god bless my wife

Well, it's Monday again.

And I'm still recovering (or is it reeling?) from an eventful weekend. The events of Friday night deserve their own entry here so...

Friday night I adjourned to the studio and cut the vocals for the song The Darkness. Dave and I wound up double-tracking all the lead vocals and it sounded good. I'm not usually a fan of the doubled-vocal sound, but is seemed right for this tune. It's slated to be the 3rd song on the album in our tentative sequence.

THE DARKNESS All the passing days weigh upon the sun And tomorrow's promises are loaded like a gun You know she's crawling on an island, between the wind and rain Crawling as I'm falling in the darkness that remains Chorus: She sees beauty, all I see is lines She feels love but all I feel is time The light starts to fail as we open seam by seam But that's alright with me That's alright with me Who knew this masquerade would hang around so long Five years gone away, singing broken songs You know she's lighting up a candle in the corners of the rain Lighting as I'm fighting in the darkness that remains Chorus Solo Chorus

The Darkness is a pretty straightforward tune about big dreams and time. It's also about people in your life who help you stay away from trouble and keep you positive, who help balance out your negativity.

The person in my life who plays this role is my wife Gina, so it seems apropos that I should tell the story of what happened on Friday night after I finished up in the studio. Gina was out at a work-related party, so I decided to head home and get some sleep in preparation for BRB's trip to St. Louis on Saturday (which will get it's own entry). I was sitting in my underwear, watching basketball, and eating ice cream at about midnight when my phone rang. I missed the call, saw it was Gina, and checked my message.

The message was garbled by poor reception. I deleted it. Minutes later, my phone rang again and I got to it. It was Gina again and she sounded like she was hyperventilating. As it turns out, she was having a drink at the Penisula Hotel, a swanky joint just off Michigan Ave. As she walked through the lobby/bar she noticed Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, sitting there. Coldplay played a show at Metro on Friday, which was probably the hottest ticket among many hot tickets of the weekend.

What did she do? She marched right up to Mr. Martin, knelt beside his chair, and said "Chris Martin? I'm a big fan. You stole my husband's gig." We've got this joke that Chris Martin stole my gig because he majored in Classics or Classical Humanities in college, just like I did. And became one of the biggest rockstars in the world, just like... uh... nevermind. 

Apparently, this approach caught Chris Martin off-guard. However, he was taken enough with Gina to talk to her for about 20 minutes about Burn Rome Burn and my Odyssey. That garbled voice mail? Chris Martin saying something like (in best British accent) "Hi Joe, this is Chris Martin from Coldplay. Your lovely wife has told me all about your band Burn Rome Burn, which is a fantastic name. Etc. Etc. Etc." So Gina calls me back and says "Get down here and bring your CD."

I get dressed, hop in the car and speed downtown, arriving at the hotel 5 minutes after Chris Martin has gone to his room after telling Gina to leave him a Burn Rome Burn CD at the desk. Which we do. I even got third party confirmation of the whole event from Gina's friend Jenni who saw and heard it all go down. I do hope the BRB EP made it into his hands. The first song on the EP, Wait, employs an rhythmic homage (read: rip-off) of the Coldplay song Clocks. I actually left him two copies of the CD.

I read in the paper today that Coldplay hung around Chicago to hit the U2 show on Sunday, and then were guests of Bono backstage. So I'm guessing that Chris passed Bono a Burn Rome Burn EP and they had fish 'n chips while listening to it.

jbg