Mr. Ed

 

The first party, the one that kicked off a week long string of parties (because that's what happens when the 4th falls in the middle of the week) found the family at the edge of a horse pasture. It's amazing sometimes to think how rural the area is and how things like farms and lakes are just a stone's throw away from me.

We're finding ourselves at the age where more and more of the indie rock contingency are now parents themselves so a house party with some bands playing is much more kid-friendly than say a few years ago. Now, they start earlier and kids are in attendance but almost always there seems to be some music.

But before the music got going the kids got to feed some horses on the adjoining field. The were some real pretty horses. And their lips tickled your palm when you fed them. And the way their lips moved totally reminded me of Mr. Ed.

The famous Mr. Ed.

The Bickering Has Begun

 

I started off summer vacation really well.

First there was the matinee viewing of Surf's Up! A trip to the Museum of Life & Science and then a play date hike through the NC Botanical Gardens. I wanted to keep on my toes by keeping them on their toes so I made a list and have been consulting it.

Aside form these field trips, there has also been many games of Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Go Fish, playing catch, riding bikes and then there's always the pool.

But last weekend the whole tick bite thing threw me for a loop (plus I aslo think I may have a hernia but I'll save that for later). Because of the antibiotics I'm taking for the tick bite, my exposure to sun has been limited.

So this week, without the pool to fall back on, I had to dig deep for some other plans, preferrable of the non-paying variety. Also to be considered is that it has been pushing one hundred degrees in the shade here. So I took the boys to the mall (the small mall, not the big mall) and we browsed the hobby shop, books at the book store and sealed the deal with pizza at Alfredo's - they could possibly have the best pizza in the area.

Next day was the pet store, which is by the grocery store so we could kill two birds with one stone. Speaking of birds, the boys want a new pet. Should it be a bird? A lizard? Fish? These are the pressing questions you have to ask yourself. We also cat sat for our neighbors recently and so now Cole has a hankerin' for a kitten. But we already have a cat and she's an old lady so maybe it would be a good idea/maybe it would be a bad idea.

Yesterday I decided to take them to the Ackland Art Museum which is part of UNC but it was a bust (no pun intended there!): Spencer, unbeknownest to me, had recently gone there on a field trip with his class. And Cole didn't like it because it was too quiet. I was bummed because the second floor was closed down to install a new exhibit. So my planned "kill a couple of hours" scheme went belly up in about 30 minutes flat. I tried to rally the troops with yet again another slice of pizza, this time at the storied Pepper's Pizza on Franklin Street followed up by locally-made ice cream at the Maple View Farms store in Carrboro just across the street from Weaver Street Market (local co-op grocery store).

But today, I had nothing.

As a matter of fact, I totally forgot that it was Friday because it is the first weeekend that I haven't had to work since mid-April and the obvious fact that school is out so all my days blur together now. I barely remembered to take out the trash; it would have been ugly had I forgotten that because last Saturday my wife satisfied her blue crab jones for the first time this summer so crab shells had been festering in the can all week.

In hundred degree heat.

Phew. Glad I remembered.

The plan for today was to "record" the boys' band. You see this week I picked up the artwork for the CD my band is about to release and this spurred Spencer into prying into asking about how he could make his own CD. So I told him that my MacBook has GarageBand and that I could record them and then burn a CD.

This was a very bad idea.

Because for the last two days he has been badgering his brother to play their set so I can record it. But getting two boys - ages 4 and 7 - to do the same thing at the same time takes crucial planning. So for two days, if one boy wants to play, the other defiantly says no. I tried to explain that this interaction is very much like a real band but they just can't grasp the real world explanation.

Enter the bickering.

"Wanna play?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to!"
"Daaaaaaaaddddd!!!"

"Where's Spencer?" asked Cole.
"He's in his room," I said.
"I want to tell him something," he said.
"What?" I said.
"That he's not my brother anymore," he said.

Nice.

Then I tell Spencer he's has got to change his approach. Don't whine at your brother and demand him to play, but rather ask him if he wants to record or be on a CD or play rock star.

He had almost convinced him when Cole delivered the fatal blow: "I don't like your songs. Can we play something else?"

"Wh-Wha-Whaaaattttt?" said Spencer.
"But dad he said he was going to play," he said on the verge of tears.
"Welcome to the real world son," I said.
"Maybe you could ask him if he wants to play some of his songs?" I said.
"But I don't waaannnnnaaaa play his songs," said Spencer.
"Guess you got a problem," I said.

Quitting The Family Band*

“I quit the band,” he said.
“You quit?” I said. “But you can’t quit.”
“I quit dad,” said my 4-year-old son Spencer.

And then he left the room.

We had just launched into a skronk fest: He on mom’s trumpet, his 15-month-old brother on drums (or shall we say cymbal) and myself on bass.

As a stay-at-home-dad going on year four of my tour of duty, there are often times of the day when jam sessions occur. The instruments have always been lying about the homestead although I’m not quite sure how the band actually started.

Or why it stopped.

But I can tell you that it all pretty much began with Thin Lizzy. Before Spencer’s younger brother came along, I’d always force a trip to the record store when out running errands. If there’s one thing you learn when you become a parent, it’s that you have to steal back your personal time or it will quickly vanish in a haze of family duties. Oftentimes I’d duck into CD Alley on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill and browse. One day I bought Thin Lizzy’s classic Jailbreak. When we got back in the car, I slipped the disc into the CD player and off we went about the day’s business.

As the weeks passed, Spencer soon began to request Thin Lizzy. He loved the “Cowboy Song,” “The Boys Are Back In Town,” and “Emerald.” He would incessantly listen to this CD to the point where my wife wanted to ban it from the car. I quickly pointed out that it was better than listening to The Wiggles or Barney.

She agreed.

Once Jailbreak was worn out (with Spencer usually referring to the album-closer “Emerald” as the “fight the fight” song), on the next visit to the record store he asked if Thin Lizzy had any other records.

So I got him Black Rose (favorite songs: “Waiting For An Alibi,” “Get Out of Here”) and then Fighting (most requested: “Fighting”).

Before long his young, feeble mind couldn’t fathom the band pictures on the CDs and he yearned to see the men playing the songs he heard. So I bought him a DVD of Thin Lizzy live in Australia in 1978.

I think soon after watching that was when the family band started.

Sometime after the inaugural viewing Spencer started to strap on my guitar and began to mimic Gary Moore’s guitar licks. He’d stick the guitar pick in his mouth and clap his hands above his head to an imaginary crowd or jump up, spread his legs and then ape doing hammer-ons.

I quickly used his interest in music to capitalize on my own wanton needs. If Spencer liked listening to music and he liked watching music then that’s what we would do: There was Devo’s The Complete Truth About De-Evolution DVD. And Zeppelin. The Who’s The Kids Are Alright (which was a mistake because shortly after viewing Keith Moon play drums Spencer began to try an incorporate some of his more famous moves like playing with his feet or hitting the cymbals with his hands).

Not wanting to short change punk rock, I tossed in Black Flag live in Europe from 1948, Fugazi’s Instrument, Minor Threat live at DC Space, and even the first Turbonegro documentary. With songs about making pizzas, Spencer was instantly gratified by Turbonegro, although he wondered why they looked so creepy.

Devo won his over completely for the sole fact that I was able to explain that front man Mark Mothersbaugh was the guy “from Devo who does the theme song from Rocket Power.” Nickelodeon’s animated cartoon Rocket Power is set to a backdrop of skateboarding, surfing, and snowboarding and features a zine-making junior high girl named Reggie and her shredding little brother Otto.

It appeared that my son was on his way to a life of rock’n’roll. At first, he flirted with the drums, then the guitar, and then back to the drums. The guitar was fun because I’d plug the axe into my shitty Peavey amp and turn it up. He’d pull the mic stand over and started making up songs. I quickly learned to keep my Fostex X-14 four-track within arm’s reach for just such circumstances. Back on drums, my wife taught him the basic intro to Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” and again he was off and running in dreams of rock’n’roll grandeur.

Soon after, he discovered that other kids were into the rock. Like Rick Davis, son of local musician Ben Davis (formerly of Sleepytime Trio, Milemaker, Bats & Mice and now fronting Ben Davis and The Jets). Rick had a band and that band even had a name – The Take-A-Rides. Rick played his first gig at age four sandwiched between Bringerer and Merge Recording Artists’ The Rosebuds. According to Rick’s dad, he has since retired the name Take-A-Rides in favor of the Secret Sea Turtles. ‘He’s into heavy, slow music now,” explained Ben in an email.

The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months and soon I was living out Jack Black fantasies of School Of Rock proportions, teaching Spencer how to throw the goat and how to wield a mic like Iggy Pop. One day before I headed off to practice with my band the Chest Pains, he asked me if we were ever going to play live.

“Like on stage,” he said.
“Sure,” I replied.
But won’t you get nervous?” he asked
“Probably but that’s natural,” I said. “A lot of people get nervous – actors, athletes, musicians – before they perform,” I explained.
“Well, when you get to practice tell your friends you know the world’s greatest drummer,” he said.
“Who is that? Mom?” I said.
“No, me dad!” he said.

When my wife came home from work that one fateful night – the night my son quit the family band – I told her I had bad news.

“What’s that?” she asked.
“Spencer quit the family band,” I said.
“Dad!” hollered Spencer when he overheard the news.
“When I said ‘I quit’ I just meant that I was dome playing for the day,” he said wiggling his head and holding his hands up in the air flashing traces of the goombah I-talian bloodline he got my side of the family.

And so the band isn’t “officially” broken up yet, we’ll just call it on a hiatus.

*Versions of this essay appeared in Raleigh's The Hatchet and Australia's Monster Children