Blew their minds with a song about bears

There was a battle-of-the-bands type contest going on between a rock band of Metallica-grade self-importance, and us (me and Kevin S and maybe Ray).

The Metallickesque band had just made an earnest, rocky song, and it was our turn to create a song to challenge it. We ended up copping the song structure from their song and changing it into an inane lounge song.

Kevin S wrote the words, and as we played the song for the other band, in like a backstage hangout room, written lyrics magically unfurled on one side of my field of vision, as though it were on TV.

The other band was dumbfounded as we played. I worked out some kind of chord/bass progression on the left (chordy) side of an accordion (though the sound coming out sounded like a perc/rotary organ).

It was in B flat. The words were kind of like:
1 Prose. x . . . . . . . 3b 3b 3b 2 1 Rock music history, Who-knows. x . . . . . . . It's such a mystery. Bears. [Something about bears..] Bears. [etc.]

Of course I probably did some random post-awakening edits while trying to piece it back together, but it was to that effect.

Another lost song :\

I had a dream where I spent what felt like several minutes composing, singing, and mixing three or four measures of a new song, which sounded pretty catchy, although the lyrics seemed a little trite. The drums and vocals were snappy. Wasn't a sound that I typically try to create. I think Greg was listening along with me. Then I woke up.

And two seconds later (before I even had a chance to try running the song back through my head), I already had an Air Supply song stuck in my head, effectively dispelling my recollection. Blergh.

Flickbox™ music box

I was on what appeared to be a Homecoming trip with Priss and Colin. Priss had been driving us around and we had now returned to wherever we are staying. It seems too fancy and homelike to be a hotel, but I can't quite figure out what it was supposed to be.

Colin and I were sharing a room, and he was just coming out of the shower (in the bathroom attached to the bedroom). I was sitting on or up against the footboard of the bed (actually, my back was up against a very thick column, wider than my body), near the bathroom door, and glancing away for good measure, in case Colin were to come out naked. When he stepped into the bedroom, he jerked back in surprise, but he was wearing a towel.

I then found a wooden box in the room, maybe the size of a breadbox, made of light blond, unpolished wood, and unadorned except for four or five lengthwise rows of nails embedded in the top. If you flick one of the nails, it somehow causes the box to resonate the sound of a voice singing a syllable of a word from a song, plus one piece of percussion -- as if the part of the box below that nail were shaped in such a perfect way as to reshape the sound of the flick into this complex sound.

I started with the last row, in which the words were accompanied by a closed hi-hat cymbal. The song it was playing sounded like a version of Mad Tom of Bedlam sung by Jolie Holland. I went and started at the first row, flicking each nail in the right rhythm, and listening to the song.

This box had to be really old, I thought, and the sounds coming from it were produced in some super-complex organic process without the benefit digital recording and reproduction. I wonder if this art had been lost to time. In any case, I'm keeping this.

Ringo and the big band at the mansion

I was hanging out in a small, cozy living room (I think maybe it had the dark brown shag carpet that we used to have) with a guy and girl I knew, watching TV on an old set (maybe the wood-paneled Zenith TV we used to own). On TV was a rare recording (in black and white) of an early Beatles performance in England. The setting looked like maybe one end of a ballroom or other function hall in a mansion. Ringo was standing with a microphone, singing an uncharacteristically soulful song (also, maybe sort of slow and big-band-like). I didn't actually spot the rest of the Beatles, but I assumed they were behind him somewhere. However, on all sides of Ringo were at least six or seven other backup musicians.

To Ringo's left (right from the viewer's perspective) was a guy playing a full drum set. At one point in the song, he did a fancy drum fill where he started in the seated position, then hopped up and walked off the front-right corner of the stage area and off the screen, hitting three or four cymbals on stands as he walked. Another guy who was playing hand percussion behind Ringo stepped over to the drum set and hit a couple things to finish off the part.

Meanwhile, I was wondering to myself if I could find a download for this on the Internet. I wasn't sure what search terms to use, though. The location had flashed up at the beginning of the performance, but all I could remember was that it had the letters "ea" in it somewhere, which didn't narrow it down much.

My unrare umbrella, and singing George with Jen

I was on a (school?) bus taking a field trip with a bunch of folks. I was one or two rows back from the front, in the aisle seat on the left side of the bus. At one point, I noticed that my umbrella (the Crystal City multicolored one) was getting away from me and I reached over to get it, but after grabbing it I realized that it was someone else's umbrella. Indeed, as I looked down at my feet, I saw that both I and the person next to me had identical Crystal City umbrellas stashed below the seat in front of us, which surprised me. I figured it would be rare for others to have that umbrella.

At another point a couple of us (at least me and Jen H, sitting in the seat in front of me, or rather, standing and turned around to face me) broke out into the song While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- Jen hummed the bass line while I sang the words. A little ways into the song, the band at the back of the bus (including at least a full drum set and some guitar) joined in, and we (near the front of the bus) were excited and impressed.

Mostly harmless skin epidemic at band practice

Dave, Vanessa, and I went to Lou B's place, but instead of it being a townhouse, it was a penthouse apartment in a tall building. The four of us started playing "Flirting With Disaster" or something similar to it. I decided it would be a fun opportunity to experiment with my bass line a little bit. By the fifth or sixth measure, however, Lou was troubled by something and stopped us playing. He said he needed to get another person over to sit and listen, because right now we were missing a "top control" (i.e. someone to supervise and make judgement calls on the song performance).

I noticed that Dave had a blotch on his skin that reminded me of something I had noticed on my dad recently. I asked him about it and he said he wasn't sure what it was. He pointed out that I had something similar. I looked at the top of my right wrist, and indeed, I had a huge blotch, shaped somewhat like a simplified rendition of a neuron, and almost the size of my entire hand. Near the middle was a scab, which I had also seen on Dave's blotch. It turned out that Vanessa had similar blotches too. I speculated that there was something going round, and guessed that if everyone was getting it, it probably wasn't a big deal.

Lou, meanwhile, was commenting how the door to the roof (straight out to the roof, no stairs up, since apparently, the roof was the same floor as this apartment) used to be a window until he had it changed.

Then, for some reason, I went down to street level and was trying to call a plumber to go look at Lou's apartment. I saw a plumbing van parked across the street and called the number on it. They asked for the address and I gave them the building's street number, but trailed off trying to remember the suite number. They said they were busy but they forwarded me to a different plumbing company so they could take the job.

Strange drum set

I was attending some concert (can't recall whether or not I played in the first act). When the second act came on, I noticed that there wasn't much to it, a very minimal setup, and, notably, no percussion. I offered to play drums and walked out into the hallways (sort of like a school building's hallways) and found my drum set in the hall. I sat down to look at it and tinker a bit. First, I noticed that there were no crash or ride cymbals, and the hi-hats' cymbals had been replaced by thick, gray cafeteria trays, which, while they made a metallic sound when I hit them, were much too quiet. I then noticed that my normal hi-hats were also present, on a second stand behind that.

Running late for the concert; watching, playing...

Finishing up dinner at home with the family, I was getting ready to head out to a late show in the city where Frau Eva (Dave, Vanessa, and Ben) were playing. They were supposed to start around 9:30, but as music shows always start late, I was planning to leave just a little before 9:30. However, when I looked at my watch, it was 9:40 already before I had left. I decided to give Ben a call, but couldn't get through.

In a related dream, I was actually at their show, in a smallish dream venue that I think I've seen before (i.e. in other dreams). But weirdly, my point of view was mixed between watching the show and identifying with myself, who was also on stage, as part of the band, playing some stuff. Lou Black was playing too. I can't recall exactly what kind of tunes we played.

Odds-and-ends shop, "queer" sized clothes and weird instruments

Stopped into a store that carried all kinds of odds and ends.. There were clothes, crafted jewelry, lip balms, etc. After a while in the store I realized there was also a section with musical instruments. Most of the items were second hand, especially the musical instrument section. There were signs near the door stating that they carried "queer" sizes for some of their clothing, with certain larger dimensions. The only clothes I noticed with that designation were some shoddy looking sweaters.

I wandered the store for a while, ducked out, realized I had nothing better to do (plus I think my curiosity was piqued by the sign about "queer" sizes), and came back in. The guy and girl at the front desk (free spirit artsy types, probably in their twenties or thirties) cheered when they saw me again, as if I had been their best customer of all time, despite that I had never bought anything. I guess they were glad to see a familiar face from 30 seconds ago.

After some more poking, I finally caught sight of the musical instruments. Most of them were guitarish, with a few bowed instruments interspersed. There were one or two other people poking around the area too. The first "guitar" I picked up was more like a bass guitar (left-handed), dull brown colored, but the strings were really odd. The largest string looked like it was made of bamboo, around a centimeter thick at its widest point, and tapering to perhaps half of that towards one end. Plucking it produced no real respectable sound. The next string was much thinner, more like a typical bass guitar string's width, and I couldn't tell what material it was. It sounded a bit higher, but without much of a sustained note. There were three more strings, all a little thinner than the second, but identical to each other in thickness and pitch. And all equally dull. As I put that instrument back down on the chair where I had picked it up (balanced precariously against the curved, arched back of the wooden chair), I noticed a sign that said to be "conservative" in touching the instruments.

So I looked at, but didn't touch, a bunch of other guitarish instruments. Finally, one of the women who worked there came out of nowhere and handed me a Les Paul, hoping I would play a little. It was totally out of tune, so I tuned it up by ear (twice, because the changes in string tension on the first run knocked the lower strings back out of tune; people commented on this as they looked on). I was particularly taciturn this whole time, mumbling something or other when I had the guitar tuned. A mild crowd was starting to gather.

Just as I was waking up, I had decided I would play Tombstones, by Dave Klinger.