Every Friday, junior year of high school, I drove straight home at three o’clock after a week of class, rehearsals, practices and nagging teachers. As soon as I turned the lock on the kitchen door, my dog would go nuclear and practically piss herself with anticipation of, well, going to the bathroom. I grabbed her leash, tossed my bag on the counter, and ran her around the block as fast as I could.
Coco inside, water-bowl filled, money in my pocket? Check, check and check. Diving back into the car, I blasted the radio and drove north on I-87. Usually, the traffic would back up miles before the Tapan Zee bridge and I’d have time to review whatever I was supposed to have practiced the week before – A Nirvana tune, a Chilli Peppers tune, a Police tune.
Finally, head bouncing with anticipation, I drove down my drum teacher's driveway, grabbed my sticks off the passenger seat and headed into his basement. The smell of stale cigarettes still comforts me years later. We would sit side by side, striking a drum pad to a metronome, perfecting technique and warming up for the main event: playing the kit along to rock and roll. His drums were loud and obnoxious and he had me playing with tree trunks to get all the power I could out of them.
Our lesson was supposed to last an hour but I usually stayed for two or three. He’d show me more tracks to learn and beats to play; we’d talk about drumming philosophy and try to justify our mutual obsession with the instrument.
Around six or seven o’clock, I would drive home with no traffic. The drive home only took about forty-five minutes. Anything I put in the CD player sounded amazing after my musical neurons had been ignited all afternoon but one time, the amazing happened. I started “Dark Side of the Moon” in my teacher’s driveway and as the closing heartbeat faded away, I pulled into my own driveway. I couldn’t move for a half hour. It was as though my life was choreographed and had an amazing soundtrack and all I had to do was keep playing, keep drumming and keep studying music.
Fast forward nine years and we are standing in the doorway of my apartment after our last show. It had been raining to that Eeyore point where everything indoors was damp and moldy. Any person you spoke to was wet, tired and grouchy. And the gig? The stage monitors were lousy (venue’s fault), I brought the wrong snare drum (my fault), and the room had barely enough people to cover the club’s overhead. You have to laugh as you say it out loud: We made $5.00 from the door that night. Our lead singer almost missed the show and I played like shit for no discernable reason. It was a rough night to say the least.
In love.
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