Conor - To Infinity And Beyond

This time 2 weeks ago I was in a recording studio, shouting the lyrics to the Waltz of Debris, a song off of Band Practice's first release, and EP called Band Practice! The exclamation point is crucial. It was one of the best weekends of my life, the EP makes me immensely proud, and I want to talk about it very briefly.

I've already talked about Band Practice here on Classic Brian, and I'm sure if we know eachother very well you've either seen Band Practice play or I've forced our recordings upon you. It's a well documented fact that Band Practice started as a joke, but I hope we've proved ourselves by this point. I hope we've shown that we're something special. I would like to think we are, and I believe it more and more these days.

Everytime we meet and play together, Band Practice becomes more a collaboration, and we get better and better thanks to this. I used to think of these songs as mine, but they aren't any more. They're ours. Without Tynan's drumming in Keep It Down, that song doesn't pack the same punch. Without Rhett's ridiculously cool bass part in Evens & Odds I would have a much harder time forgiving myself for some of the lyrics in that song. Without Greg's guitar in Tunnel that song would've felt empty and unfinished. Beyond each of our individual parts, we all contribute ideas. It was Rhett's idea in the first place to switch styles halfway through Everything's Fine. Tynan came up with a lot of the ideas that totally make Tunnel, like the metronome like clicking and the empty space after the first chorus. Hell, Greg came up with the idea to start the band.

This recording time really fell into our lap. We did nothing to deserve it, but I'm trying to not feel guilty about that. Without Monday Nick, none of this would have happened. It was his uncle who gave us all this, and I cannot thank Nick enough for doing this. We would also like to thank his uncle Dan Dietrich and Wall To Wall recordings. They did so much for us, and for nothing in return. I don't know if they realize how much this meant to us, but it doesn't matter. They are solid, solid bros. Shout out to my main man Frank, who mixed and recorded most of it. Holla back, Frank.

These 6 songs we have prepared and ready for the wall show a lot about us. Like Eliot said, they mean more to the people closest to us, and they mean a whole lot to me. I'm proud of them. I'm extremely proud of them. A year ago I wouldn't have believed that I would be listening to recorded songs that I wrote on my iPod. Having these for myself is a dream come true. It's embarrassing how often I listen to this stuff. I'm extremely self-absorbed, it's okay, I know. I just still can't believe that this happened, how well everything worked out.

Here's the obligatory link. Band Practice.

I'll finish with this. Over the weekend, we were all making jokes like "oh yeah, we'll cut him some of the profits when we top the charts" and "we'll give him free tickets to our show at Madison Square Garden next week." These are all lighthearted jabs at ourselves, mocking our rockstar dreams and aspirations. But just listening to some of the music we managed to make together, we're so much closer than I thought we'd ever be. We're still daaaamn far away, but let's keep working. Let's keep playing. Let's keep getting better and better and closer and closer, because wouldn't it be wonderful? I think that'd be amazing.