THE TRIFECTIC ESSAYS (PART 2): Preclusion

The door slammed shut.

"Hello?!" a voice called from upstairs. "Peter?! What are you doing tonight?"

From inside my room, a small alcove within a small house shared by two others at the time (and at one point, seven), a place smack dab in the middle of where the most activity occurred, hardly any help to keep the constant flux of creativity I wanted to pour out into the world going, I remained silent. I threw off all of my belongings, cleared a space on my desk for my notebook, looked at the one line:

"All these lines mocking the marks of my life . . ."

"What's next? What's next?" I thought. "What do I want the song to do . . . a revolving DIY machine between three people . . . an intro to our new show . . . we could just do chants . . . nah, at least four chants of this first line then an instrumental build . . ."

Knock, knock. "Peter, what are you up to?"

Irritation, despite my thankfulness that people still took the care to ask me to have a social life with them, must have stained my face and eyes. I remember distinctly looking up and saying "Writing. I have to." And looking back down.

"Oh. Well, we might go out tonight," my roommate said, despite my accidental staredown.

"Mmm-hmm . . . probably not tonight," I said, not looking up from my notebook.

A couple of minutes later, by the grace of God, the house was empty. This never happened. At least, not when I wanted to be creative. To write. To record. It was always empty when I wanted to be social, when I figured the work could wait. Nothing ever seemed to line up correctly.

But this one time, it did.

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Coffee downed, shirt off from the heat, basking in gym shorts, acoustic guitar laying on my lap, sore fingertips from playing said guitar all night long, tiny tape recorder full of notes, recorded files on the computer for finished ideas, I heard the door open, the roommates were home again. Yet irritation didn't flood my mood this time around. Gratefulness came instead. "Break. Take a minute, Pete," I told myself.

I looked at my notes. One song written. Six others brainstormed. A name for the era: Trifectic. It had only been a couple of hours, and yet I had done the most work I had ever done in one day, let alone one sitting.

I made a couple more notes for the finished guitar riff ideas before calling it a night.


I walked into the kitchen to throw away my coffee cup. Still in writing mode, I remarked to my roommate, "It's a time of Preclusion. Again and again and again."

"What?" she said.

"I lost another drummer."

"What?"

"Preclusion. Everything ends before it's supposed to have begun."

"What are you talking about?"

I stopped. I looked at her with a smile. "You'll see?"

She stood there as I went back to my room, no doubt giving me a dubious look that said "You should have come out tonight, you're losing it".

I looked at my notes again. I listened to my riffs.

"Yeah, we're going to be okay," I thought.

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A. TRI
1. PRECLUSION

All these lines mocking the marks of my life . . .

I tried to lay down the words but they've kept it all in . . .

I take one step forward and two steps back . . .

I finally made a mark to mock all those lines.

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When I have a creative flow, most of the time I take the easiest ideas and complicate the living crap out of them. In this case, it was a rising chant. A man, hunched over his drum set, having just said goodbye to the 7th or 8th or whatever drummer that he had hoped to be the one that held the dream together. A chant to get him through the pain that lies within the fine print of art.

A rising chant.

But throw in an instrumental build, then a changeover from drums to mic, no guitar, have another build with different sections in it, changeover again, do another build slightly similar to the first one, but with new sections, and then elongate the big section with a weird roll riff and a coda of slides, one more roll thing and then the main ending of noise and resolute finality. He made a song . . . he finally did it. And if he played that live at his first show, he'd smile to the crowd in a happy proclamation of "FUCK YOU, KARMA!!!"

An easy enough structure in three parts, the song is supposed to introduce the changing wheel of Trifectic. Peter would come up, beaten and weary, and chant four times about the failure of his band thus far. The other players then try to prove him wrong, as one by one they join in on a build as Peter plays the drums out of necessity. "No one else is going to play this damn thing, I guess I'll have to do it," is the feel. At the end of the build, the music swells to a choreographed loud point, everyone doing the same riff together. Finally, something's working! But it ends abruptly. Another Preclusion.

Then the wheel moves, allowing Peter to go up front, be where he's wanted to be all along, and try again. He repeats the lines "All these lines . . ." two more times, and stops, realizing that something is happening. He chants new lines: "I tried to lay down the words but they've kept it all in." The emotion grows higher and higher, a new drummer laying the foundation with a bass acting as the only stringed instrument, yet filling the space with distortion. The chant turns into sounds of repeated cries of sadness/anger, ending again to hint at another chance lost . . . another Preclusion . . .

Peter sings "I take one step forward and two steps back" while actually stepping back to the drumset, resolute that it will never work. The wheel rotates again. He starts a drum riff, Greg and Paul follow suit, never dropping a beat, a last build that seems the most choreographed. A band that will stick together. By the end of the third build, the sounds persist, feedback and a steady bassline continuing, as Peter realizes that it finally happened. "I finally made a mark to mock all these lines." Pointing a middle finger at the heavens, he finishes the song with a proper countoff ending. Finally, a conclusion.

Yet, the sound persists, as the meta-protagonist is about to address the group of individuals that have sparked the constant preclusions. As with any finished product, Acknowledgments are expected. And it's proper to give credit where credit is due . . .

VIDEO:
PRECLUSION @ 1419 -- December 17, 2010

THE TRIFECTIC ESSAYS (PART 1): A DIY Revolving Music Machine

Try, try again.

How many times, though? July 2010, I was up to 15 on the count for members quitting/leaving the band. We were two weeks away from our live debut. The latest hopeful drummer had just walked out the door on my request. Despite the fact that we had ended things on somewhat mutual, friendly terms, I felt downright hopeless. However, I had had creative surges bursting through my brain as of late. New written material was on the horizon.

The dream to be a four-piece or five-piece was going to be put on hold. I loved the remaining three guys. I thought we made a great team. I thought we could make something with just the three of us and still make the end result as big and as raucous as possible.

Wrought from the emotion of the neverending cycle of band members, I placed a notebook on my snare drum, sitting on the throne of my kit, looking heavy and burdened. Looking at all the empty lines of my notebook page. Starting over. How many times have these lines promised a result, only to fall short before a result could be given? How many times have we prepared a show, only to never actually get on a stage? The marks I put down in lyrics keep getting mocked by new empty lines sparked by another failure.

“All these lines mocking the marks of my life.”

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That night, after rushing home, not announcing my presence to anyone in the household, closing and locking the door to my room, I put all of my ideas down on paper.

I wrote and recorded scats to seven different songs. Six made up on the spot, one that had been floating around for the past two years (Whisper a Scream). The initial ideas of all the songs were put down that first night. "Preclusion" had a written outline as well.

I had a three-piece band. But I wanted to sound and do things that a four or five piece could do. Plus, I didn't want to give up the frontman role. I wanted to be up at a microphone as much as possible.

The songs that were written all had stage directions before there was any written music. For instance "FIRST SONG: 1. Start up front, sing. 2. Go back to drums, have instrumental build. 3. Come back to front, Paul on drums. Build. 4. Back to another instrumental build on drums."

From this point, the songs were written one by one in succession. From "Preclusion" to "The Private Collective", so that a flow could stay intact throughout the journey of the show.

In the end, the structure looked like this:

A. TRI
1. Preclusion
2. Acknowledgments

B. FEC
3. Whisper a Scream
4. Silent Cache
5. An Act of 3

C. TIC
6. Here Again
7. The Private Collective

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In terms of the subtle stage design and feel of the show, I was relying heavily on all of the instances from the past five years where I pined to be onstage, mainly while watching friends perform or watching that fated "jealous" band where you think they suck yet they've sold out the bar and you're thinking "Holy shit, they'd LOVE my stuff!!!" The lights, the changing of instruments, were all supposed to hint at a variety/burlesque show. This came out of all the experiences of going to my friends' burlesque outings, supporting them, but secretly stewing inside, "Patch would be great here. Hell, I'd just have a drum and a voice up there, just get me onstage!"

From these tumultuous support dipped in jealousy outings, ideas sprang to life. "Whisper a Scream", a simple drum and voice work song, came about because I could perform it easily with either one or five people. "Here Again", a crooning ballad, was a nod to all of the burlesque singers I wanted to replace onstage. "Silent Cache" had the feel of an old time prohibition dive bar burlesque show.

The main unorthodox practice for the show was the sideways drumset. I wanted to interact with the audience, face them while I sang, show them Paul or Greg when they played. I didn't want anyone to be hidden behind instruments. No barriers. It also gave easy access to the change-up between the main setup and our drum line songs.

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With these ideas, all brought into existence one night while in a fit of creativity and rage, I called Greg and Paul. "The project's changed, we're doing something called 'Trifectic'." Both were pretty accepting of the change from another, more prog-ish outing we were working on called "On Veins and Nothing" (now put on the shelf for a future endeavor). I said, "We'll start practices in a week."

We were still on course to perform at a scheduled live debut at Room Zero, a practice space in Northeast Minneapolis. Moving the date back two weeks, I set about making a schedule where we would learn seven new songs that weren't even written yet to be performed in less than a month's time.

And thus began one of the most nerve wracking prep periods for any Patch project, one that made us seriously close to the brink of losing our minds and our friendships . . .