R.O.C.K. in J.A.P.A.N.

At my little Welcome Party last Tuesday, one of my students said that someone was coming who wanted to meet me. She was late because of work, but apparently had some kind of favor to ask me.

Turns out, Sumiko had read my little written self-introduction in the town newsletter and had learned from that the fact that I play drums. Well, she is a drummer in a local rock band and they have a show coming up next month. She asked me if I would MC the show and I figured it would be cool to check out a couple of local bands in Japan so I agreed. Apparently I hadn't quite understood everything she said (of course, it wa in Japanese) and in addition to MCing she had asked that I play a song with her band. Once I figured this out I made it clear that, although I would love to do it, I was really out of practice and I would definitely need to get some rehearsal under my belt.

So, today she picked me up and we headed to the studio where her band practices every weekend (Practicing at someone's house is nearly unheard of here. It would annoy the neighbors, and besides few houses have room for that sort of nonsense). Well, it has been at least six months since I even sat behind a drum set and well over three years since I played with a band so I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to pull this off. One good thing was that the song they wanted me to play was a cover, Basketcase by Green Day. As much as I like the song, Green Day is not exactly known for it's complex music. The drummer is pretty good but for someone who has been trying to play Rush, Tool, and Dream Theater for years a Green Day song is not too tough. Still, I was terribly out of practice.

The good news is that I still have my abilities. It was amazing to me how easily I got used to being at the set once again and how quickly I was able to rip out some decent rhythms. The lead guitar and bass player jammed with me for a bit before the lead singer got there which gave me chance to remind my arms and feet of what they were supposed to do. Having downloaded Basketcase and given it a few close listens that morning, I was ready to do it and things went well. In fact, they have asked me to play drums on another song, one of their own, in addition to the Green Day cover.

The bad news is, my chops are gone. Any drummers reading this will completely understand that, but since I'm guessing that number is somewhere around zero I'll explain. For drummers, 'chops' are basically the muscles in your forearms which do nearly all of the work since drumming is done from the wrist and not the elbow (unless you're a really terrible drummer, which I have seen). Whereas, at my height, I was practicing for two or three hours straight without too much trouble I found my right forearm (it does far more work because of the hi-hat and ride cymbal) burning after 25-30 minutes today. It felt like it had swelled to twice it size. Kind of made me sad.

Anyhow, I'm really looking forward to getting back up on a stage and banging on the drums again, even if it is just as a guest drummer. Who knows? Maybe a different band will see me and fire their drummer on the spot. And then pay me copious amounts of money to join.

It could happen.