Midday special.

So I have the rare treat of a lazy Saturday afternoon with nothing on my plate, so it's blog time.

I've spent much of the afternoon watching the Braves play the Diamondbacks, and (as always) I can't help but miss playing ball myself. It's getting on time for me to find myself a softball league or something like that. Additionally, the announcers boiled my blood by calling the A's "surprising" in their currently second place performance. Maybe some day people will finally get it through their skulls that the A's are just a flat-out good baseball team.

But I don't want to yammer on about sports all day here. So I'll turn to something I'm much more apt to discuss in a public forum: music. Now, as many of you know, I play in a few surf bands. Those of you who don't know it, there's probably a reason why: surf music is a "niche genre". It relies on a cult following, and that cult is very small. There was a brief period in time where I honestly believed that surf music really could reach a wide audience, and maybe even become part of our cultural consciousness again, but in recent years I've realized that one of the biggest problems in the scene is trying to be something that we're not. The reason I love surf is that it is such a small scene, and that people in the scene look out for and are generally very helpful towards one another. I have gotten deals on equipment, I have met great folks who have given me worlds of advice, and I've seen a number of bands play shows that make me want to lose my mind. However, the reason all this has happened is because I "get it". I love the music, it makes sense to me, but that is not the case with a lot of people.

With all that in mind, my new musical venture should be very interesting. I want to start an indie rock band. For the last ten years of my life or so, I've been playing in more obscure types of bands, and have shied away from the mainstream. I've felt, in some ways, that doing so has helped me maintain some musical integrity and cred. So, it will be interesting to see what happens in trying to put together a new band (don't worry, Lava Rat fans, I'm not dropping the band, just adding another project to my plate) playing a music that is generally very accessible and listened to on a much more wide basis. I need to re-learn the art of playing music with a vocalist (hopefully not me), and become acquainted with a whole new style of songwriting. So I hope to keep you all in the blog world abreast of the progress of this whole experiment. Granted, I need to find musicians first, and figure out exactly what kind of sound I'm looking for. I have a few things in mind, but really haven't sat down and broken things down yet.

While I'm on this whole music talk thing, I am also interested in hearing what some of you have to say about the idea of "indie" music. It's one of those blanket terms, and many people have argued in a very convincing manner that the term "indie" is just our generation's term for what was deemed "alternative" about fifteen years back. So what makes a band indie? Is it a lo-fi sound? Is it something specific in the songwriting style? Is it the lyrics? I have a loosely constructed criteria for what I listen to, but I'm curious what some of you think. Lemme know, and let me know some bands that I should be listening to (maybe I already am).