6. Gecko's Muse/Take me HOM (sic)

As I've said, my drummer and I were still collaborating at this time, even after the breakup of the band itself, as we had already formed an off-shoot of Glass Gecko while the band had still been together, with me nominally still the “founding member/leader,” though in reality subordinate to the power of the majority: “3/1.” This offshoot/side-project we eventually agreed to call "The Gecko's Muse." Actually, I loved this project, much more than its more powerful (and also much more troublesome) older cousin, as it allowed me to handle all of the guitar/vocal arrangements without the guitarist's ego involved, and also, since the drummer could also play guitar pretty well himself, he often helped me to arrange some of the fledgling songs we hadn't been able to do with the band for one or another reason. When it was just the two of us rehearsing together in the studio, we got along great, inspiring each other, cracking jokes, no issues whatsoever. However, whenever the four of us were together he always seemed, like a + attracted to a - polarity, to immediately drift over to their side, so, for me, the duo was much less stressful and, therefore, a lot more fun and productive and free.

To use a quite-fitting, I think, analogy here to describe why I had started this side-project in the first place (though the actual situation should be considered in the non-sexual meaning, of course)... I've often heard that if a woman who is married or in a longterm relationship sleeps with another man, it is because she is unhappy with her lover and has already decided, consciously or not, to seek out greener pastures. I now realize, in hindsight, that, for me, forming this side-project, for which I actually did not want to use the term "Gecko" in the name -- this was at the suggestion of the drummer, who wished to keep it "connected" in some way with the full band version, even as I was trying precisely to further distance myself from it -- was another step in the direction of "breaking up with my lover," so to speak. What I didn’t then yet realize, however, was that, in the end, my "lover" would end up being none other than myself.

As when I had first attempted to perform solo whilst still being active as 1/4 of the band, our duo unit was at first met with a measure of resistance from the others, or at least we had to go through the motions and first officially ask both of them at a meeting, "Is it OK, Mommy and Daddy, if I play in a unit with someone else from my own unit when class is not in session?" and receive their blessings. However, once the other two resigned themselves to the fact that we had already started doing our little project casually "on the side" to work on compositions I had written, since they themselves were often busying themselves with their own respective non-music-related things, they stopped questioning it. Yes, of course, I was still very eager to arrange many of the songs that the guitarist was often too busy, because of his job (he’d said), to arrange, and that the bassist had found too difficult to play (she’d said) when we tried them out a few times in the studio together as a trio. This was why I had decided to form a side-project with my/our drummer, I explained. In truth, though, I soon began wanting to focus my energies less and less on the “Gecko” and more and more on the “Muse.” Had the drummer agreed, I would have quit the band the very next day, even, really at any time, wished the other two a bon voyage without a second thought, but, as he had strongly felt that our side-project was just that -- a thing we did on the side when the other members were too busy to do the "full," the "true" version -- I did not have that option at the time. Had I done so, it would have avoided the mess that ensued, but then I also wouldn’t now have such titillating stories to relate here, would I…

Let me also say that one other part of the "Muse" duo collaboration I had enjoyed so much was that, after arranging songs together at the drummer's home, we eventually started doing recordings (with me as nascent engineer) at my apartment, via GarageBand and an external mic, with him on cahon (a percussion instrument) and me doing vocals and acoustic on my own songs and in my own arrangements, rescuing and reclaiming songs like "The Day I Cried" and "Box Man" from the “bad remix” surgical disfiguration they had been through when the guitarist had arranged them for the band. I later effectorized the cahon he played (since we couldn't record kit at my apartment, obviously) to sound like different types of drums, and I also used effectors on my guitar parts and vocals, turning the acoustic into a distorted electric guitar and so forth. This was at once the first time I had ever recorded an instrument other than my own voice and acoustic guitar, and it was also the first time I had begun to realize the potential of using a DAW such as GarageBand, with all its effects and other mixing options (which, of course, I would later develop much more over time using LOGIC PRO X and a MIDI keyboard). 

In any case, sometimes the drummer and I would just "hang out" for hours at his home, arranging or rearranging songs in more complex and interesting ways than previously; experimenting, too, with him on the cahon or even on the acoustic (he recorded his own style of acoustic fingerpicked guitar for my song "My Friend," atop which I recorded my vocals, for instance -- this version in fact ended up as the final track on our demo LP, which I engineered for the first time using GarageBand). We'd take short breaks to chat about the songs or to get a drink of water, and then we would practice/play some more, and so it was very freeform and casual and fun, while also being creative and inspiring to me. In contrast, the full band rehearsals had by that time become (for myself, though apparently not for him) a slog, and I felt as though my input was by then practically zero, so I definitely preferred doing the “Muse” project whenever I could instead. 

And then, again, things changed…

Perhaps a couple of weeks after the eventual and inevitable break-up of the band, which, as I explained at the end of the last section, soon after reformed as an instrumental “feline” trio, with the guitarist now as its official "band leader" and every trace of my songs and influence purged from their sound and style, I myself ended up somehow in a newly-formed trio with my drummer and another (this time male) bassist who had hailed from another instrumental trio (ironically). 

The bass player had met me one afternoon for lunch on the pretext of needing some help with his English, but then the conversation had quickly turned to music and the recent dissolution of my band. He knew that I had been performing from time to time with my drummer in TGM (The Gecko’s Muse) and offered to play bass for us "until I could find another bassist" (a bit of deja-vu, for wasn’t this exactly what the drummer had said when he first joined Glass Gecko for rehearsals-only?). We now, he knew, essentially had zero “bottom end” to our sound, without a bassist or keyboardist to add in the bass line, and he was a good player, and a confident one, at that. And so, we went into the studio one day, the three of us together, and that night communicated via Messenger, the bassist all jokes and hilarity and enthusiasm for the project. And so the drummer and I agreed, after discussing it for a bit together, to let him join us and see where this thing might go. 

Well, once it was official that we were now essentially a trio/unit, the bassist seized the reins, deciding everything for all of us, from the band’s name (no reptiles in the name! he despised reptiles!! “We’ll instead go by ‘House of Mirrors,’ or ‘HOM’ for short, like ‘[coming] home [to one's posse]’”...) and the unit's image and logo, to where we should and shouldn't play, how we should dress/look onstage (he even insisted we go clothes shopping together before our first show, and once even tried to make me wear a knit cap onstage, though on this point I was firmly opposed and stood my ground!), etc., and soon rehearsals became rather tense, as he and the drummer did not see eye to eye on things, and as the drummer, I could palpably sense, was also a bit scared of him, flinching whenever the bassist lost his temper and yelled at him, which was rather frequently. The bassist was his senpai -- i.e. older than him in years, something like an older brother one must obey or else pay the price -- and so had the "right" (in Japanese culture) to do so; perhaps he even felt it his duty to do so in the context of being part of a band/unit, to call the drummer out when he felt that he was being lazy. This was, in a sense, for him, a "working" situation, and not just a bunch of friends hanging out and jamming for fun, and he made this clear from the very start.

One day, a mere three weeks into our little increasingly-tense trio experiment, and having played a number of shows already over a rather short timespan, the bassist flew into a rage at my apartment. This was just hours before the sound check for a show we had scheduled for that evening, at a live space where the drummer was in charge of the event’s regular booking (the show of which I speak turned out to be our last, by the bye). The bassist got so mad, apparently, because  the drummer had, for the second time that week, showed up a few minutes late to our pre-show "meeting" at my place. This, to him, was absolutely unacceptable, and so, having shouted at the drummer threateningly, eyes bulging, at one point he suddenly kicked my computer chair (which was, of course, on wheels) across the floor, where it crash-landed into the wall. I, of course, was not thrilled about this and flat-out told him to calm down, to sit down and chill for a bit, and not to kick my stuff around, but the drummer...his face showed pure terror, and when we both, later, told the bassist, after he had calmed down to the point where we thought it possible to at least communicate with him, without him again kicking or throwing anything within his reach, that it was over, that we would simply go back to doing the project as a duo as before, he fumed and said, “Well, I quit! Don't blame me for not having anyone to play bass for you tonight!! Your problem, not mine...” Although he did show up to play a very sloppy show with us, following the most awkward and tension-filled rehearsal I had ever before in my lifetime experienced, and which took place only about an hour before we were scheduled to go on stage, he had huffed and puffed during the entire set and even lashed out at the owner of the livehouse during our soundcheck. 

And so, that was that. Again. 

The second time “my band” had broken up in a period of less than three months.

I was on a roll now…

The very next day the drummer phones me up to say he has decided to quit as well, and that he will now concentrate on doing the trio with my ex-bandmates.

"Good luck to you," he says. "See ya."

The gecko had died, and so now, too, had its muse.

Now, I find that I am really, truly alone. 

Quite alone, indeed.

Another brief aside, and on a more personal note: 2016 was also the year I had separated from my wife. (This was why the drummer and I were able to record at my apartment without interruption, since by then I was living alone.) And so, well, though I am generally not exceedingly superstitious, Google-sensei’s suggestion that seeing a gecko would imply some "major life changes" had indeed turned out to be a rather accurate prediction, after all.