Your Blood Destroyer

"Goddamnit!" was the first real word/feeling that I said/experienced as I randomly shot out of bed at 8:20 this morning, already over an hour late for work. I hustled and made it out my door and in Stella's door about 20 minutes into my day (though I didn't pause to check the time, which would have been counter-productive). Oh, but a nice little touch from God or the Universe or some dead hippy was when I opened my computer. See, my phone was kind of not working properly last night. When I got home, it was completely off and wouldn't turn back on for a while. Maybe this is because I keep it filled to the very brim with music. Anyhow, I needed to see something that would tell me that I just barely overslept, and my alarm clock was 10 feet farther from me, so I checked the clock on my computer. My heart did a kind of leap when the clock read 7:29, but cravity quickly reminded my little heart that the leap it took was off a cliff, so it then dove straight into the ground.
I really don't get it. I mean, I wasn't particularly drunk or tired when I went to bed. Sure, I wasn't sober, and sure, it took me just under three songs to fall asleep (the last three off From Here To Infirmary, so maybe that means I was tired).
Oh, so about Denver:
Actually, first, about the band:
The other night I learned how to play "Where Did Our Love Go" by The Supremes. It's a great song and it's really easy and I thought it'd be cool to do as a punk band. So far so good. So I bring the idea to practice. Well, it was a kind of pre-practice thing we did before picking up our drummer and going to the practice space. There we are, sitting in Jimi's living room holding guitars, and I pitch the idea. Here are two reactions, of which I expected one of:
1) "No, that song sucks, and I am ethically opposed to covering someone else's music."
2) "Yes, that's a great idea. It'd be a lot of fun to play a song that won't be expected from us."
Instead, I got a weird kind of variation of the two, sort of. The response I get is, essentially, a list of punk bands who have covered songs outside of their genre. Because a human being with even the slightest interest in music is aware that nearly every band, ever, has covered a song that didn't correspond to said band's exact sound, the only reason I can fathom that would elicit such a response is as justification. If this is the case, then I am at a complete loss for how this band is going to carry on. I mean, I understand... huh. I walked away from the computer for a second after writing "I understand," and I have no idea what I possibly could have understood.
In my understanding, the idea of "punk rock" is partially the sound and partially the attitude (and partially the attitude reflecting itself in the sound). That said, should my new band be thrown in the punk rock sub-genre of "subservient punk"? Maybe it's just conjecture and I'm actually completely wrong and my logic is twisted, but I don't think Joe Strummer consulted his list of punk rock forefathers in search of a green light to permit him to cover "I Fought the Law." I also don't think the Rolling Stones or the White Stripes thought twice before covering "Stop Breaking Down," and I don't think that justification was needed for Alkaline Trio to cover "Bye Bye Love."
This whole thing is kind of sickening. I mean, the impression I'm getting is that I'm starting a band that should not stray from NOFX's formula... but I'm not in NOFX. How does that make sense? It'd be like Stella forcing me to follow Starbucks policies.
I'm thinking I should draft a sort of business model detailing what I want out of my band.
Huh. Something about that line, "I want out of my band" makes sense. I don't, though. I'll use the band as a structure to keep myself making music, to get the ball rolling, so I don't get lazy. I need to get these six songs out of my head and onto a four-track before I lose the will to write anything after.
Anyhow, about Denver: I know I've been so back and forth lately. The band was promising and then reality settled in and it lost the brief hopefulness of really being on to something. And now I'm seeing how hard it is to change under the confines of past hobbies and preconceptions others have of me. And maybe that's cowardly or pathetic, but you I dare you to try and tell Sam that you will, under no circumstance, eat the steak tacos he insists on buying and that, if he knows what's good for him, he better buy me a vegetarian taco. Oh, and if you explain this to Sam, he has to be blind drunk. Yeah, give it a try. I still don't know how it clicked in his head and he didn't order me steak.
I know I'm getting terribly off track, but I smoked some cigarettes the past two nights. I still feel like hell because my lungs just aren't quite right these past two weeks, so that's good.