue fanfare) the Campus Center, which, just a few short years prior, was a place that we had fantasized about playing at with the legendary R.F.H. And if that wasn't enough, we then went on to play a show at the Jazz Cellar, which was a popular hard rock and metal club in the middle of Waikiki. We even got our name mentioned on the radio as part of a "which of these band names isn't real?" segment (remember, our name was Zoning Chinchilla).

So at that point, we thought we were really on to something. But after playing a bunch of gigs around town (including a memorable one at the infamous C-5 on Hotel Street, which is a whole 'nother story), things just started to peter out. Tensions within the band rose. We thought about personnel changes once again. Eventually, we came full circle by playing a show at another dorm banquet - this time, to decidedly lackluster response. That was Zoning Chinchilla's final performance.

Next: Ground Zero and The Krayons

* until you do it enough times