What I Love The Most

"Well any man with a microphone can tell you what he loves the most."
-- The White Stripes, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground"

As you can tell by the above quote, I'm going to write about what I love the most.

And what I love the most -- by far -- is music.  I have other passions in life, but music is by far my biggest.  And almost anyone who knows me well already knew that about me.  But many of you don't know why.  I'm not even sure if I know why myself.

Ever since I was a kid, I've been in love.  On a trip to Nigeria, my dad took pictures of me at age 5 or 6 singing "Double Dutch Bus" into a cheap mic plugged into my aunt's karaoke device.  When I was alone, I sang constantly to myself - particularly in the bathroom or shower. 

I figured out how to play certain songs from my dad's piano book -- sort of.  Actually, I would plink out single-note versions of songs like "Billie Jean" on my dad's grand piano by the time I was seven.   Usually, I would be playing the singing melodies, a sort of crude muzack rendition. 

Because of this, I was enrolled in piano lessons in 4th or 5th grade (or was it 3rd and 4th?).  Trust me -- when you get roped into GROUP piano, you tend to block it out.  I can't think of a faster, more easier way to turn a kid off to an instrument than by forcing him to do something that is meant to be learned privately in a group setting.  Suffice to say, it was a joke.  Not that I was bad at it -- I just hated it. 

My shower singing career continued, but never in front of anyone.  I had passed the age at which all kids had perfect pitch, yet I could still sound out songs on the piano.  However, I was still afraid to sing publicly.  I had heard people singing out loud who couldn't carry a tune.  As a shy kid, I dreaded doing anything that would make me stand out negatively.  I didn't want to be one of those annoying people who sang all the time and sounded terrible doing it.  At least, that's what I thought to myself back then.

In high school I got less shy.  I ran for class office and won.  I became a conflict mediator, then a newspaper editor, then a peer counselor.  My shyness was in full remission.  Then, something happened that would change my life forever. 

I was on the phone with Tom Kim  (yes, that Tom Kim), and I put him on hold to run upstairs and get something.  I had been watching a taped copy of Pearl Jam on MTV Unplugged, since I didn't have cable.  On my way up the stairs, I started to sing "Black" by Pearl Jam in my Eddie-Vedder-impersonator voice.   When I came back downstairs, Tom asked: "Hey -- was that you?"

"Huh?" I said.

"Was that you singing just now?"

"Yeah."

"Dude -- it sounded really good!  I thought it was a recording or something!"

"Really?"

So that's when it started.  At that moment, I realized the secret love that I'd kept hidden from the world out of shyness could be legitimately loosed upon the world.  I realized that I might just be able to make a childhood dream into reality. 

As it happened, my high school does two pageants every year.  One is for senior boys, the other is for senior girls.  The pageant was composed of three categories: causal wear, formal wear...and talent.  I decided to participate in the boys' version.  I got classmates Brian and Greg to play bass and guitar, and I performed "Plush" by Stone Temple Pilots.

In the scope of my life, this was by far the ballsiest decision I'd ever made.  I was putting myself on the spot, in a situation I'd never been in before -- a situation where no fewer than 46 things could potentially go wrong in humiliating fashion in front of most of the school.  Since I was the school paper's managing editor, I might end up editing a feature article about how I'd made an ass of myself at the pageant.  Since I was already a prominent school figure, on many levels it seemed like an unreasonable risk to take. 

But I got up there and sang.  In retrospect (and on a videotape I viewed the following year), I did a mediocre job.  And the events of those 5 minutes remain a blur to this day.  Yet when it was over, I got a standing ovation. 

And after answering the final question, I won.  I fucking won.  Jesus.  It seemed weird then, and it still seems weird now.     

That summer, a very talented budding guitar player named Jamie and I got together and wrote some middling songs.  Both of us were just starting out, but neither of us could think of anything better we could possibly be doing.  We'd both finished high school, we'd both go on to different colleges the following year...but none of that mattered at the time.  We were both so young and excited that time was an irrelevant detail to be ignored.  We even laid down vocal and guitar parts in a studio.  In retrospect, most of the stuff we did was pretty wack.  But you have to start somewhere, right?   Yes, I still have those recordings somewhere.  They might not be that good, but they serve as a proud reminder.

In college, I picked up a bass guitar for the first time thanks to Mike Lee.  Mike's roommate Art did the same thing.  Taking cues from Mike, I would put on my favorite songs and try to play along with them.  I noticed something immediately: some songs that I liked I couldn't keep up with, while others I could play all the way through perfectly after one or two tries.  Picking up the bass was like having a million doors opened and a million others slammed shut at the same time.  It ruined a lot of music for me that I could never look at the same way again.  It also helped me to appreciate music that I never would have ended up liking, and helped me to appreciate the good stuff I knew even more.

I eventually got hooked up with 5 other guys in a band.  Our band's 'Big Ben' returned from a semester abroad in Australia to name us Dodgy Blokes.  The Blokes were all, as my roommate Mike Lee put it, "6 out of 10 musicians."  None of us were amazing, but we were all slightly above average.  I was the frontman, Mike was the bass player, Terry on keyboards, Ben on rhythm guitar, Luis on lead guitar and Farhan on drums.  We were Nigerian, Korean, Chinese, Pakistani, Jewish and Spanish.  We looked a lot like my social groups in high school and college did. 

In short, we looked like the Disney Channel.

To this day, I've never had as much fun playing with anyone as I did with the Blokes.  We would practice once a week in Farhan's basement, drinking crappy beer and jamming to the most random shit.  Our covers traversed just about every genre: the Dead, Phish, Ice Cube, Harry Connick Jr., The Allman Brothers, Santana, Rage Against The Machine, Derek and the Dominoes, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, G Love and Special Sauce...sometimes in the same song.   Nothing was off limits; even our originals mixed rock, hip-hop and  blues.

In retrospect, it's pretty amazing that such different people got together and played such diverse music under such absurdly flimsy pretenses.  But it happened, and it was a blast.  One time in practice, we all spontaneously swapped instruments.  Mike and Farhan picked up guitars, I grabbed a bass, Ben got on drums, Terry grabbed a guitar and Luis...well, he couldn't do keys, so he stayed on guitar I think.  Another time, we went from some random rock jam to "So What" -- which is a Miles Davis song.  We gigged at bars, house parties, and finally on the steps of Michigan's Graduate Library in the middle of campus.   I wore bandanas, thrashed around, and seemed to lose my shirt a lot.  It seems so surreal now that I have to remind myself that it all actually happened. 

After college, I played with one other band - this time in San Francisco.  We were another diverse group, and we called ourselves Guessing Game.  The name was appropriate, since we never knew how we'd sound on any given night.  This band also did covers, but more originals than the Blokes did.  And in this group, I played bass as well as sharing lead vocal duties with a cute Filipino chick.  Though we took some vocal lessons as a band, I still couldn't read music; to this day, everything I play on bass (or sing) is reproduced via instinct, rapid educated guessing and/or simple pattern memorization.  Whatever works.

The white guy on guitar was probably over 40, and the drummer was blatantly lesbian...not that there's anything wrong with that.  Ashley thought our diversity was hilariously random.  We didn't last long, though, as throwing random people together via Craigslist isn't necessarily the most effective way to form a lasting band.   Joe Yang, Knoll and Blavin witnessed our second gig, which was worse than our first.  I sorta pulled the plug after that.
 
Since then, I have only played at open mics and karaoke bars (on one occasion, I was blessed by Dr J. complimenting me on my singing).  I never developed into an effective songwriter because I wasn't forced to do it enough over the last 5 years.  The bass-playing skills I developed while being forced to play bass and sing at the same time in S.F. have receded to near Ann Arbor levels. 

I'm sure a lot of people's musical history looks like mine.  Ultimately, if I were to live my dream, I'd be the singer in a Cake-level or Tool-level band.  I'd be just popular enough to be rich, but not popular enough to sacrifice my privacy or integrity.  At the risk of sounding arrogant, I know the ability is there.  Every day, I hear singers that I can outsing; surprisingly, I even hear bassists that I could outplay.  When I flip past American Idol's finalists, I hear a guy sing a song and think "Hmmm, I could sing that song better." Of course, just as often I hear one and think "Damn, I wish I could hit and hold that note."  I'm sure most amateur-occasionally-professional musicians can say the same, since talent has very little to do with popularity or success (especially nowadays).  But I would never begrudge pop stars their spots in the limelight.  They chose their route and worked hard at it, and I chose mine.

Yet the fire still burns.  I still do occasional open mics (in South Africa last time).  I still occasionally look for people to play with.  By God's grace, I'll be singing a song at Ed's wedding this August.  I still enjoy public karaoke. 

And whenever I have a private moment to relax on my own at home, I try to plug in my stuff and play along to music I like.  After all, over the years I acquired a lot of equipment.  Along with the appropriate cables, I have two bass guitars, a case and gigbag, a 300-watt keyboard amp, a C harmonica, a stand...

...and three microphones.

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