“Hot Pockehhht” -Jim Gaffigan (CSS)
The pocket. It’s a term that is often thrown around by so many drummers, yet rarely is actually explored, sat in, played with, etc. It’s a delicate place to play inside of, as emotion and different dynamics can easily pull you away. Recently, we added an honorary fifth member to the group, to help explore and strengthen the all-powerful pocket—the metronome. To be fair, it isn’t the first time we, as Blue Chip Village, or I, as a drummer, have had the assistance of such a perfect keeper of time; it was used when recording a majority of the tracks from our EP. It is, however, the first time that we’ve used it during practice to work on old material and to strengthen and write new material. So far the experience has proved to be nothing but helpful and very educational for all of us. Now, rather than relying solely on the drums for the beat, the band is relying on my drumming which is relying on the metronome, or click track, to keep the tempo steady and help us all to fall into a solid groove pocket. I think of the click like a batter thinks of a baseball doughnut—as a tool to swing and practice with to make his swing faster and more powerful. In the same way, the click track that plays through my headphones serves as a tool for us to play with and tighten up to. It has brought a new dynamic to our rehearsals and we can all feel the effect that it has on our music and our song writing. The click has certainly opened a new chapter for the four of us, and will continue to help us sink into the pocket that we like every musician, are constantly trying to sit within.
-CSS
on songwriting… (np)
i am not following rules when I write music.
i spend my time following the melodies
in my head and have only now begun to truly see
these ideas through to the end. molding these songs is like
raising children. they have my eyes. they have my soul.
their chemical makeup contains a part of my being.
and when I’m playing these songs alone,
in the practice studio, for a friend or balls-out live,
and my eyes roll back in my head, my mouth hangs open
and my headstock points skyward, I’m not on stage
or on Gem street, not on the roof nor in my room anymore.
I am wholly and completely inside the musical world of the song.
and I am no longer playing guitar.
the guitar is merely amplifying
my heart’s strings.
-np
Riddle (CRG)
Songwriting is a big riddle. You create a structure. Certain things fit, certain things don’t. You soon have a skeleton. You add guts and tendons and muscles and skin. You add thought, you add messaging, you add nuance, you add more messaging, you add stank, you add grit, you get rid of nuance, you add it back, you remove thought and add new thought, you rewrite all of the messaging, you remove stank, you live your life, you add your life, you add your job, you add your soul, you add as much emotion as you can without going overboard and then you add more.
These are the most difficult of riddles to solve. They are, however, by far the most rewarding. If I had the time I’d solve every single one.
-CRG
if you are going to dedicate your life to something (CRG)
if you’re going to
dedicate your life to something
you better
dream of it in its most wilted state
crave it more than sleep or eat,
prepare for defeat, fatigue,
and pain in your joints.
pretty much all friendships will dim
you’ll make decisions that are hellish, selfish,
you’ll question everything you’re
working towards, believing in,
putting your time cash skill thrill
and mental capacity for vaudeville into
you better call before bedtime
be happy being lonely
be happy making breakthroughs under mostly stars
making breakthroughs that take entire days
that nobody else cares about but
you
nobody can possibly care
as much as you
-CRG
From behind the lens… (np)
…or in front of it, as this picture suggests. But one can do many things with a tripod and a camera with a timer. I, Nicholas A. Pascarella, am behind the vast majority of the photography associated with BCV. I will be posting photography in waves here on the site, covering everything from the band and our nonsense to my travels and (both human and mother)nature’s beauty. I will eventually have some of this photography up for sale; if you are interested please click the Contact button on top of the page.
Photography has been a quiet passion of mine since high school where I worked on the yearbook and school news show. Just like any other photographer, my eye is drawn to things in a different way and developing an eye for angles has proved invaluable for my music. Sounds baffling, but think about it…a picture is a captured mood or atmosphere. When I write new music and I need a new mood, I’ll travel to a set of pictures that I haven’t seen in a long time and it’ll pull a new set of emotions out of my strings.
You’ll be seeing much more from my Canon in the near future.
And you’ll be hearing much more from my Stratocaster as well. The tubes are glowing…
-niko sou
(np)
(nick pascarella)
(nicholas a. pascarella)
(clinton speedhands)
Trying to write like I have something really important to say (CRG)
I write, all the time. It’s a necessity at this point. Any lyric that ever ends up in a song starts off in this form; an uninhibited, unedited, free flowing chunk of expression. I usually sift my way through the madness and stumble upon things that I can build upon. The piece below just ran out of my head. Maybe you’ll see a theme from here, or even a single phrase, down the line:
Trying to write like I have something really important to say
As if I was called, by something, with at least wings, or some kind of advantage
But no, just sitting, breathing in air supply, thinking about if people in my general age bracket realize that they’re in their prime
if time has ever actually waited for anything
when something truly catastrophic will happen to me, if you live long enough it’s a given, it’s statistics, it’ll be some form of human error or carelessness or something related to a lifespan that didn’t carry out correctly, or someone who forgets me before they are supposed to.
Trying to write like I have something genuinely important to say, but all I can focus on are the timely dogs in the distance, noising their way right into this piece, quite a feat actually, there are many folks more deserving.
Trying to write like something needs to be said usually results in roadblocks for me. I never try to write something like that, it writes itself, and I manage to survive, because it’s usually painful, or
triumphant, and my job is to not get in the way, whenever it happens be a gentleman and mind your fucking business, give yourself some peace and let scribe-guy do what he needs to do, it has nothing to do with you, so stop trying to write about girls, or dictate metaphor, about dinosaurs, or something else that would sound novel, or read a thesaurus, and plug in words when they don’t fit, don’t waste a page or a doc or even a text with that bullshit, at any given time there is enough going on to put something into focus, maybe you’ll edit it maybe you’ll not, maybe it’ll tie you in knots, or cut up your roots and bury some new ones, or make you imagine that you power the sun, but you don’t, but you might, in time, if you play your cards right, our species has done some incredible things.
I was just thinking that right now I might be missing something, but then I thought about them or it missing this, and I felt validated.
Commencement
Welcome to BlueChipVillage.com.
Welcome to our band.
Welcome to our lives.
This will be the home for all things BCV (Twitter/Facebook will still get love, but .com will reign supreme).
We are bubbling with glee over the album release. If you haven’t downloaded the album yet, click here.
*Check out lyrics here.
This site will continue to morph over the next few days/weeks/months/forever. Expect to see a content rich blog, highly appealing camera section, and a ton of other nuances which will arise in time.
Check back frequently; updates will be plentiful, informative, and hilarious.
Thank you for showing interest in our project. We genuinely appreciate your involvement in our career, and if we don’t know each other yet, don’t worry; we already love you.
To tantalizingly exciting beginnings,
-CRG (Christopher R. Gesualdi)