Archive for December, 2007

Collin Derrick Band Tour Diary, Day 1

By Collin, 31 December, 2007, No Comment

Technically it’s only been day one for a few minutes, but I’ve been wanting to write a tour diary my whole life so I’m a little eager.  Today was the first day of many miles and hours spent in the ol’ faithful malibu - almost 500 miles and over 7 and 1/2 hours, in the rain no less.  Tonight we’re going to be rocking out a Radiohead cover set at New Brookland Tavern’s New Years Eve show.  We’re all really excited and nervous about it.  We have all be practicing on our own and in various configurations but never as a whole band until today - hence the nervousness.

I personally am coming of somewhat of an emotional roller coaster over the holidays.  Lots of family, several states, and many nights away from home have somehow unsettled me and heightened my typically low-level anxiety.  Tonight was a great alleviator though as we ran through the set before Stevo arrived from NC and spent the rest of the evening playing God’s glorious invention: the Xbox 360.  Call of Duty 4 is just one amazingly beautiful game and the single player campaign is intense, engrossing, and tons-o-fun.  Rock Band, on the other hand, is earning my ire.  As a musician, when I play a rhythm game I expect to be rewarded and not chastised when I play my instrument correctly.  Guitar Hero doesn’t seem to have any problem responding to my playing so why should Rock Band be any different?  It shouldn’t.  It is.  It makes me feel like that egotistical guy that comes over to your house, plays the game for 30 seconds, and then decides that it’s the games fault that he’s not winning … except this time it really is the game’s fault.  But that’s a whole other topic : )

It’s been fantastic to hang out with the guys as well.  I forget how much fun we have together sometimes.  Often there’s only time for business during our visits.  Tomorrow as we start rehearsal in earnest the “good times” might get a little heated but tonight was a nice chance to kick off the tour with non-gigging related R&R.  Can’t wait to rock 4 states in two weeks and to see you at a show.

Almost Over

By Collin, 25 December, 2007, No Comment

Tis the season for recap blog entries and TV specials for 2007. This will be more of a long overdue post than a recap but how can I completely avoid being sentimental about the good and bad of 12 months?

First and foremost (sometimes people use that as a turn of phrase, but I really do mean “most importantly”), God provides. Because my family spent almost a decade depending solely on the generosity of others to support themselves, I have become accustomed to God’s generous and timely provision. However, I strive to be grateful and (hopefully) take it for granted as little as possible. Explanation: Stephanie found out on Friday that her teaching load (read: salary) has been cut for the next semester at one of her schools. For some teachers a reduction in class load is probably a relief or at least not a big deal. For us Steph is the primary financial provider and last semester she was already teaching fewer hours than expected. As we drove back home from Florida on Saturday we discussed our financial/occupational options for the coming semester. In case you’ve never had one, money discussions between couples can get pretty intense. To calm us down a little I reminded us that, since we’ve been married, every time we’ve had an unexpected expense or mishap that God has provided - almost to the dollar. Sunday afternoon comes around and we receive a huge gift (huge in both amount and degree of unexpectedness). Not that we’ve been able to put a specific price on the different in living costs that the drop in hours would amount to but, pretty much before we had a chance to get worked up about it, God swoops in to remind us that he invented money and we will never go without, in 24 hours no less. Isn’t that awesome? : )

Next an introspective snippet. I am a total jerk when it comes to receiving gifts. For some reason I never made it out of elementary school in regards to my gift getting mentality. People who mean well but give not completely accurate gifts get almost zero points with me. Somehow I manage to believe that I genuinely deserve exactly what I want. The gift could go in the garbage and I literally wouldn’t give a pile of fecal matter. What the hell is wrong with me? How do I expect people to read my mind? These are people who love me and have spent time, energy, and money trying to figure out something to wrap and prepare as an undeserved gift for me. And how do I respond? I kick them in the emotional groin. If I’ve ever done that to you - I’m sorry. I really am. I know what it’s like to give a gift to someone you don’t know very well but want badly to show appreciation to. Which is why I think I’m a jerk. And by the way, if for some crazy reason you still feel like ever getting me something after reading this, I have a wish list at Amazon.com that contains exact things that I really do want. Hopefully, God isn’t done with me yet and will fix some of this sin nature.

Alright, here’s my 2007 retrospection: The Good Times and the Bad Times.

BAD
- Losing my wallet during our move to TN and using a ziploc bag instead for a week. Want to know a sure fire way to get people to instantly lose respect for you? Pull out a ziploc bag with your debit card, DL, etc. when you go to pay for something.
- Having to live in, what felt like, the smallest apartment ever in Tallahassee. You know it’s bad when you throw clean clothes in the dirty laundry just because you don’t have anywhere to put them away.
- You know, I really can’t think of that much “bad” stuff that’s happened.

GOOD
- Getting accepted into a freakin’ sweet grad school that I absolutely love. Getting in-state tuition for said grad school. Having an awesome class full of cool people to study with. Being on my way to getting a Masters.
- Getting promoted several times at the bank - right before I quit, of course : )
- Being in the most awesome band ever. I could go on for a LONG time on this one but I won’t. Suffice it to say that it’s completely worth it.
- Not working for almost two months. Man, summer never felt so good.
- Getting a MacBook. Yes, I’m an Apple addict and I have a problem.

To the (maybe) two people who read this: I hope you had an awesome year and that 2008 holds some crazy revelations about God for you. I’d love to hear what you consider your best/worst moment or event of the past calendar year was. And if you haven’t yet, check our Myspace page (Myspace.com/CollinDerrick) for a gig near you in Jan.  We’ll be playing in about nine cities in the south east (TN, NC, SC and GA) so come out to a show and enjoy some good rock music.

Brief Nugget

By Collin, 6 December, 2007, No Comment

The insanity of final projects is now behind me.  Exams are not yet complete but they are far less worrisome than final projects.  Seem I’m getting caught up on everything that’s happened in the past few months weeks I’m posting some vids that will hopefully brighten your end-of-semester existence.

The Gibson Guitar Robot is freaking awesome and apparently goes on sale tomorrow.  All of those things that I find wearisome about string changing/tuning are now automated by a robot.  Gotta love it.  Also, Gibson has been having some fun making video spoofs with their robot, like this one for “Psycho”.  Enjoy.