|
 |
 |
Blog from Meg
Posted: 06-04-2008
Come on! Come on! Feel something Meg. Feel "Something Real"! (Ha ha,
just kidding. Hey, I'm entitled to make fun of my band too. Don't think that
every band member in Meg and Dia hasn't worn out that "I can do whatever I
want like you" line at every available opportunity!) I'm running on the
tread mill this morning, listening to some new jams on Dia's i pod since I
broke mine in Europe. (Not my jams, my i pod, mind you!) I'm listening to
Death Cab for Cutie's new album "Narrow Stairs" and my latest guilty
pleasure, Jesse McCartney's "Leavin''" (Go ahead Dia! Sabotage my toothpaste
for that one. What can I say? Disney has my heart. ha ha) Oh, and by the
way, Mr. Gibbard and Mr. McCartney, you owe me big time for plugging your
bands! Ahem..., tour, *cough* *cough*
So, my floppy bangs are beginning to turn into slimy tentacles
pasted on my forehead, and I'm developing a very attractive mustache from
the beads of sweat forming on my upper lip. The beat from the track is
keeping my rubber legs in sync, and as the cheese on my inner thighs are
slowly coming loose I appreciate the little keyboard part coming in through
my right ear, making an entrance and exiting gracefully with the vocal line
in mind. I commend the walking bass line and how the bass isn't staying
exactly on the quarter notes but, sort of, dancing around them a bit. And,
oh! That harmony, barely noticeable, an octave lower was genius! I'm fully
musically entertained during the entirety of my fifteen minute work out.
(Wow, I'm just so...so tough! I know, I know.) I walk away, feeling
refreshed, exhausted, and revamped for another day. I'm heading up the steep
pavement hill to my apartment. I'm on track number two of "Narrow Stairs"
and it hits me. The music hits my soul, and I feel the same way I did back
in '99 when my dad showed me Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, and I feel it in my
bones the same way Saves the Day's "Stay What You Are" made me tingle in
'04. The music made such an impression on me, I FORGOT TO PAY ATTENTION TO
IT!! I couldn't tell you what the chord progression was like. I couldn't
remember if there was one guitar or more, distorted or clean, leads or no.
Nothing. All I could tell you was I felt like I was free, under a bridge,
with wind and water and memories, and rough cement under my toes. I haven't
felt like that for years.
Since we've been in L.A., on days off, my favorite thing to do is go
to Disneyland. I know I'm 23 now, a full-fledged adult, and should be
hitting all the L.A. clubs and bars and trying to pick up on boys with cool
hair-do's and pants. (And I really do try to do that sometimes, give me a
break). But I always just want to go to Disneyland. Not for the normal
reasons I suppose. I don't really enjoy roller coasters. They don't scare my
trousers off quite like I'd like them to. Chasing down Ariel and Peter Pan
are no longer at the top of my "experiencing Disney theme park" list. But I
return, weekend after weekend, and pay the $63.00 admission fee because I
want to feel what I felt when I was a kid. Disneyland made the biggest
impression on me, probably in my life. It was cooler than landing on the
moon (well, if we really did...), it was cooler than driving a car after I
got my license, it was even cooler than getting my first guitar, and that
says a lot! I wanted to feel how I felt back then once more.
But I'll never feel that way again. Mickey Mouse isn't going to make
me shake with excitement from head to toe when he holds my hand and totally
creep me out when he puts his gigantic furry face next to mine. I'm not ever
going to be jealous of Cinderella's puffy blue dress, and I'm not ever going
to be more mature than Dia ( I was 10 and she was 8) and pretend that the
upcoming drop on splash mountain didn't terrify me. Never again. Just like I
won't ever feel like I felt when I received my first kiss. I won't ever
again be amazed at how clouds look while flying above them on my first
airplane. I won't ever feel how I felt when I drove away to college for the
first time towards the great unknown. Those are all one time feelings. One.
Once. Gone.
But now that I'm older and and returning to my childhood playground,
Disneyland gives me the greatest sense of peace. A prism of contentment I
couldn't possibly find anywhere else. I feel so much admiration toward the
man who created the Disney empire every time I look up at the copper statue
of Walt. I look up to the strength and courage he must have had to go
through with creating something unheard of and incredible, just like I look
up to my authors. I love looking at little children's faces because it
reminds me of mine at that age. I love all the people who work there putting
on cheezy happy faces because they know a little kid will be affected
forever because of it. They make sure they hide behind Alice's mushrooms
during their cigarette breaks, keeping the real world shut out and away from
the children's eyes for just a little while, because even as they suck up
their nicotine, they know everyone only gets to be a kid once.
Love is the same way (I hear). Love is different when you first
meet and after you are married. Different, not worse. And there is a great
parallelism between love, and Disneyland (or whatever your "Disneyland"
happens to be), and listening to music. Music is never going to have the
same effect on me. I'm never going to listen to it free and open like I did
as a teenager, but now I'm listening to it more closely and active as an
adult. It still changes my life. It's not worse it's just different.
My goal is to capture someone with my music like music captured me
when I was younger. Catch them open and unreserved. Take them away. Make
them remember and want to feel like that forever. But also, I want people,
in my stage, (I'll refer to it as the "after the marriage" stage) to listen,
analyze and hopefully notice and appreciate different aspects of it. A
difficult task, for sure. But that's why I do it. That's why I keep coming
back.
Speaking of making music, we are finally back from the United
Kingdom and are excited to finish up the album. The U.K. was quite the
experience. Loved the ice cream. It was so much better than soft serve here,
more like half whip cream half ice cream. Delicious. Not so much impressed
by British accents. They were so much impressed by ours. The kids there are
not afraid to sing out loud. America could learn a little from them. One too
many sausage rolls. Everything closes early. I don't feel like I slept much.
But, over all it was a good experience.
After the record, we will not be doing Warped Tour. We are taking a
summer vacation. The first, in years. We are excited about the break but
even more than that we are then DOING OUR HEADLINING TOUR WHERE WE WILL BE
PLAYING NEW SONGS THAT WE ARE SO EXCITED FOR BECAUSE NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
THEM!!!
Oh, and by the way, Disney...you now owe us an endorsement. ha ha....
No, really.
Meg |
|
|
