A Band Reunion
There are all sorts of reunions in our lives. School reunions are probably the most commonly thought about but re connecting with old friends and places and communities also create reunion circumstances. I have the opportunity to look at the feelings as one such time approaches.
Playing in a band creates a unique bond between members. I'm not so much thinking of the professional band where members are thrown together in an extended family situation over a long period of time (like forever) but more the casual band where members gather for the sole purpose of a gig or two and return to their avocations. On the one hand we are all different people with our own lives and often great dissimilarities. Yet we find common ground and gather on occasion to share in that unique sphere of musical expression. For some reason, diverse peoples will share a common response or at least a common attraction to a type and style of music. The common attraction might be intuitive or historic, based on positive experiences in the past associated with a style and rhythm. Maybe it’s all just an innate ability to play in a certain style.
For my self, this common thread has been in the genre of Jug Band music. It's not that that it’s the only sort of music I like. In fact, it's not even my favorite music for normal listening but for reasons unknown, it is the music that came most easily to my guitar and banjo playing. I have always fallen in amongst people who shared an interest in this music. When called upon to contribute a tune, it would be along the old ragtime or early jazz style, altered to fit my abilities of course.
At some point in my history a group of musicians with the time to gather regularly gravitated together out in Honolulu. While some folks sat in and moved on, a core group formed out of those who always seemed to be there. Maybe they stuck together because of their residential permanence in the area or maybe it was their personal need to create a common shared expression. Music is always better and more exciting when you have others to bounce off of.
This group eventually became known as the Kapakahi Jug Band. Many casual gigs were played over the years in a wide variety of venues. It was never clear just how seriously various members took themselves in this but it got serious enough to keep records and to organize a sort of schedule. The monies involved were minimal but through a period there in the late 70s things could get hectic.
In 1981 the band decided to cut a vinyl album. It was self produced and sold hand to hand at gigs. It did help define a membership roster for the band and gave us a way of thinking about ourselves as an entity but by 1983 a general dispersal of this membership put the band back into the casual category of changing membership as new folks would fill in the voids.
Surprise of surprises, 20 some odd years later, the album gets reproduced on CD by a company in Japan called Buffalo Records. This project pulled the members from the eighties together again (bless that internet) and caused us all to look back and reflect upon what had been. It was great to see how a membership still identified with itself and could take itself seriously again raising all sorts of concerns and issues over this new release. A new bond was forming.
Well here we are in 2006 and as a result of all this excitement and reflection we are all cascading into Honolulu for a reunion this year. Not that this is the first time that we thought it would be good to get together again but almost with a life of its own, the band has committed to a time and place and made itself available.
August! What will happen in August? Can these people, whose expressions and musical development which has continued to evolve down new avenues since 1983, return to those thrilling days of yesteryear? ...to those memories frozen in time? I know for myself, that I no longer sing certain songs the same way or even in the same key yet I have a feeling that like riding a bicycle we will lapse easily into what once was.
Reunions are like that. Just as an adult who tells a story of their childhood will lapse into the jargon and manner of speech that was prevalent in the original setting of the story being told, we fall back into the time stamped upon our memories.
That said, it’s time to wash away any expectations and go forward into this as a new adventure. This reunion is a vast blank canvas, full of potential.
Like Bart once said during a partial gathering in 1999,
"It's just like old times, only we all know who we're going home with tonight."
There are all sorts of reunions in our lives. School reunions are probably the most commonly thought about but re connecting with old friends and places and communities also create reunion circumstances. I have the opportunity to look at the feelings as one such time approaches.
Playing in a band creates a unique bond between members. I'm not so much thinking of the professional band where members are thrown together in an extended family situation over a long period of time (like forever) but more the casual band where members gather for the sole purpose of a gig or two and return to their avocations. On the one hand we are all different people with our own lives and often great dissimilarities. Yet we find common ground and gather on occasion to share in that unique sphere of musical expression. For some reason, diverse peoples will share a common response or at least a common attraction to a type and style of music. The common attraction might be intuitive or historic, based on positive experiences in the past associated with a style and rhythm. Maybe it’s all just an innate ability to play in a certain style.
For my self, this common thread has been in the genre of Jug Band music. It's not that that it’s the only sort of music I like. In fact, it's not even my favorite music for normal listening but for reasons unknown, it is the music that came most easily to my guitar and banjo playing. I have always fallen in amongst people who shared an interest in this music. When called upon to contribute a tune, it would be along the old ragtime or early jazz style, altered to fit my abilities of course.
At some point in my history a group of musicians with the time to gather regularly gravitated together out in Honolulu. While some folks sat in and moved on, a core group formed out of those who always seemed to be there. Maybe they stuck together because of their residential permanence in the area or maybe it was their personal need to create a common shared expression. Music is always better and more exciting when you have others to bounce off of.
This group eventually became known as the Kapakahi Jug Band. Many casual gigs were played over the years in a wide variety of venues. It was never clear just how seriously various members took themselves in this but it got serious enough to keep records and to organize a sort of schedule. The monies involved were minimal but through a period there in the late 70s things could get hectic.
In 1981 the band decided to cut a vinyl album. It was self produced and sold hand to hand at gigs. It did help define a membership roster for the band and gave us a way of thinking about ourselves as an entity but by 1983 a general dispersal of this membership put the band back into the casual category of changing membership as new folks would fill in the voids.
Surprise of surprises, 20 some odd years later, the album gets reproduced on CD by a company in Japan called Buffalo Records. This project pulled the members from the eighties together again (bless that internet) and caused us all to look back and reflect upon what had been. It was great to see how a membership still identified with itself and could take itself seriously again raising all sorts of concerns and issues over this new release. A new bond was forming.
Well here we are in 2006 and as a result of all this excitement and reflection we are all cascading into Honolulu for a reunion this year. Not that this is the first time that we thought it would be good to get together again but almost with a life of its own, the band has committed to a time and place and made itself available.
August! What will happen in August? Can these people, whose expressions and musical development which has continued to evolve down new avenues since 1983, return to those thrilling days of yesteryear? ...to those memories frozen in time? I know for myself, that I no longer sing certain songs the same way or even in the same key yet I have a feeling that like riding a bicycle we will lapse easily into what once was.
Reunions are like that. Just as an adult who tells a story of their childhood will lapse into the jargon and manner of speech that was prevalent in the original setting of the story being told, we fall back into the time stamped upon our memories.
That said, it’s time to wash away any expectations and go forward into this as a new adventure. This reunion is a vast blank canvas, full of potential.
Like Bart once said during a partial gathering in 1999,
"It's just like old times, only we all know who we're going home with tonight."
posted by Pan @ 9:23 AM
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