Purple Keys

If I were to be diagnosed with anything that you could claim was a disease, it would be nostalgia. It feels strange to not be performing or working on music with others right now. It feels even stranger that Z~ has been living in Florida for about 2 weeks now. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, how about you pull up a carpet square on the floor, sip some tea, and let me tell you a story that plays a huge roll in the past 2.5 years of my life.

Some of you may have heard me talking about “my band” or mention “The Candle Simon” from time to time. Back in high school during my senior year, I had a band called “Band Without Phillips.” This name came from that 1. we were obviously a band, 2. Mr. Phillips was the name of our school’s band director, and 3. we were band, without Mr. Phillips. And from there we set forth to rock. The group only consisted of myself and my friends C~ and J~. And we only played covers. Our repertoire was limited as we only really played “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones, “Woo Hoo” by the 5.6.7.8’s, and “C’mon, C’mon” by The Von Bondies. As graduation neared, I had written a song on piano and we performed it at commencement. Booyah! Band Without Phillips is the reason why I own a drum kit. Anywho…

I had left for college wanting to join a band. During my first year at NWU, a battle of the bands was held on campus and there was a group called Aria Fall. I liked them enough to make a sound recording of one of their songs on my phone and make a note of the name. I eventually befriended them on myspace to keep track of them and to listen to their music. Late in the spring that year, a bulletin was posted that they needed a keyboardist. I took a leap and responded to the bulletin. And…no reply. About a year later I get a message from out of the blue from a group called The Candle Simon saying that Aria Fall broke up, The Candle Simon was created, they needed a keyboardist, and for some unknown reason, my message was still in their inbox. Call it fate? Perhaps. I went to one of their practices and was inducted into The Candle Simon instantly. After I joined, the group consisted of three women and two men. Over time, the band made some changes to its membership as some left and had to be replaced. Music with the influenced sound of The Beatles, Weezer, and Oasis was created (with the exception of “Christine A” or “Letting Me Go” that I was told sounds like a Jimmy Eat World song) over about two years. Then there were the “Candy Says” by The Velvet Underground, “Happy Xmas” by John Lennon (I LOVED performing this), and “We Are The World” by Michael Jackson covers. The songs were mostly written by Z~ with the exception of three and a half by myself. However, the making of the music was put together by the group as a whole. And whenever no one knew what to do during a certain part, the only thing left to do was to say, “Christine. Solo!” Let’s just say THAT’s how I learned to do most of my improvisation.

As my time neared to depart for Chicago, we created the “Farewell to Christine Tour” that consisted of three shows in Lincoln; Knickerbockers, The Zoo Bar, and The Bourbon Theatre. Faces were to be melted and women’s hearts were to be broken. And I think we did just that. During and after this we began recording so we would have my instrumental and vocal parts on file for whoever was to replace me. Thing is, I was never replaced. The person who was to replace me stole the synthesizer. When I came back to Nebraska, I learned that The Candle Simon had never really practiced since I left. We could have formed back together over the summer, but our drummer left of Iowa for the summer for an opera internship. And so, our lead (as well as my former roommate as I moved in with him during the fall semester of my final year of college) Z~ had been recently hired by a television station in Florida. That was another thing; half of our band worked for 10/11 News in Lincoln.

This story is a background for my nostalgia. Performing with The Candle Simon was one of the best times I had during college. This made me the unconventional music major in the music department. And yes, I got a number. I got a phone number after the first show I played. And I was supposed to meet someone at my final show but she never showed up. Lame. That was ok though.

I have always written music whenever I could or whenever I was inspired and I am missing playing the music I would create. Currently I am in what I would call a songwriting season where lyricism begins to flow more easily than usual. It also helps that I have a handful of unrequited feelings in my pocket, years of heartbreak, and vivid illogical dreams full of metaphors to write about. But let’s not let that gets us down, shall we? Afterall, not EVERYTHING I’ve written is unhappy. The three songs I had contributed to The Candle Simon were;
Christine A or “Letting Me Go” - about heartbreak
Christine B or “A-OK” - about a professor I had
Christine C or “I Waited For You” - about frustration from a fling I was in where I wasn’t ever told when whatever you would call we were in was over
Ok, so 2 out of 3 were bad news. However, Christine C was only performed once and shall never be again by my request. The favorites are A and B because A is a rock song (and has continually been one of my favorite songs I’ve written) and B has a catchy hook. The .5 from earlier where I said I contributed 3.5 songs comes from a night where Z~ and I were jamming in the basement and decided to write a song together. He wrote the lyrics. I wrote the music and contributed the name Suzanne which is the girl that is sung about in the song (Suzanne is my middle name). Example: “Oh Suzanne, can you tell me where you are? I don’t know why you’ve gone away. Oh Suzanne, can you tell me where you are?” This is honestly one of my favorite songs from The Candle Simon era.

So Christine, why is your music the way it is? Well, I did write ONE happy song this summer. It’s like Tilly and the Wall meets The White Stripes. But once again, the person that it’s about is nothing but unrequited feelings and perhaps misunderstandings now (ie; see previous blog post). But why limit myself? Afterall, the world of songwriting can be put into six categories; friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love. And when you look at the past four years of my life, it’s rather tragic. Take this quote into mind:
"We mortals with immortal minds are only born for sufferings and joys, and one could almost say that the most excellent receive joy through suffering." - Ludwig van Beethoven
I guess what makes me being a musician so fitting is that I’m able to turn my life into art. This all got depressing fast.

S~ and I came up with a summer project; to write an album of music about our experiences over the past 8 months. I don’t remember how, but I created a song about “nice clean sheets” from something she said. This song was turned into an 80’s glam rock song. It’s like Lady Gaga+Journey+Survivor. It has most of the same chord progressions as “Bad Romance,” the rawness of Survivor, and the 80’s feel of Journey. Booyah!
That just may be the most time and effort I had ever put into writing a song. I’ve written a rap as well, but I haven’t recorded it yet, and there’s another song I’m supposed to write as requested that I haven’t decided what style I want it to be in. Perhaps I’ll stick to what I’m good at; writing folksy acoustic songs.



The last time The Candle Simon played (almost as a whole group, P~ was still in Iowa) was a few weeks ago at what was called The Final Jam Session because Z~ moved. We played a few Candle Simon songs as well as a few others that are off the wall. Just for Z~, I learned "A Day in the Life" and "I Am The Walrus" by The Beatles because 1. "A Day in the Life" is Z~'s favorite Beatles song and 2. Whenever we'd go to dueling pianos at Brewsky's in the Haymarket, he always requested it and never found anyone who could play it. And of course, I brought some of the piano music I had acquired while in Chicago as well as some of my newly purchased music. All of that means "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey and "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga was performed. I kid you not. It was the most brilliant moment of the night. "Don't Look Back In Anger" by Oasis didn't turn out so well. But the other two were a hit!

I have far more to tell you, but I think it would be wise to let it stop here and have this just be a music themed entry. As for now, I shall go back to listening to “I’m the star that you evolve around,” “purple taxis pick me up,” and “you can’t play those purple keys.”