THE ZEN of BANDNESS: A TREATISE

PREFACE

This treatise is not meant for everyone. It’s not meant for the very young or for the very old music-hobbyist. It’s  definitely not meant for all those Nuclear Physicists and  well-paid Lawyers who play “the blues” in well-equipped Dad Bands in immaculate pubs in Chicago and San Francisco on the weekends. No,  you well-heeled Dadbanders  and your worldview are Fucking Kryptonite to the True Spirit of Bands and contemplating your banal goals and your modest returns is enough to put any Band Dream into a coma, if not directly in The Grave.

 I do not encourage Hobbyists to dabble in Bands. I encourage all hobby-types to take up pottery or stamp collecting or Irish dancing and all that. Do people generally choose Exorcism as a hobby? Of course not. Then why choose Bands? Bands and Exorcism are closely related.  Both involve ancient purification rituals and The Devil. One should dabble in neither.

This treatise is not for Dabblers and it probably isn’t for musicians, either, because most musicians are illiterate, or semi-literate (with really bad taste in shitty books). This treatise is probably written for the literate friend of a musician, a friend who cares enough to pass its wisdom on to his or her bewildered chum in IQ-appropriate paraphrase. So, yes, please buy *  this treatise because you can afford it (unlike your musical friend) and read this treatise because you can read (ditto) and pass this wisdom on, quietly, in a softly-lit room with a nearby crystal chalice of snacks.  

Help your musical friend to stop fucking up, with his or her Band, in all the traditional ways…  heroin,  bad table manners, irresponsibility, disorganization, suicide, pop…

*”Buy” is a joke. This Treatise is not for sale. It is priceless.

But if you want to pass the pathetic busking hat…

WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, HOW, WHY and WHY NOT?

Unfortunately, many citizens decide to have a go at being in a band because they see bands as an escape from the pressures that come with a ‘real’ job: the need to be reliable, methodical, maintain focus, communicate well with co-workers, not get shit-faced drunk or high at the workplace, avoid treating said workplace like a garbage bin/ toilet and resist the temptation to tell racist and/or sexist jokes. Too many citizens are under the mistaken impression (fostered by wonderfully dishonest movies and music videos) that being in a band means taking a sweet vacation from worrying about such responsibilities when, in fucking fact, being in a band means having to be ten times more methodical and sober, and so on, than one would have to be if one worked in a bank. Unless one worked in a bank that was built into an old white van that drove from town to town in a desperate search for customers.

A ‘real’ job usually means being snug in a nondescript cubby near the bottom of a corporate pyramid that will function with or without your optimum service. Even on the level of working as a cashier in a mom-and-pop bordello, your failure to show up for work on time or count the change properly won’t result in the bordello closing… you’ll just get yourself fired and end up looking for another shitty job to dishonor as soon as your delusionally self-righteous rage wears off.

Fuck things up in a band, on the other hand… unless it’s one of those satanic retro disco-hits extravaganzas that comes with a giant lighting rig and its own 18-wheel truck with a mural from Saturday Night Fever painted on its side… and there’s a very good chance you’ll fuck up the band. If not kill it.

A band is a four or five-seat bicycle where everyone has to pedal and everyone has a steering wheel. This bicycle is on a super-highway of such bicycles, tens of thousands of them, and some are going very fast and smoothly and some are dithering in jerky circles and more than a few are crashing into random walls and bursting into flames, but you can’t see most of the other bicycles because I forgot to mention that the highway is smothered in fog. It’s a thick fog that smells suspiciously like something out of Alice Cooper’s filthy old original smoke-machine (or burning cum-socks) and you can’t see all those hatefully well-coordinated five-seaters zooming with power and grace right past you, just as you can’t see the twisted, rusty frames and bandanna-wearing skeletons littering the highway’s shoulder. The scary thing is how many of those skeletons had talent.

THIS…

…is not a “how to” guide. This is a Philosophical Code of Righteous Aesthetics and Proper Behavior.

I WON’T…

…refer to “bands,”  after  this point, in this treatise, until one instance before the  very end:   I will refer to BANDNESS. A “band” is a false promise engendering a clueless sense of security and constancy. BANDNESS is a condition of perpetual becoming. And “BANDNESS” just  sounds cooler than “BAND”  to me. If you don’t put Coolness near the top of your to-do List every fucking day of your Life, your BANDNESS will suck and I will despise you.

READ THE REST OF THE ZEN OF BANDNESS HERE