Joe Vampire

POST 14



Tuning In and Tuning Out



Music has always been a big thing for me – listening, playing, collecting. Everything, really. I’m never without tunes, even if it’s just sounds running through my head. After I discovered telepathy in my bag of vampire tricks, earbuds became a sure way to block the thought-noise I was picking up. Imagine listening to the inane stream-of-consciousness ramblings of everyone you pass, from their to-do list to their love troubles to how they like their frappuccino. Sure, it’s a fun little game to freak people out by speaking their minds for them, but the rest of the time, it’s better if you can be selective about what you hear coming out of their heads. So I keep my iPod handy at all times. I’m not trying to be rude by tuning everyone out or anything. Strange as it sounds, it’s just easier to hear my own thoughts with a little Nine Inch Nails piped into my ears, or Sinatra, maybe. Even Tchaikovsky or Bach. Yeah, I know who those dudes are, too. My playlist is diverse by design. I’ll listen to just about anything if it thumps right, or shreds raucously, or the melody is sweet enough. But rarely ever do I listen to my own band’s stuff.

The music of Vomiting Nonsense is not among my favorite.

I wish I liked our tunes more, and maybe I would if I had a little more input on the direction the music was taking. Things were much more even when we started out, when we all had a common vision for what the sound would be. We’re a laptop band making electronic music; there are a million possibilities for something like that. So I know I didn’t vote for Instrumental Industrial Sleaze Trance when it came up on the ballot. Not to sound snobbish, but my playing tends toward a more free-flowing melodic sensibility. I don’t try for it; it just comes out when my fingers hit the keys. But that doesn’t serve any purpose in Vomiting Nonsense, because our songs have no melody. And almost no structure.

They can only be considered “music” by the most marginal definition of the word.

I am so down with modern electronic music and atmospheric dream worlds that creative folk everywhere are coming up with. But our music is not anything like that. And it’s not for lack of talent… for two of us, at least. Hube has a nifty flair for smashing together multiple opposing rhythms and coming up with some mad beats to hold everything up. I put in some slinky funk over top of that, which really limits my contribution to about three notes per song at this point. Between the two of us, we set up a mighty righteous groove. Then Lazer gets his ham-fisted mitts on it, puts all kinds of crap over top of what Hube and I have laid down – eerie, inappropriate machine noises, ghostly electrified voices, human barking, orgasm sounds – and shits it all up without even trying, really. Overall, it becomes a mess, yet it lends a qualifying sense of truth to the band’s name. His knack for taking the beginnings of a great idea and turning them into looped, squawky dreck with a few clicks of a wireless mouse is almost awe-inspiring. By the end, he’s overridden nearly all of our input and thinks he’s created a masterpiece. And we let him, if only because he has a better synth rack and studio set up than we do. Somehow, this has also given him the deciding vote in the look of the band, which does no one here any favors. Safe to say leather pants don’t belong on anyone over the age of twenty five.

Or who weighs more than one hundred and twenty pounds.

To his credit, he has also leveraged his massive Facebook presence to garner a fairly regular following for VN, though they aren’t the most savory of individuals. But they make loyal appearances at the shows, and they all pay admission when necessary, buying up our t-shirts and scuzzy memorabilia like it’s the rage. So if we only split the door, at least there’s door to be split. And if the promise of free glow-in-the-dark condoms and silicone logo wristbands as giveaways keeps them coming, then it’s worth it to have an audience to hear us play our crappy tunes. Someday, though, I’d like to do more with my music.

Sadly, this is enough for now.

Hube has talked recently about saving funds for a return to college, to study music this time since his BA in Pre-Columbian South American Pottery hasn’t made his dreams come true like he thought it would. He wants me to do it, too, and I definitely would have been open to it if the vampire thing hadn’t cropped up. Seems there are a lot of things that This has moved to the back burner. I would rather that music not become one of them. I’ve always been more creative than calculational, and there will be no fulfillment for me in finance. Eventually, liking my co-workers and having a benefits package isn’t going to be enough to keep me in my job. So maybe Hube’s educational renaissance will prompt me to jump back into university life as well. Although at mid-thirtysomething – or later by the time the piggy has enough coin in his belly – starting anything new is a challenge, especially when it involves placing yourself among people younger, smarter and hipper than yourself. And a vampire diving into a sea of kids raised thinking the Nightfall books are some sort of historical text for vampire life doesn’t sound like such a swell idea. But the music study thing does.

So we’ll see.

What musical drive is left over after my enormous and ultimately futile contribution to Vomiting Nonsense I dump into my own compositions. They’re not very complete; some go on for about nine minutes and end up as sort of solo jam sessions. I think of it as the musical version of doodling, something to keep my hands busy while my mind drops to zero for a while. But now that I’ve got the vampire in me and everything has changed a little, the music in me is different, too. It’s gone from tuneful and pop-ish to almost gothic and downright classical. Chamber melodies fall out of me like some kind of Symphony for the Changed – darker than I’d like them to be, and way more pretentious. But pretty, too… tunes I’d imagine Chloe would like, if I ever worked up enough chutzpah to play something for her. It might never happen, though. In fact, depending on how This progresses, none of my music might ever hear the light of day. I try not to dwell on it, but I have this horrible image in my head of me being hunched over some decrepit piano in a dungeon somewhere, plinking away in misery, the lonely vampire composing somber ballads and pining for his lost humanity as he pours what’s left of his soul into his depressing music.

That just doesn’t sound right, though.

I think I have Dracula confused with the Phantom of the Opera.

Still, I’d love to be motivated enough to do something specific with them. At the moment, though, I’m just Vomiting Nonsense – literally, figuratively.

Perpetually.

Our next gig is coming up quickly, so we’ve been practicing every night. Since I rarely sleep anymore, it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. Lazer keeps talking about taking things to the next level. What would be the level above porn soundtrack for masturbating robots, I wonder? Probably everything. He may not be the best judge of where to take our music, but whatever he’s got planned I’m sure it’ll be noteworthy at the very least.

So maybe some of you will be intrigued enough to make it to our concert. If I thought it would lend perspective, I’d post a link to our band page so you could listen to some samples and let you see what you might be getting yourself in for. But I’m guessing that would only drive away potential audience members. Plus: it’s on My Space, so I’m pretty sure you can’t even get to it anymore. (No offense, JT; you’re still the bomb.)

I will keep you updated on the gig as details unfold.