Crazy Dreams

Yet another drumming dream. I’m starting to see a pattern!

Paddy accepted this gig. We were the opening band for a soul and funk festival. I was out back hanging out with all these bands. I’d never heard of any of them, but they were supposedly big acts. There were about four bands that went on after us, but before the headliner. Who was the headliner? James Brown! So backstage, I’m talking gear with all the cats. One guy has this incredible looking drumset. It was a violet to silver sparkle fade, similar to this. The drums themselves were made out of titanium! It was slick.

It was time for me to get to the stage. I went to grab some stuff, and Jason Wilcox stopped me. He reached into my empty drum bags, and pulled a snare bag out, with a snare still inside. He asked “Do you want to leave this back here?” I opened the bag, and found my 1925 Leedy Black Elite inside. Now way did I want to leave that backstage with a bunch of strangers. But, I didn’t want to use it as my primary snare onstage. So I just decided to bring it onstage with me. I got to the stage, and Allison Murray, who was the band’s singer, was complaining about the set list. “Patrick has picked all these songs we don’t even know,” she said. I asked her if she questioned him about it. She said “He said ‘It’s just music. We can fake it.'” I agreed that opening for James Brown probably wasn’t the place to be figuring out songs onstage.

I then noticed that my drums weren’t set up! We had 15 minutes until we were supposed to start, and my drums were just lying about on the stage. I started to freak out. The festival was outside, and there was no curtain on the stage. I had to set up in front of the audience. They were getting uneasy; they new I’d be hard pressed to get set-up and ready in 15 minutes. Paddy came onstage, saw my delema, and said something along the lines of “What the heck is going on! How come the drums aren’t set up?” I said I didn’t know, but I was working as fast I could.

I took my bass drum, set it upright, and started adjusting the legs that keep the drum from moving. I adjusted stage right first. When I went to the stage left side, I noticed the drum leg bracket was all apart! Now, I had to reassemble this thing, under pressure, in front of screaming fans. And there were about 10 pieces to the bracket, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how it was supposed to go back together. Then I woke up.

What’s this all mean? Three times in what, a week or so, I’ve had strange dreams about music. Two of them have involved being stressed for time, and two have included something broked that I needed to fix. What’s the deal?

Last night’s dream went something like this:

Blind Albert had secured a gig as the soundman for a Stewart Copeland gig in Boston. (For those of you who didn’t click the link in the previous post, Stewart Copeland was the drummer for The Police, and one of my favorite drummers.) Blind Albert said he’dd like me to come along and help, but there were two catches: I’d need to fly to MA, and I’d have to buy a ticket. For the chance to be so close, and work with, such an amazing talent, I said yes.

I got to the concert. Stewart was already set up. He hit his snare drum. (Stewart’s snare has a signature sound: high pitched, with lots of air and crack. Incidentally, in real life I own one of his signature snares!) It sounded awful! He came up to me, and admitted he wasn’t great at tuning drums. I sorta pride myself on being a good drum tuner. I listened to his snare, and realized his bottom head was way too loose. I cranked it up for him, and then that signature sound was back. He played his first song. I don’t remember what it was. After it was done, he got up, and went to the bar that was set up behind his drum kit, and started to mix himself some cocktails. He also poured himself about five shots of Sambuca. He proceeded to drink them all. He was talking to the audience the whole time, and you could here in his voice he was getting intoxicated. He then wandered off “stage” (which was in the round–you sat all around his drums, which were set up on the floor of the club). Everyone started talking, trying to figure out what was going on. After a few minutes, on the side of the club opposite where Stewart exited, a video began to play on a big screen. The screen was covered by a translucent curtain; you couldn’t tell what was playing on the screen, but you knew something was. The curtain pulled away, and then you could see it was the video for Roxanne. “Ah,” I thought “this is all part of the show.” Sure enough, Stewart came back on stage from behind the screen–meaning he entered from the opposite way he left. I remember thinking “How’d he get over there without anyone seeing him?” The next thing I know, he’s dancing with some girl in front of the screen. They’re just slow dancing like two drunks, holding on to each other, shuffling around in a circle, each one almost trying to hold the other up. It seemed rather odd they would slow dance to a song with the intensity of Roxanne, but that’s what they did.

When the song was over, Stewart announced the concert was over, and he went and mixed himself some more drinks. I went up to him and said “Do you realize all these people came down to hear you play, and you only played one song!” He said (in a Brittish accent–which is odd because he’s an American who was raised in the Middle East–and he doens’t speak with a bit of English accent) “Aw man, I though I played two songs!” And I replied “No, you didn’t. And not only did I buy a ticket to see you, but I bought a plane ticket to be here!” At that point I said to Blind Albert, “C’mon, let’s get on the stage and play some Police songs for these people.” (And, of course in real life, Blind Albert and I don’t play any Police songs. OK, once in a while we drag out Message in a Bottle.) So we proceed to play Spirits in a Material World. Stewart blasts on stage, screaming drunk. I’m really upset. “Hey man, I look up to you. See…” I said pointing between my legs “…here’s my Stewart Copeland signature snare! I went out and bought this because I like your sound so much!” He said something like “If you keep playing my songs, I’m going to stick these drumsticks in your ear!” And I said “I’d like to see you try.” So he does this drunken lunge towards me. He’s so out of it, I easily twist him around, and have him on the floor. I’ve got him sitting on the ground, and I’ve got his arm twisted behind him. The bartenders are on the phone to the cops, and they’re asking them to come out and drag Stewart off! I then tell him something like “Now I’m going back behind those drums, to play music–your music–to these people who came out to see you, not me! And now I’ve got to play for them ’cause you’re too much of a drunk to care!” And as I started to head for the drums, the crowd started cheering, and Stewart, still sitting on the floor, hung his head in shame and embarassment.

I had this strange dream last night. Paddy and I were going to play this gig with Three Button Deluxe. We got to the gig, which was in this old Odd Fellows Hall turned bar with an outside bandstand ala Union Fair kinda thing. (Sorry for those of you who’ve never seen the Union Fair bandstand. Picture a covered porch.) I’m setting up the drums. I pull my snare stand out of the hardware bag. In my dream, it’s a snare stand made by the North drum company. The only problem is that this snare stand is incredibly complicated. And, mine has fallen apart. In my dream I’m thinking “There are only two people in the world who can fix this: me and Stewart Copeland.” In my dream, it’s almost time for us to get started, so I don’t have time to fix this intricate snare stand. (Incidentally, North Drums didn’t make any wicked fancy, complicated snare stands. It’s just some silly thing my brain made up for me in my dream.) I decide not to bother to fix it. It’s about 15 minutes before we start to play. Chris Poulin, the back-up guitar player we sometimes use when Quick can’t make a gig has arrived, and he’s brought Quick’s PA system. Quick is supposed to be playing this gig, but hasn’t arrived yet. Paddy is running around, trying to get the PA set up before we start to play. I start to pull a floor tom out of one of my drum bags, and I notice the bag is all wet. I can see through the clear drum heads that water has soaked into the wooden drum, and the bearing edge is thick with soaked-up water. The drum appears to be made out of OSB, and the drum has just soaked up all kinds of water, and basically fallen apart.

The end.

This one is kinda disjointed. It seems it was all in one dream, but the parts don’t seem to fit together.

Part the first: Susan and I are driving on a very rutted, muddy, dirt road in the countryside. There’s a farm to our left. Behind us are a bunch of military types, complete with tanks. I come to a very rutted part of the road. I decide to go off towards the right ditch in an effort to keep my wheels out of the rut. Instead, the rut is so big, I end up gettting the entire car in the rut. The Army is a little mad we’re holding them up. I decide rather than push forward, to back out, and let the Army go around us.

Next, Susan and I are at a party. She mentions to me she’s just noticed a beetle enter my right ear. She just happens to have a pair of forceps, and she starts digging around in my ear, trying to get the beetle. As you can imagine, it’s quite painful. I can feel she’s latching onto something, but she isn’t strong enough to pull it out. I eventually (and forcefully) take the forceps away from her, and proceed to get the bug myself. I eventually latch onto about three cotton balls worth of lint, hair, and cotton. Also inside is a small, see-through, blue beetle, about the color of an original iMac.

Part 3: Now it’s winter. Again, Susan and I are in the car. We are traveling on Old County Rd, heading towards Thomaston. There is so much snow, the road crews have decided not to remove it. Instead, they push the snow from one lane over onto the other lane. The result is one lane is at its normal grade. The other side is a road made of snow, several feet higher than the other side. At one point, the snow is so deep, the south bound lane starts going up-hill. The top of the hill is the height of a telephone pole! Again, this is just a giant mound of snow, compacted down. There is no type of barier or railing on the edge, just a telephone height drop onto the other lane below. I start up the hill, and I’m almost to the top, when I turn to Susan and say “I’m not entirely comfortable up here. What if we start to skid, and go over the edge? What if the compacted snow gives way, and the road collapses? I’m going to back down the hill.” There are people behind me, and they’re a little mad they have to slow down, pull over to the edge as much as they can, and let me by.

Then I woke up.

There are  two things I notice about these dream sequences. In all three, Susan is with me. In parts one and three, I’m in a vehicle that needs to back up, and people are behind me getting angry. What’s that all about?

Last night, I had this crazy dream. Dwane (my sister’s husband) and I were leading a church service. Dwane is one of the music leaders at our church, and he was performing that function in the dream. We were singing “The First Noel.” After a few verses, Dwane asked me to come up and sing a solo. Here’s some background information…

1. While in a church service, it’s not good form to not comply with a request from the pulpit.
2. I don’t sing very well.
3. I like to sing, but I sing the bass part. I’ve sung bass so long (since high school), it’s very hard for me to sing melodies. My ear, and thus my voice, wants to sing the bass part. So, I’m not a great choice to sing lead melodies.

So, like a dutiful church go-er, I go up to the pulpit as Dwane requested. There in front of me is a book. It’s a book of “mis-heard Christmas carol lyrics.” Yup, not the real lyrics, but specifically wrong lyrics. The book is also printed in a “Ye Olde English” font. So now I have to sing the melody to words that aren’t correct, and words I can hardly even read!

Of course, the result is awful. I can’t sing the right melody, and keep drifting into the bass part. I can’t read some of the words, so I’m making some of them up. Sometimes, I’m skiping words altogehter in an effort to keep up with the music. Finally, I decide to sing all the chorus as “Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel.” (In the book, there are different words for each chorus. I figured “The congregation can’t see the words, so they won’t know if I’m singing the written chorus or not.”)

Then I woke up.