The Little Band That Couldn't: Part 2

This is a call from my lungs
I've been in exactly two official bands in my whole life, and both of them have suffered untimely demises. Whereas the reasons for littlejeans' slow death were abstract and vague (see below) I confidently place full blame the break up of the now tragically defunct rock band Oh the Possibilities on the rhythm section, good as they may have been.

The band started humbly enough--three guys in shorts and slippers (one with a hat) met at an apartment in Makiki shortly after New Year's 2008. The Oh the Possibilities sound was founded upon acoustic guitars played in living rooms and in public parks on Saturday mornings. We would pick up yogurts and pastries, sometimes coffee or chai, and share a park bench for several hours while we worked out arrangements to songs. Usually the weather was just right--in those winter/early spring months the climate was breezy and cool. Someone up there wanted this band to succeed. Everyone, in fact, wanted the band to succeed--except for the rhythm section, who had other, more insidious plans.

The folky manifestation of Oh the Possibilities lasted several months while we searched in vain for a drummer, until it finally occurred to someone that the bass player was married to one of the sickest drummers in Hawai'i. The lineup expanded, and briefly included a keyboard player who vanished, some time in April, without explanation. The sound of Oh the Possibilities grew more darker, heavier, the bass player and the drummer worked as well together as if they were soul mates, and the guitar players kept doing their thing, trying to write songs that might significantly alter the global (or "glocal") paradigm. Practices became more fulfilling, shows began to materialize, records were made...and then the bass player and drummer split, moved to Maryland to have a baby.

Though my life was poisoned with bitterness for months after the sundering of this small, beautiful thing, I've come to appreciate the lessons I've learned with the band: that Russ is as good making Japanese food as he is making Mexican, and as good a bass player as he is with the guitar; that Janie's beats are machine-like in their precision, yet stunningly human in their groove; that Chris's songs never stop getting better. I was afraid he'd never top his Bunkbed stuff, and then he came out with his Buford Brixton/Summatyme Playerrz--I was afraid there wouldn't be another "Happy Ending," and then he wrote "Lula." Personally, I was probably as good as I'm ever gonna get with Oh the Possibilites, both on the guitar (I was actually forced to play lead in a couple songs, something I thought I'd never do) and in terms of songwriting. It'll be hard to generate that same kind of spirit again, but I'm not averse to getting back to work.

I've included a widget with an Oh the Possibilities playlist for your listening pleasure. Just take a look to your right.

Ah, those early days of 2008. Who would've known then that a heart would be so irrecovably broken?