So, once upon a time I was in middle school and, as "punky" (hahaha...if you'd known me in middle school you'd know how "punk" I was) preteens are wont to do, I decided it would be the BESTIDEAEVER to form a band.
Now, of course, I didn't really know anyone who played any instruments suited to a girl version of Blink 182....so basically I didn't know a bassist or drummer. No matter, however, I decided to recruit my friends, who also wanted to be in a band. If I remember right, Brielle (my best friend at the time) and I had already been writing lyrics together and/or separately in a notebook covered in duct tape (obviously.) I remember the songs having titles like "Broken" and lyrics like "roses will wither and die away, black and cold, still clinging to their lifeless vine...like we cling to our lifelines." Seriously, that's an actual quote from an actual "song" I wrote in our songbook. I think I found myself really clever. Like LOOK everyone, I can tie these things together. WORDSMITH.
Anyway, Brielle played the cello, and, as Jack Black says in School of Rock, "turn it sideways and CELLO, you have a bass!" Or something. I can't remember all the School of Rock quotes exactly.
Then there was my friend Taylor. I can't remember if she could already play the guitar when we started this band, but I am thinking no...? And then she learned almost immediately after and was way better than me, and then I was sad. But, with my middle school logic and obviously EXCELLENT understanding of how musicians work, I decided that Taylor would be a fantastic drummer, based on the fact that she was "a spaz" and "that's all you really need for drums." Being the most lovely and accomidating friend ever, she consented. Lucky for us, my Dad had a drumset in my basement, so we had something to work with. Luckily, Taylor was not half-bad, not that we ever played any shows with this band. I can't for the life of me remember what this band was called, but I'm guessing it was something very, very reminiscent of black eyeliner and Hot Topic bondage pants.
Update: To find pictures of us in this band (which performed exactly once, playing All The Small Things at the school talent show) I tried to get on my MYSPACE and found that I had encrypted it pretty heavily, using an alternate email address and the like, because I was not supposed to have a myspace. Anyway, can't get on there. Lalala. I'm pretty sure my email address was something with "marmalade" in the title. And 182 of course. For Blink 182. So you can't see any pictures of us, sadly. But that's OK because this post, contrary to what you might think, is not about this band. No no. It is about the band that sprung forth from this band.
I think what happened was my mom made an inadvertently offensive comment to Brielle's mom, and since we were 13 we decided to get in a HUGE fight over it, and anyways, our band broke up. I really can't remember any of the details but at the time it was a PROBLEM cause we were headed straight for the top, obviously.
Then I joined the Jazz Band, a somewhat poor decision on my part because there is nothing on this earth that will get me up at 6 AM, except for Jazz Band, apparently, because I was there erryday. Brielle was also in the Jazz Band, and I wouldn't be surprised if I joined to stick it to her, or maybe our band hadn't broken up yet? I really don't know.
In any case, I met Katie in Jazz Band. She played the bass and sat between me and Brielle. We bonded over a set of Pretty Princess fake nails from the dollar store that reminded us of childhood. And somewhere along the line after we talked about how much we loved Panic! At the Disco (they weren't even big yet, we'd just heard them on a Fueled by Ramen sampler CD, duh) we decided to start a band.
At this point, I had a friend named Brittany who would sing songs from Wicked and Rent with me in duets regardless of whether they were boy/girl, girl/girl, or originally solos. She also played the piano a bit. So we brought her in as keyboards and vocals. Katie had a friend named Stephany who played the drums, or at least I thought she did because she had a myspace picture where she was playing the drums. Aleatoric was formed.
Ohhh Aleatoric. We took ourselves so seriously, had fights that bands that...have fights in hotel rooms...and stuff...could only dream of.
Oh, before I forget, for reference, here are some pictures of us.
This is before the Talent Show when we played "Soul Meets Body"
This is backstage at the concert we played at the Circuit.
Backstage at the circuit, but not as sad to be there.
Onstage
Probably covering Simple Plan
Might have been covering Death Cab for Cutie
As Aleatoric, we had constant fights over when/where band practice would be. Sometimes our parents didn't want us out late, sometimes they didn't want us making noise, most of the time we got exactly nothing done at band practice.
However, we got a taste of success and we got it fast. We were going places fo' reals. First, we got to play the Relay For Life. My friend Carson's older brother, Larss, was also in a band called Caligo, and out of the goodness of his heart, they asked us if we'd play in the little tent set up in the middle of the football field while people ran and/or speedwalked around us. So, of course, we did.
If I remember correctly, the Aleatoric setlist went something like this:
1. It Ends Tonight-All American Rejects
2. Soul Meets Body-Death Cab for Cutie
3. Crazy-Simple Plan
4. Broken, and original song that I wrote with Brielle when we were in our old band. Katie and her bass teacher wrote a bass line and I wrote a couple chords for the piano. Iiiiiit was a mess.
We learned Helena by My Chemical Romance but we never played it anywhere because we had to switch octaves every other line because it was either too high or too low.
Anyway, we played Relay for Life, messed up the words to the AAR song, and generally had a lovely time.
Somehow after our fantastic performance at Relay for Life, Lars got us ANOTHER "show" (I remember talking a lot about "playing shows" like I did it ALL THE TIME when I think we had been together for 3 weeks) at the Circuit, which I think was a comedy club, then a concert venue, now they do plays there or something. Anyway, it was THE PLACE, in my inexperienced opinion. We played with 4 other bands and were the only band who
1. Had a four song set list
2. Played exactly 1 original song
Finally, we played the Talent Show. The best part of this was Katie's sister worked at Vanity and somehow (I have no idea how this worked) convinced them to let us wear clothes from their store, tags still on, to our performance, with the stipulation that we'd mention everything we were wearing was from Vanity. There was also talk of doing a show IN THE MALL (Iknowright?!) but that never panned out.
So on the day of the talent show, my Dad, who was pretty much in charge of setting up our equipment, couldn't get work off, but he explained to us how to plug everything in, so we really didn't worry. We were last, anyway. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't figure out how to make our mics work, so we had to set up for about an hour. They almost let everyone go home because we were taking so long. Eventually we went out onstage with one working mic, and you could barely hear us over the music. But in the meantime, before we went onstage, there were people doing backflips, Katie's sister came up and told everyone we were sponsored by Vanity... I felt like Selena Gomez launching her K-Mart exclusive fashion line, only not really, because she hadn't burst out onto the scene yet, and I wasn't launching a fashion line, and we were playing a Death Cab song in a middle school auditorium. But whatever.
Eventually we broke up. I think it was a combination of lack of motivation, inability to write songs together, and being 14. The world will little know nor long remember how totally awesome and bitchin' Aleatoric was, but they can never forget their great outfits, courtesy of Vanity.
that was a nice story. you're pretty much the coolest ever ever ever.
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