One of the things that nobody ever talks about in band interviews is what a colossal pain it is dealing with practice spaces. Maybe Radiohead have always had some palatial, airy warehouse where they can play as loud as they like without having to worry about finding people to share their space so they can keep the rent down. Maybe Radiohead's always been profoundly wealthy. I dunno. But I don't mean to single them out, because even interviews with, say, Converge or Botch or whatever fail to mention what a hideous pain in the ass it is to be a city dweller and have to pay someone $700 a month for the privilege of sharing a room with carpets dirty enough that you're pretty sure that rats would die from toxic exposure if they tried to come in.

Which is not to say that our practice space is a bad one. On the contrary, I like ours. It's tiny and squalid, but with the Christmas lights on and the amplifiers cranked, it might as well be Heaven on Earth for all the attention I'm paying (this is not strictly speaking true -- I spend enough time staring at the ceiling while I'm playing to wish that the ceiling were, I don't know, more interesting looking). However, every time Tammy asks me to fork over a rent check I experience a feeling of intense annoyance while I contemplate the whole squalor vs cost issue. This has been exacerbated recently by the whole studio-mates moving out issue, which threatens to make the whole rent thing that much more excruciating if we don't find new spacemates (yeah, you heard me, I said "spacemates") promptly.

Well, friends, I'm here today to tell you that salvation may very well be at hand! I'm in this company, Pushby, which is basically an excuse for five friends to band together for work and mutual castigation as we try to crank out creative and interesting stuff to astonish and entertain our many friends, lovers, and family. A bunch of the Pushbyites make music, and it had honestly not occurred to me before that we could profitably join forces and share a practice space. What a great idea! I'm a genius! Or maybe I'm a half-wit for taking so long to figure it out.

It's not a done deal yet, because Ian and his bandmate Kevin have to consider the financial aspects of the deal, and Dave still has to decide whether he can afford it as well. However, I'd be well chuffed to have my friends, who are presumably people I trust, sharing the space with us, rather than a bunch of smelly strangers (who, I hasten to add in case this doesn't work out, are perfectly nice people). Plus, who knows, maybe that would foster some intra-Pushby musical collaboration, which could be really cool. Or diseased. Or both. Posted by ogd at January 24, 2002 01:41 PM