Exciting times, these. Winter Term 2009 has been a smorgasbord of musical happenings, with me the ever-willing glutton. Perhaps the biggest piece of news for me is that the rock band I play in here at school, Like Bells, has finally finished our first full-length CD. All the tracks are mixed and mastered, the artwork is done, the vinyl template has been cut (yes, people still listen to records!), and everything is being duplicated and distributed. The past six months have been crazy for us; we went from four friends playing small shows around campus, to three friends and a laptop signed to a prominent Cleveland record label, recording a cd at a legendary studio (where Jesse's band Vitium also just finished recording), and preparing to tour around the east coast for much of the summer. For a musician in a pre-professional program like Oberlin's, it's hard to imagine a better opportunity to experience what life as a professional musician is actually like. From writing the songs to engineering the recording session to mixing the tracks, every step of the process (with the exception of mastering, which was done professionally) was done completely by the three of us. Our final product is not perfect, but it's genuine, and that counts for a lot.

Our album cover, designed by photographer Brian Harmon, who helped us out immensely with all of our graphic design work. He also filmed a music video for us; more on that later.

The band, in Asia House. L-R Garrett, me, and Gabe.

Of course, a lot of these opportunities came about--as they usually do in the music business, I suspect--as the result of luck and opportunism. But a lot of those opportunities wouldn't have manifested themselves if we hadn't been well-equipped in advance by a lot of the resources at Oberlin. Most notably, being able to record and mix our own demo CD in the TIMARA studio gave us a way to record a high-quality product for free, which meant we could distribute it freely on the internet to help spread our music around. And when we went on our first tour over spring break last year, we were supported by the kindness of our classmates and their families, who came to our shows, put us up in their homes, and otherwise helped make the very uncomfortable process of touring in an old minivan very enjoyable.

Much of my time spent away from my practice room this Winter Term has been preoccupied with booking our summer tour; we're going to be on the road non-stop from May 22 until June 19, and then again during the last part of August before classes start. Booking a rock band at clubs in far-off cities is just about the most difficult thing I've ever had to do. The last tour gave me great perspective as to why: most rock bands are really, really bad. Tuneless, soulless, talentless, with songs held together only by the forward momentum generated by lots and lots of ill-advised alcohol consumption. If, like me, you didn't think that songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers could be any worse, wait until you hear them spewing out of the mouths of a band of 30-year-old ex-frat boys, their faces bloated and purple as they yell the words to "Californication." If you're lucky, one of them will do something legitimately entertaining, like vomit on the microphone, but otherwise you're stuck listening to a solid hour of mangled cover songs and "original material" consisting of borrowed chord progressions and middle-school poetry.

So if I were the proprietor of a rock club, I'd be pretty cynical, too. But it makes it hard for our band to get a foot in the door, even though our live shows tend to be pretty polished and our music, regardless of its actual quality, is not particularly abrasive. Having the backing of a record label has helped, but I'm still finding myself sending out a lot of follow-up e-mails full of words like "implore" and "please" and "death threat" and "is this your home address? Just curious!"

You can check out where we'll be this summer by checking our myspace page or our page at Exit Stencil Records. Right now we're confirmed in about four venues and have another eight or so tentatively set up. You can also hear three tracks from the new cd, which I think will be for sale on iTunes sometime in March. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but nothing ever is.

It's strange being involved in so many musical projects here at Oberlin; I love playing in a rock band, but I also love playing in the small jazz ensembles here, or working on my own compositions, or playing in free improvisation jam sessions, and so on and so forth. The amount of time I've invested into the Like Bells project is immense, but I remain emotionally invested equally in all of my other diverse projects. It's hard to imagine having to sacrifice this eclecticism in the name of pursuing just one ensemble, but I suspect that this is the decision I will eventually have to face as I leave Oberlin and enter the real world. In the meantime, I will savor the opportunity to play as many disparate styles of music as possible.