Waste Of Bass

Being as intelligent and capable as Patrick is can often be a gift and a curse. When you’re as smart as he is, much is expected of you, and as smart as you would be, you would do everything within (or without) reason to achieve each and every single one of the objectives set out for you. Patrick is every parent’s dream. He’s the kid who never drinks and never does drugs, the kid who exhibits a polite, gentle indifference towards social events. He’s the kid who wants to do well in school, not so much to please his parents, but to better himself because he knows that working hard builds character. He’s the kid who listens to his parents’ emphasis on academics and trusts them because they have walked the same path he wants to walk – one that can only lead towards success and financial security, all natural disasters and bad luck aside.

Lots of people dream. Patrick sets goals… little ones, whereby he carefully handpicks each brush with a vision to paint the perfect bigger picture on the canvas that is his life. The bass guitar happens to be one of his tools, one he wields with passion and ardour, with technique and a frighteningly solid sense of rhythm. He usually plays sitting upright on his amp, as if it were a mountain that even Marvin Gaye would admit was high enough. He has the feel to bring Ray Charles back from the dead. Unfortunately for Soul Plane, his inclination for academia is the paint roller to his bass skills’ sketch pencil; in short, he plays bass for fun, and goes to school for real.

If Patrick gets accepted into his program of choice (and we sincerely hope that he does because this is what he wants as well), he might have to hop off of Soul Plane. From what I’ve heard from my friends and colleagues in both programs, neither Engineering Science at the University of Toronto nor Engineering at the University of Waterloo (the only two he applied to) would allow any extra time for Patrick to commit himself to a band. In fact, the direct result is that he will most likely end up committing himself to a nut house. But there’s always a chance that he will beat the system, a chance that he’ll be able to handle the rigorous schoolwork that will undoubtedly be cut out for him in either of those programs as well as the once/twice-a-week Soul Plane practice. But all this would be banking on the crucial fact that he stays in Toronto and attends U of T (St. George), and this is far from being his first choice. This wouldn’t be a problem for us if he didn’t have the marks necessary to slide into his first choice program, but he does.

Over the last year that Soul Plane has been a band, it’s no secret that we’ve gone through our changes. I’m told by Gideon and Kevin that turnover rates are usually high for a band’s first year. But more than anything, Soul Plane has become family to me. And believe me when I tell you that every single time someone has had to go, it has sucked. First it was Dan, and then it was Nickie, and now Patrick. It’s never enjoyable, but if it’s necessary, then it must be so, and we understand. What has to be done has to be done, regardless of whether or not it’s fun.

As for right now, we know this much: we need a bassist for the tour (Patrick will not be joining us due to a family event he needs to attend in Europe over the course of the summer), and possibly permanently if Patrick can’t juggle both school and Soul Plane. We’re looking, though; Kevin has several bass playing friends who are, from what I hear, nothing short of phenomenal, and have all the time in the world to commit to our cause. Well, I hope “phenomenal” is what they really are, because if Patrick himself wasn’t phenomenal, what he brought to the table made us phenomenal, which is at the very least twice as good.

Thanks for riding with us, buddy, it’s been great. On behalf of Kevin, Gideon, Aaron, Conor and Blythe, I sincerely thank you for answering my email reaching out for your services when we needed you most, back in September of ‘07. My (and I’m sure everyone else’s) only regret is that we didn’t get to play more shows together, but hey, maybe you’re much smarter than even we believed… maybe, God willing, you’ll be able to take school and this band head on and we’ll be playing together for a long time yet – because I truly believe that if anyone in Soul Plane has the smarts to get the best of both worlds, it’s you. Just don’t prove me wrong.

…and you have my word (and everyone who reads beyond these parentheses is a witness): once school starts and you realize that you are a freak of nature who can, in fact, do both Soul Plane and school, your membership in this band will definitely be open for negotiation. Take the best of care, homie, and give us a shout again when you got time; we’ll most definitely jam. For now, as they say in Québec: on s’verra, bye.