Understudies
I overslept today, quite badly. I was woken at about 6am, by the sudden, very belated arrival of the Red Dragon. Then, when I woke, I remember feeling quite pleasantly refreshed. Lay in bed waiting for the alarm to go off, and then, when it didn't, after a somewhat considerable amount of time, I looked at the clock to discover it was 10. Cue mad rush to get showered and out the door to work.
{Fermat's Femmes} are currently reshuffling and rescheduling shows. Some we may have to do with an abbreviated lineup, others we have to cancel outright. Someone suggested we draft in an understudy for those performances which one or the other of us can't make. (This is not the first time that such suggestions have been made.) Now, immediately several objections were raised to this.
Personally, I like the idea of understudies. Partly, I like the idea because of the theatrical associations, the stalwart of every rags to riches musical ever written. And partly, obviously, because I like the flexibility such an arrangement would offer us.
I mean, that's what people get for having pesky work and social lives that interfere with the band! I don't have a life, grr, etc. so why should anyone else be allowed to have one? Well, whatever, I immediately booked off two weekends in August to see the new TSM Go To Marfa To Look For UFOs movie and to go to the Palmipsest Festival in Cambridge with Rhys and Chris from City17.
The argument against understudies is that this band is as much about the personalities of the performers as the songs, and that we are *not* an interchangeable band of interchangeable girls. (Though this argument is somehow disregarded when I argue that I don't want us in matching outfits.)
However, I don't know... I'd been thinking quite a lot lately about getting an understudy - or, even, a replacement. When I start to feel discontented with this band, and my role in it. When I start to feel superfluous or forced out of the public faces of the band (the MySpace, the blog) - like no one is the slightest bit interested in reading my meanderings if it's just me, and not {Fermats Femmes}. And then I think it would be GRATE to train someone else to sing my bits, and record all of my guitar and electronic bits and mix them down into iTunes, and just get to turn up with the audience and watch my band from the floor. Or retire from live performance like Brian Wilson and spend the evening in bed eating ice cream instead.
Retire, become the eminence gris everyone accuses me of being. Less stress, less hassle, and who would even notice (let alone complain) if I were gone, replaced with a younger, prettier, more tractable girl?
{Fermat's Femmes} are currently reshuffling and rescheduling shows. Some we may have to do with an abbreviated lineup, others we have to cancel outright. Someone suggested we draft in an understudy for those performances which one or the other of us can't make. (This is not the first time that such suggestions have been made.) Now, immediately several objections were raised to this.
Personally, I like the idea of understudies. Partly, I like the idea because of the theatrical associations, the stalwart of every rags to riches musical ever written. And partly, obviously, because I like the flexibility such an arrangement would offer us.
I mean, that's what people get for having pesky work and social lives that interfere with the band! I don't have a life, grr, etc. so why should anyone else be allowed to have one? Well, whatever, I immediately booked off two weekends in August to see the new TSM Go To Marfa To Look For UFOs movie and to go to the Palmipsest Festival in Cambridge with Rhys and Chris from City17.
The argument against understudies is that this band is as much about the personalities of the performers as the songs, and that we are *not* an interchangeable band of interchangeable girls. (Though this argument is somehow disregarded when I argue that I don't want us in matching outfits.)
However, I don't know... I'd been thinking quite a lot lately about getting an understudy - or, even, a replacement. When I start to feel discontented with this band, and my role in it. When I start to feel superfluous or forced out of the public faces of the band (the MySpace, the blog) - like no one is the slightest bit interested in reading my meanderings if it's just me, and not {Fermats Femmes}. And then I think it would be GRATE to train someone else to sing my bits, and record all of my guitar and electronic bits and mix them down into iTunes, and just get to turn up with the audience and watch my band from the floor. Or retire from live performance like Brian Wilson and spend the evening in bed eating ice cream instead.
Retire, become the eminence gris everyone accuses me of being. Less stress, less hassle, and who would even notice (let alone complain) if I were gone, replaced with a younger, prettier, more tractable girl?
posted by Masonic Boom | 3:18 pm
10 Comments:
Well, there is an argument that could be made in the who-gets-drummer-from-audience vein of your fans being able to step on stage and participate, creating an environment of cross-collaboration etc etc.
And it was fun to be the understudy during soundcheck.
As long as I've seen the band I've been struck by how badly served you are whenever you're attempting to be a four-band, you've always seemed a three-plus-one-band (or one-plus-three depending) and seemed happiest that way. (Also isn't "matching outfits" the sort of language your bandmates would see as flat-out offensive? Isn't that one of the reasons you asked them to be in your band in the first place?)
Argh the first half of my comment was eaten! Here it is:
I don't think that you're being forced out of the public face of the band, it's not like you're being cut out of the photos or anything. In fact, the reason I think the recent photos are your best so far is that you look like you've decided "No, I don't want to wear clothes attuned to the others, but I can still kick ass!".
I really wish you'd stop trying to speak for other people, Andrew, and not tell me what my bandmates do or don't find offensive in terms of language.
Er, the opinions expressed are only my own. Who do you think I was trying to speak for?
Also isn't "matching outfits" the sort of language your bandmates would see as flat-out offensive?
Well having seen the offense your bandmates took at being told they wear matching outfits, it's my opinion that they find it offensive.
(I was sort of hoping you'd focus more on the bits where I was being supportive. Or is now not the time for that? Now is the time.. for WAR!)
The phrase that one of them took offense to was "individuality being subsumed into matchy matchy hell" which is, I think you'll find slightly different, both in meaning and in connotation than the phrase "matching outfits".
Oh, and was your post supposed to be supportive? Because it just seemed to be reinforcing the underlying tension between 3/4 of the band and 1/4 of the band. (Who already feels useless enough onstage.)
...and discussing this actually makes me feel worse, rather than better, so I'm going to stop now.
I am looking forward to it immensely. I saw on the flyer thing that you would be DJ-ing. Hurrah!
My mother is despairing. She keeps moaning "you're going to become a folkie, just like your dad, aren't you?!?!?"
My dad, though, doesn't like "freakfolk" because of the nasty squarewaves.
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