21st Century Schizoid Band

“Cat’s foot. Iron Claw. Neuro-Surgeons scream for more. At paranoia’s poison door.

When the band The Blue Monsters started out… when we had the five piece… we tried lots of stuff. This article is going to assume that ignorance is bliss and that our band has done what it’s done because we don’t know any better. This is true. It is also true that Eric Schwandt – the other half of the Blue Monsters – is brilliant and knowledgeable and magnificent and I would be lost without him. So if you are reading this Eric, just play along.

I may be the only one learning anything – do re mi, major minor scale, Zen, and stuff like that… from all these articles. So I ask myself: Can anyone play anything as simple as… say… King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man? Sure! The right kind of ignorance can be very life giving. I think we should always have no idea what we can’t do, and we should try whatever we want. I don’t care if we are Robert Fripp, Greg Lake, Yngwie Malmsteem or… me. Go for it!

The melodic intro and riff of horns and guitar that runs through the King Crimson tune is really gripping. The lyrics are really cool. Four years ago figured I could do the guitar/horn riff on harmonica. Why not? I’ve never learned to play the harmonica the right way anyway, so I can explore any style I want. But the drummer was jumping ahead of me and saying things like the time signature was too complicated. Well… if you want to play with the prog jazz stuff in the big long bridge it is… maybe… difficult… I guess, but I don’t know much about time signatures, so I don’t know anything about that. But I have always been a fan of simplification and trying stuff out regardless. I just grab my harmonica and play along with any song. It doesn’t always work, of course, but for the sake of this article I won’t mention I’m still working on the song in question.

Er… um… Four four. Do re mi so fa ti… la ti do… la ti do. And then some sort of variation on the Peter Gunn Theme. Or was that Emerson Lake and Palmer? Well, those with ears to hear… Nevermind.

At the time, I figured the lyrics and riff could fit in with any rhythm. And they did. We just played a basic 12 bar blues and I belted out those lyrics like nobody’s business. I don’t want to build up walls by saying things like, “It’s not easy. It’s not perfect.” I like imperfect! I like easy! If it ain’t easy it ain’t fun, and if it ain’t fun it ain’t entertaining. And then why are we doing it at all?

So Eric and I are having fun, fulfilling our dreams. And the present lineup of The Blue Monsters has no drummer, by the way… and no bass and nobody can get in our way. We are planning to start recording again, to put some songs down, and this might be one of them. We are just two people who do whatever we want… two people who don’t know the meaning of the word “can’t.”