A Return to Form

My headphones on, I sat and played along for 45 minutes with my atrophied muscle memory and the practice only made for years on the steering wheel or desk.

Originally written in 2021


Last night I ambled into the Guitar Center a block away, and in a near-empty store, I got to sit down at a kit for the first time in YEARS.

The electronic kit was amped, and has mesh, very stick-responsive heads. This was nothing at all like the Roland pad sets of ten years ago (even as recent as his set in Ant-Man and the Wasp).

My headphones on, I sat and played along for 45 minutes with my atrophied muscle memory and the practice only made for years on the steering wheel or desk.

I revisited Zeppelin’s “The Ocean” first, of course. Can’t pass up that 3/4-7/8 verse signature, and make a few garbled attempts at a Bonham double-kick fill.

Then spent a while with In Rainbows, rolling on that ride way too loosely to show Phil Selway any respect. Felt amazing though, even if maybe my headphones were up a little higher than I could easily discern what was the song and what was my playing.

Finally, with out of shape arms and a crampy left foot but still giddy on the fucking moon, I tooled around in a blind test with “Cherub Rock”. If anyone guessed what I was up to from those intro rolls, they know I soon lost and found my way over and over again for the next five minutes without a single care for any of it.

Loved it all. Someone pls venmo me $3k so I can counter my neighbor’s TV with sloppy rudiments.

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