bizgirl

I spent the entire day rehearsing the basslines for my audition with Bertel's band (which, for the purpose of this blog, will hereafter be known as Hamlet).

The band have been holed up in a studio apartment downtown (Bertel and I have spent a couple of nights at a hotel around the corner, to try and get a bit of privacy, but it would seem the cost of privacy in this city is fairly exorbitant), so I spent the day there with Bertel and Axel (the guitar player), going over the songs.

After dinner we headed off to the rehearsal room to play through the songs with the full band.

It's a bit tricky to describe the music of Hamlet without giving too much away, suffice to say it isn't technically difficult to play, but does rely on all the players being in tune (and not just the musical sense) with each other...

"It's all," explained Axel, "about the sonics. The ambience. The shifts and swirls and eddies. It's the vibe. Yes?"
"Yes," I agreed, as I pondered just what the first note of the song we were about to play was, and realised that I shouldn't have done all my practicing sitting down, as now, standing up in a semi-circle with the rest of the boys, I suddenly realised how heavy the damned bass was on my shoulder, and how much trickier it was going to be watching just where my fingers were going from an upright position.

As I pondered my posture, Jakob the drummer clicked us into the first song, and we were away.

Tell you what, if you think modern rock concerts are loud, try standing next to a Scandinavian rock drummer going at full throttle in a small rehearsal room. I could barely hear myself (which was probably for the best) over the splash and crack of his cymbals and snare. The accompanying waves of distorted guitar noise emanating from Axel and Arkin's amps were just about powerful enough to knock me off my feet. It was great.

We played through the set-list from start to finish, only pulling up a couple of times in some of the more free-form sections where I totally blanked out on what I should be doing.

"You have lost the vibe Natalie? Yes?"
"Err, yes."

Still, they were minor things, and Jakob was great, giving me all sorts of visual cues with the subtle raise of an eyebrow or not-so-subtle pointing of a drum-stick. Bertel, hand encased in plaster and sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room kept nodding his encouragement my way. The only person who didn't seem particularly enthused by my performance was Nils, the manager, but I've yet to see him enthused by anything other than the World Rally Champs, so that wasn't too disheartening.

After finishing the set, we stopped for a team-talk, and all the boys were suitably complimentary of my playing. The vibe, apparently, was feeling pretty good.

"We do it again, for real this time," said Nils.

And we did. Nils and Bertel made it a bit harder for me this time by dimming (and even turning off entirely) the lights at various stages of each song to emulate a live light show. Bertel even played the part of a drunken fan, and shouted a few rude things at me between songs to try and put me off, but I got through the entire second set without a major mishap (which is more than can be said for both Axel and Arkin, who both played a couple of terrific clangers when the lights went out).

At the end of the second set, Nils nodded. "Yes," he said, "that was good. Guys, I would like to propose a vote. All those in favour of Natalie being our temporary bass-player while the violent and valiant Bertel's hand mends, please say 'aye'."
"Aye!" shouted all the boys.

My shoulder ached from the weight of the guitar, and my ears were ringing from the onslaught of noise, but my physical woes were put aside as I flushed with delight and excitement at my promotion from band groupie to band member.

I'm going to play a gig! This weekend!

There are a surprising number of New Zealanders here in New York City. I am stumbling upon them with happy regularity. Bertel's band (who have been in pre-production for their album since we arrived in New York) are rehearsing at a studio where one of the main sound engineers - Tom - is a kiwi.

After a night out seeing yet another fabulous act I would never have dreamed of seeing (or, admittedly, even have heard about) back in New Zealand, Tom pulled me (and by extension, Bertel) off to watch the Crusaders v. Hurricanes Super 12 rugby semi-final.

It was an ungodly hour of the morning at some downtown bar in Manhattan, and the combination of several nights of loud music and alcohol was starting to take its toll on me, but as soon I spotted Dan Carter, Caleb Ralph and Rico Gear in the pre-match highlights, I was wide awake again. Mmm.

It goes without saying that Canterbury won, and even the many Wellingtonians present agreed that their buzzy-bee uniformed 'Canes were no match for the Crusaders this year, and we all toasted to their success in the final. It was, as they say, all good. In fact, with plenty of New Zealanders present, the home country lingo was flowing freely, much to the amused incomprehension of the assorted Americans (and a few Brits, for some reason) who also happened to be at the bar...

"Hey bro. Gizza 'nother one. Cheers."
"Ka pai."
"It wuz wucked."
"Wucked mate."
"Choice."
"Chur bro."
"Chur."

And, at the end of the night...

"Syu."
"Syu!"

It was on the way home, in the wee hours of the morning, that things took a turn for the worse.

We had decided to walk the few blocks back to the hotel, when, just like out of a Hollywood film (although, just about everything we do in New York feels like it's out of a Hollywood film), a guy jumped out of an alleyway and demanded our wallets. Bertel, without even breaking stride and in one smooth movement, hit the would-be mugger with a punch right to the nose. Blood spurted. The mugger didn't fall over, but he did give out a mighty yelp, clutched his hands to his face, turned heel and ran into the alley he had come from. Bertel, Tom and I scarpered down the street, fearing he might return with some heavy weaponry or some bigger friends, to take revenge upon us. We safely got back to the hotel, and, with the adrenalin still coursing through our veins, proceeded to drink the mini-bar dry and watch Bertel's delicate and long-fingered hand slowly but surely balloon up and start to take on some intriguing shades of blue and purple.

Of course, he's broken a couple of bones in his hand, hasn't he? And with his band due to play a 'secret' gig this weekend as part of the preparations for their recording sessions, their manager is furious. The whole plan looked like it might be going down the gurgler.

But then someone sensibly suggested they just find a temporary bass player. There's at least a couple of guys in the crew who could probably pick up the parts quickly enough, being musos themselves, and they figured it would be easy enough to lay down ghost parts on the recording while Bertel's hand healed up (four to six weeks, the doctor told him). As more than one person pointed out: "It's only the bass, isn't it?"

Since I happened to be sitting in, Yoko Ono like, on this particular discussion, I jokingly volunteered for the temporary bass player's job, having learnt most of the parts with Bertel over the last few weeks, both of us playing along to the demos to find the best lines to play. And, wouldn't you know, my flippant remark was taken seriously (with some lovely advocacy from Bertel, who was full of praise for my ablities) and they're going to let me rehearse with them tomorrow to see if I can do it! Ahaha!

I haven't actually played bass in a live performing band since my high school band (the fantastically monikered Lady Macbeth's Bathroom Scales) got knocked out of Rockquest in the regional finals in 1992.

I am all a-jitter. May my fingers not let me down.

Well, thank-you to everyone who emailed after my last post, and suggested workarounds to the task that lay ahead of me at the start of last week. With the help of a couple of otherwise under-utilised lads within more-or-less instantanteous MSN or Gmail contact, I managed to cut hours from the task that had been allocated me. By the start of Thursday, I had done all the updates, and even eye-balled all the changes, a full seven working days ahead of schedule. I mucked about on Friday, double-checking everything, catching up with email and trying to write a blog entry or two. By mid-afternoon I realised I wasn't going to be able to maintain the facade for a whole week, so went to see my boss-for-the-fortnight, John.

"Coffee?" he asked, gesturing back at his filter, stewing away faithfully behind him.
"No, thunks."

I took a breath. Was I about to do myself out of a week's worth of wages?

"I'm finished, actually."
"Pardon me?"
"I've done all the updates. I've done the input and proof-read it all. I think you'll find it's fine. I'm happy to come back and make any changes if you find any errors, but I'm pretty sure it's all okay."
"Well. Really. Already? All done?"
"Yes."
"Well. Fantastic. I will, uh, be getting a couple of the team to go through the updates before the project can be signed off, and we'll obviously let you know if anything needs a touch-up, but, if you're done, well, you're done I suppose."

I asked (in such a roundabout way that I can't even begin to reproduce it here) about the matter of my pay. John assured me I had been hired to complete the contract at the price agreed upon. The pay was for the job, not the time. Payment would be transferred to my account as soon as the job was signed off.

I sighed with relief. Efficiency does pay.

John stood up, and straightened his tie.

"Natalie, " he said, "it was lovely meeting you."
"And you John."

We parted ways.

How great is New York! I figure if I can keep up this sort of contract work, I could live in this city indefinitely.