The Buzzfish tour
(we're older)
I admit I was worried about this tour. Gergo Borlai and I haven't played together for over eight years. We occasionally write to each other via Whatsapp and of course I follow his very successful career. Moreover, I haven't played with the bass guitarist since 2012. I also follow Lorenzo Feliciati on Facebook. Basically, I am in his debt. Lorenzo has connected me with Pat Mastelotto in the past. I was on the guestlist of Crimson Projeckt in Warsaw. I left Pat my album The Son and he approached me with the idea of doing a band together. That's actually how Komara came about, thanks to Lorenzo.
For this tour I told myself that I wasn't going to practice guitar like a fool. I thought, did the old masters like Caravaggio or Michelangelo practice so much? They draw hand or face every day to keep in shape or to perfect their strokes (their tone). Rick Cox and I have often discussed how the pentatonic notes are stored in our heads while practicing guitars. As I practice different scales, modes and rhythms each day, I feel like my head is not free to work on stage, but rather the individual paterns I've been practicing for days are subconsciously getting under my fingertips. Plus, on the guitar, all the notes are visible. On the trumpet, for example, don't...
It happened to me that I didn't play guitar for a week. I read books, watched films, wrote in my diary... When I started playing in the studio after a week, new ideas came out of me and I played with complete ease. This state is called flow or flux. It's a feeling of self-empowerment, satisfaction and a state of maximum productivity. We have no idea what time it is, we don't feel hungry or thirsty. We can only get into this state in an activity that we have some control over and that we are not doing for the first time...
I decided not to practice guitar at all before this tour. I had to learn a few Rammstein riffs that my daughter wanted me to do, but no repeating guitar patterns... But I have to say that when it comes to musical repertoire that is composed, it is necessary to practice the repertoire. When composing music or doing impromptu concerts, it is essential to get into a state of flow. Improvisation is creating in the here and now. It is necessary to practice on the instrument, but to take a break from it some time before the concert. Forget all the paternosters and scales that we drill. Warm up before the concert and accept the first note or sound on stage as a gift and work with it. To build on it, to shape it, to vary it, to simply make music... We need to free ourselves from detachment and habit, to always look for the limits of the obvious, and at the same time to be able to realize that the obvious is sometimes what is needed. There is no taboo in music.
"What is the opposite of improvisation? Staying the same, without movement like the steady, unblinking shadow of an electric bulb. " - Jon Hassell
For The Buzzfish's gigs, I've prepared some sketches of what a gig might look like. We only had one short rehearsal planned. I had planned to put a painting on stage that we would play for an hour. But I decided not to impress Gerg and Lorenzo and leave it for the moment...
After a short rehearsal in my father's rehearsal room, Gergo told me: "We're older David..."
When I played with Gergo in 2012 I was filled with mixed feelings. I suffered from low self-esteem. I had the feeling that Gergo was playing with me only out of pity... My surroundings made me feel the same way... I never got into the aforementioned flow state. My anxiety disorders on stage were insane. I still felt like I was answering a chemistry paper at the blackboard. No amount of intuition was just going to save me. Thank God they never gave me grades for the concert.... The only concert I've ever been as relaxed was Sonic Pulses live, but even that was only in the intro... Then came this stream of thoughts from my subconscious that snapped me out of my flow state: 'the concert is falling apart, I shouldn't have come here (musically), this note was false, I'm not sure of the rhythm, why did I play this chord, it's awkwardly quiet now, only 10 minutes have gone by, haven't I been playing in pentatonic for a long time? ...
A quantum of demons and anxieties in a situation where I'm supposed to be relaxed. It helped me a lot to be able to be on the penultimate tour with Rick Cox and Erik Truffaz. We talked a lot in the car and I finally realized after all these years that there can't be a hierarchy in the creative process. We create with each other and at that moment it doesn't matter who played with who before and how strong their name is. We are a team. It was all just in my head. Music is a celebration of life. Not an answer from chemistry. Daniel Goleman's book, Emotional Intelligence, was also helpful to me. To suppress those "evolutionary" urges in myself and think rationally. To tame all the dark thoughts that weaken me and focus on the music. They have nothing to do with reality. On stage, it's important to live in the present. In the moment. I'm (we're) here and that's good.
We played our first concert in the Blue Note club in Nové Mesto nad Váhom. We played really well. All three of us were in an absolute state of flow. We played for exactly one hour and the music came out of us completely. A continuous 55 minutes of improvisation plus an encore. We respected the music that was being made on stage and we respected each other. I had a really good feeling about the concert. I played long guitar solos for the first time in years.
Steven Wilson even texted me, "You told me David that you didn't want to play classic rock solos and this solo rocks!".
All four concerts were excellent in my opinion. We were relaxed.
Lorenzo told me in the car:
"Gergo is not just a drummer David. He's a real artist. I think he's in the top 10 in the world right now. He respects the music he plays. He doesn't need to show his technique at all costs, and that's very rare."
The concert in Liptovský Mikuláš turned out very well in my opinion. So did the Piano club in Prievidza and the last one in my hometown in the Stromoradie club. I was very happy that we met together after many years. Basically we made a new band. We plan to play more gigs next year.
I don't know what more to say about this tour. All the energy remained in the music on stage...
We are older.
