The Null Device Blog

I’m currently in the “backstage” area at The Shrunken Head in Columbus Ohio.  Nice bar.  Tasty schnitzel.  I ate some massive slab of breaded cutlet smothered in onions and bacon earlier.  It was good.  I’m full.

It’s been a long day.  Yesterday was a long day.  We rolled out of the Chicagoland area at a reasonable time, and caught up with TDC at Dekalb.  From there it was a straight-ish shot to Davenport/QuadCities.   We took a brief detour to get gas, and it turned out to be one of those kinds of “turn here for gas” signs that really means “turn here then drive 5 miles to some tiny cluster of buildings with a Conoco that sells gas, pizza, ice cream, and is the social hub of some rural burg.”  A little out of the way.  But we got back on track and had plenty of time to spare getting into IA.  Kari was there to meet us, and took us to where she and her friend Ed were barbequing kabobs for us.

Oh, man.  Home-cooked food, even after a mere few days on the road, is such a luxurious item.

We got to Lumpy’s, deeply deeply amused at both the fact that the sign over the door read “Lumpy’s Rear Entrance”, and it was across the street from a bar called “McButt’s.”  Naturally we had to take pictures.

The sound guys, Gordon and Leif, were consummate pros.  Really good.  REALLY good.  Turnout was unfortunately light, but the few people that did show up were probably more enthusiastic than any crowd we’d had in years.  Whooping it up, dancing vigorously, and most importantly buying a LOT of merch.  Everyone was really exuberant, glad to talk to us, wanting to know what on earth we were doing in Iowa, etc.  I get the impression that shows like ND/TDC don’t roll through often, so when they do, the kind of people that like them make sure to show support.  It was pretty great in that respect.

After teardown we headed back to Kari’s, arranged all manner of camp beds and mattresses on the floor, and slept.  I snored again, causing Mercy to think somebody was dragging something heavy through the parking lot.

Way, way, way too freaking early we were up again.  In order to get to Columbus in a reasonable amount of time, we were on the road by 7:30, which is pretty butt-early especially when you didn’t get in until after 1.

It was a long drive.  Elizabeth and I handled it, chatting vigorously about random subjects.  In Indianapolis we decided we were starving, and wanting to have the Total Band Experience™ we stopped at a Waffle House.  Oh the food was kind of lousy, as expected, but dammit, we’re a band and we’re eating at Waffle House.  The manager on duty was a haggard woman with a low, rough voice named “Norma”, and our server was a vivacious older guy named “Bruce”, who wanted to talk about all manner of things once he sussed out that we were a band.  He informed us that he didn’t think Carrie Underwood and her hockey-player husband were going to last.

Awesome.

Some coffee, and back on the road.  Our next stop was for some restroom relief at a Stucky’s outside of Centerville IN.  This was notable not merely for the attached Dairy Queen, but for the remarkably well-designed “Rock star” tshirts that were in actuality christian fundamentalist swag.  Which were quite inappropriately set up next to a stand of “pull my finger farting pens.”

We’ve been in Columbus since about 5:30 local time.  We play in maybe an hour or so.   Smaller stage than we normally are used to, but we’ve played smaller, and the soundguy seems competent.  I could use a nap.

The real panicking began around 11:30.  This was about when it really hit me that yes, I was leaving for a while, and dragging a few grand worth of fragile gear and 3 other band members around the country, jammed into my car with all our stuff, subjecting all to late nights, mild dehydration, sleeplessness, and other sorts of metabolic horrors.

That, and it was quickly becoming clear that anything else that needed to be done before I left simply wasn’t going to get done.

Wendy calmed me down a lot, reminding me that I was doing this for fun, and to promote the album I love, doing this with good friends that I adore, and playing venues hosted by people who really want me to be there.  That helped a lot.

I packed my duffel and Raya’s clothing into the car with the gear.  Good, a reasonable amount of space left.  Then off to get Elizabeth!  Adding Elizabeth’s stuff, though, triggered a few small moments of concern.  We loaded her bags and still had plenty of room.  Then Nick, her husband, said “Oh, I’ll go get the drums.”  Oh right.  Gear that I didn’t pack.  I suddenly had no idea how we would fit Jill’s stuff in.

Thankfully, Elizabeth is also a master of spatial thinking and started quickly pointing at things and rearranging and suddenly had this absolutely brilliant, spatially efficient setup, with room to spare.  Consider my jaw dropped.

Off we went!  Drive down to Chicago was surprisingly uneventful, given all the craziness going on in the area that day.  We hit some nasty traffic towards the end there but luckily we’d had enough lead-time that it didn’t bother me.

Loadin at the darkroom was, as always, easy and efficient.  I got to chat with a newly-pregnant Teh Jeaner for a bit.  She’s so adorable.

We had a soundcheck, an actual soundcheck! with Pat, their very, very patient soundguy.  I finally figured out why the drums kept feeding back.  Gosh, I wish I’d noticed what an idiot I was about 2 days ago.  Man, though, that guy is great.  We sounded great through those monitors.

Dinner was a the the Old Oak, which I’d never been to before, but came highly rec’ed by the locals.  It was indeed damn tasty.  I mowed my way through an overstuffed BLT with avocado, a nice spicy remoulade, and a somewhat redundant andouille sausage.  It was sort of a BLTARAS.

Am.psych killed it.  I dunno what they were doing specifically but they were pretty much on fire during their set.

I briefly had a chance to talk to Bones/Freddy, who I haven’t seen in over a decade.  Aw, man, that was awesome.

We ran a new set tonight.  A few rough spots – we tried our new version of Footfalls, which sounded for the most part good but since we’d only actually practiced that, uh, twice, we kind of stumbled through some of the new harmonies.  Raya was well-caffeinated by the time we went on, and was a dance-splosion onstage.  All I saw was a blur of jingly jewelry punctuated with the occasional pause to sing.  It was kinda of awesome.  I need to step up my game to compete with that sort of energy.  We went out, as always, with Triangular and I discovered that a chunk of the audience had developed a dance to go with it.  Heh.

The crowd was clearly enthused about the Dark Clan.  And they rocked it out, as usual.  Lane, despite her claim of severe sleep-deprivation, was amazing on “Daily War” and “Aged and Evil.”  I got onstage to do ILYWAY, and actually didn’t massacre the lyrics this time.

Caustic didn’t disappoint, either.  I played bongoes, briefly.

After some post-gig socializing, and some badgering to party late into the night in a way that my aging frame simply cannot tolerate, we piled back into the Forester and headed out to a nice little burbclave where Elizabeth has some friends with a house.  A house of a million comfy couches.  And an iguana!  And dogs!  I crashed out on what might be the world’s squeakiest futon.  Jill crashed on a nearby couch, and based on the fact that she’s currently wearing earplugs and has a pillow over her head, my snoring must’ve been epic.

Today!  Onward to the Quad Cities!

Day 2. I was basically a useless sack of protoplasm for a good portion of the day. I need to get my sea legs.

Another semi-local gig. This time at the recently revamped Club Anything in Milwaukee. Gary and John have done a fantastic job remodeling and updating that space. It was nice. The only downside is that MIlwaukee is not yet smoke-free, so the main room was a bit smoky and that’s always hell on my voice.

Great crowd. Like, really great crowd. I even saw a guy who I haven’t seen since high school, which was pretty great.

We were plagued with feedback problems during the night. I’m not sure why, we’ve not had this particular problem before. My guess is that it’s the mic we’re using with Raya, since it’s the only part of the rig that hasn’t been thoroughly battle-tested. Which, I guess, is something I can work around, although it changes a little of our MO. Not much, but a little.

I’d been checking the radar for Madison rather neurotically, after hearing about what had happened to TDC on their drive back from Madison (wind, thunder, lightning, etc). Seeing that there was a “chance of severe thunderstorms” I made SMS puppydog eyes at Dan and asked him, since this was a hometown gig for them, if they could handle the closeout at the end of the night and let us bug early. He was gracious enough to do so. So after our set, we bugged out of town.

We made it about halfway home before this happened.

Accompanied by torrential rain, zero vis and heavy winds.  Our trip home slowed significantly.  We made it, a bit later than expected, in one piece.  And unlike TDC the other night, our power was on and nobody got blown into oncoming lanes.  Whew.

Today!  Onward to Chicago!

Show one of the “Fading Belief” tour is over and done.

Good turnout, really enthusiastic crowd. It’d be great if they were all like that. Of course, not every show can have Wendy’s dad, Eric Goedken, and Jill/Eric’s parents in the audience. Home court advantage, and all that.

The Dark Clan ripped it up, as always. I can’t write a whole lot about them because I’ve already used up my superlatives.

Our set went pretty well, although the oppressive heat and humidity onstage began to take its toll on my violin-ing hands, in the form of sweaty fingers. Our newest addition, Ms. Raya, was awesome, especially given it was her first performance of this type, ever, and we’d had exactly one day to prepare.

There was the usual ridiculousness of me forgetting lyrics or missing a cue or whatever. These things happen (well, they happen with me, anyway).

I was supposed to play as part of Caustic, and I did. Although I was supposed to mostly play theremin, but I couldn’t because on my way to set up, the power adapter to the beastie snapped off. So I need to replace the power cable. That was disappointing. It also meant I was improvising keyboard parts for about 75% of Caustic’s show.

Oh, and there was rain. And wind. This was probably more of a problem for the Milwaukee-bound Dark Clan than it was for us.

Today we play a Milwaukee gig. Tomorrow, things start in earnest as we hit Chicago and then points beyond. No driving back home to pick up the stuff we forgot after that. I’m spending my last few hours before the road frantically trying to cross i’s and dot t’s and all that. Buying some food for the road (do other indie bands worry about whether their road snacks are locally-sourced?), making sure I’ve got enough clothing packed, wondering if I’ve got room for a spare pair of shoes, hoping I’ve got enough febreeze to keep my performance shirts from stinking up the venues, hoping that a week of sleeping on couches and floors and being hunched over audio gear won’t destroy my back.

Fingers crossed!

I have to say, I’m incredibly proud of the work we did on this album. It’s been a long haul to get here, and there’ve been some difficulties along the way, but the end result is, in my opinion, pretty damn solid. I hope people like it as much as I do, but even if they don’t, I’m still extremely grateful that I got to work with the people I’ve worked with and put out the music we’ve put out.

Sure, there were some downsides – the studio floods being the peak of those, and my ongoing battle with sinus infections making recording vocals difficult, but hey, we got there.

Eric G has certainly been at the top of his game for lyrics. Everything he sent me just “clicked” in terms of my knowing how it’d fit into the songs or how it’d sound. And, as always, his instincts were pretty spot-on. While I’m meandering about in some song with a 3-minute dhol solo, he pulled me back from the brink of madness. More than once. Thanks to his pushing, this is an album of tight pop songs and not epic-but-ultimately-boring 9-minute songs.

Bringing Jill on board was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done, bandwise. Oh, sure, she’s worked with ND before as a guest vocalist, but since we’ve started playing live together, it’s become pretty clear how well her vocals fit into the kind of music we’ve been writing. Subsequently, she crops up on nearly every song on Suspending Belief in some capacity, and gives a lot of great depth to the songs. Plus, we’ve worked together enough that we can always bang out her vocals in just a few takes.

The Null Device Rhythm Section – Elizabeth and Chuck – were of great help. Elizabeth contributed some cello on the album, and more importantly helped me refine the studio versions of some of the songs that we played live by coming up with percussion parts. Chuck did the same with bass parts – certainly, the bassline in “Notes from the Fallen” got a bit of an overhaul after I heard Chuck’s take on it.

The most surprising addition to the whole thing was Raya. I’ve known Raya for a while, but until last year I didn’t know she was a singer. Wendy and I were visiting her in Chicago, and I forget why, but on the drive back from a museum she let fly some classical greek. My jaw fell open, Wendy just looked at me, stunned, and the first words out of my mouth were “OH MY GOD I NEED TO GET YOU INTO MY STUDIO.” So a few months later, I had Raya standing in front of my mic, blitzing through some Euripides and some Rabia al-Awadiyya without any especially clear concept of what I was going to do with it, only knowing that I was going to do something with it. So we knocked it out in an afternoon and then went to see “Slumdog Millionaire.” It was all kinds of awesome.

I of course need to thank a number of musicians who helped along the way. Most importantly, the lead guy of The Dark Clan and ND-guitar-hero-emeritus, Dan Clark. This dude has always helped push me as a musician and a studio nerd, and has always been a great sounding-board for some of my crazy studio ideas and my new obsessions with microphones and acoustic treatment. And certainly, there is no possible way we could’ve put this tour together if he hadn’t done about 97% of the legwork (I’m entirely lost when it comes to most of this process). Also, there’s the Chicago contingent of Andrew Sega and Ned Kirby, who are always good guys to bounce ideas off of (and drink beer with). Matt Fanale, for being our primary local hype-man and throwing our little project more bones than we probably deserve. Dylan Wheeler, for doing the same on the west coast and Jim Semonik and Zak Vaudo for hyping us in their respective eastern corners of the country. Ryan Parks, for giving us more interviews and radio time than any band with no album to hype probably deserves. And, naturally Ms. Kristy Venrick for actually, you know, selling our music.

Of course, I cannot fail to mention my lovely fiancee Wendy, who’s been ridiculously supportive of the whole process, and who somehow manages to not get irritated at hearing the same 8 bars of a song played 350 times, punctuated only by my foul language as I try over and over to get some weird detail right. She has to put up with the awful noises, the wall-shaking band practices, half the house getting taken over by classical indian ensembles, the endless hours in which I’ve disappeared into the basement, my long and indecipherable rants about studio acoustics, that glassy-eyed stare I get when I’m getting obsessed with building new bass traps, the late nights I keep at shows, the constant accumulation of gear and instruments in the basement, and all the other inconveniences associated with living with an esoteric and obsessive musician. I can’t thank her enough.

This album has been a wild ride, and it’s been a labour of love, if I may borrow the cliché. I hope the rest of the world likes it as much as I do, but even if it finds favor with just a few of my friends, it has for me been an entirely worthwhile adventure.