Date: September 29th, 2007
Venue:
Series: n/a
Sometimes we seriously have no answer for why we suck so badly. Sometimes everything can go so perfectly for a while that you finally think it’s safe to loosen up your belt a notch or six and take a breath of relief. Suddenly, BLAM, someone gets their eyes gouged out with the sharp end of the stick fate often waves to inflict misery, pain, and poverty. Soul Plane has eaten so much shit in its short history as a band that if we threw up collectively we could probably use it to fertilize most of Africa’s barren lands and solve
But God damn, everything was going so well. Since Dan’s leave, we had had the opportunity to re-solidify our music: we had a bassist (Patrick) who could walk lines harder than Johnny Cash, as well as a vocalist (Nickie) who could bring people out of comas with her angelic voice. Kevin and Gideon had both tightened up their sound and cohesiveness after assuming new instrumental responsibilities on guitars. Even Aaron got his game up somehow, despite that being not at all necessary (but Aaron’s one of those guys who never wants to stand out as kicking less ass than anyone else). As for myself, I stopped caring way too long ago. Honestly, though, if I may say so myself, we sounded fucking magnificent. Everything was a “go” until Saturday morning when I receive a phone call from Nickie, nearly in tears:
Nickie: Yui, I can’t make it to practice by 1 45 – my grandma had a heart attack this morning. My mother’s coming down to the hospital from out of town, and I have to be there.
What the hell could you even say to something like that? Looking back on it now, I’m impressed at the fact that she even had it in her to call me and let me know. I spend as much time thinking about Soul Plane as I do thinking about which garment to extract from my underwear drawer in the morning, and yet, here was a girl whose grandma had just underwent a massive cardiac arrest, calling to make sure that we didn’t just think she was bailing out.
Yui: Whoa… wow… okay, take it easy, handle your business and don’t worry about this shit for now.
Nickie: I’m so sorry, Yui, I really want to do this show…
Yui: Family first, Nickie, if you can do it, that’d be great. If not, forget about it, worry about grandma.
Nickie: Thank you so much for understanding.
Shit – this was bad. We tried calling Blythe, but being three hours away, there was no way she was coming back for anything short of a record label signing. Besides, she also had pneumonia. And she probably spends as much time thinking about Soul Plane as she does thinking about which garment to extract from her underwear drawer in the morning, but more likely less.
I called Conor to give him the terrible news. Conor is a man that’s all about his business; I half-expected to hear him blame me for Nickie’s grandma’s heart attack. I was wrong – he was horrified, and definitely agreed with my telling Nickie to not worry about Soul Plane, that family was more important. As I worried that people who mattered would be coming out to this show, and that this would be a skidmark on our impeccable attendance record, Conor reassured me that this was a J-Shiltz event – ie, a total write-off. Not in the sense that his jams suck or anything (far from it, they’re often the most fun parties to play at for me because the crowds there are, for the most part, into hip hop and more importantly, enthusiastic about Soul Plane’s music), but that Shiltz, after having worked with us extensively for many a performance set, would be more inclined to be understanding and forgiving about our sudden disappearance. I told Conor to express gratitude to Shiltz on Soul Plane’s behalf for the opportunity to perform. Conor told me to stop telling him how to do his job.
We ended up spending the night at Kevin’s place, productively churning out new material that we desperately need to get down for our upcoming album recording. And so it seemed, as the evening progressed, that there was beauty in the breakdown, that despite Nickie’s unforeseen tragedy, Soul Plane was still able to catch a silver lining in the form of freshly written music, and make progress as a band despite the show having been cancelled. It also helped that we were high as shit.
On that note, Soul Plane is on hiatus for the month of October due to recording. As a band, we are taking this entire month to focus on cutting an album that will alter the course of Canadian music history forever. I’m so serious – this LP is going to be fucking bananas. If we don’t get signed to something off this record I am self-stabbing. However, this effectively means that we will not be doing any shows or be playing at any events in October. Soul Plane sincerely apologizes to the dozen or so people that care.
Sometimes fate has a funny way of reminding you that when you have bad blood with it, it’ll ruin the lives of not only you and the people close to you, but also your descendants’ firstborns and sometimes a business associate.
This proved to be true when I came home the next day, I checked my laptop to see that my MSN was signed on, and that’s when I noticed the message Conor had left me:
Dr. Conor Cutz says:
yo
Dr. Conor Cutz says:
lucky u dude
Dr. Conor Cutz says:
we got down to the venue last night and the jam was cancelled
Dr. Conor Cutz says:
the promoter fucked shiltz
Dr. Conor Cutz says:
so either way u guys wouldnt have played
Sorry, Shiltz, I wish I wasn’t working with us either.
