Bumble Bat
Okay given it's the 19th anniversary of my song “Bumble Bat” here's the story about where that tune came from and the eventual creation of the video.
The song sprang into being on June 24th, 2006 during an Immersion Composition Society session. This is one of those all-day music games where compose, record, and mix as many new songs as you can, to be played that night in front of friends who attempted the same. Usually it's pretty fun, sometimes it's a slog. This time was more of the latter as I was recovering from a cold (and thus my energy and singing voice were heavily compromised). I also had to drive my brother in law to the airport at 5:30am that morning - and thus the lack of sleep didn't help my general weakened state.
Plus I was off the radar for most of the year thus far preparing for and embarking upon an epic Faun Fables tour which lasted a dizzying two months. That odyssey was so draining I returned home from that experience a useless lump, wondering if I was done with bands and touring for good. So I wasn't sure if I still enjoyed this whole music thing.
I started with a couple funny tunes which usually gets the juices flowing without having to commit to anything precious. One was a quirky instrumental called "Mormon on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and then a comedy number called "Shirtless." I knew these would be crowd pleasers, but they didn't really make me feel better about myself.
I followed those by going the complete opposite direction, with a long, dreary, psychologically damaging ballad called "Point of Rocks" - named after that very town in Wyoming, population 3, which I have often passed though at dusk after brain-melting all-night drives on tour, longing for sleep in my own bed 1000 miles away. It started with 60 seconds of a growing screech that depicts the fight you have with your own brain to stay awake at all costs lest you drive off the side of the road. All very dark and depressing.
It's usually at this point in the session, when I am feeling the most sorry for yourself, when strange muses spring to life. Boom! An impish demon on my shoulder started poking at my head, stuffing it with ideas.
The title came first - "Bumble Bat" - followed by a galumphing riff anchored by a chromatic quintuplet. I sat at the piano and the chorus just poured out of my hands: Abmaj7+5/A, C7/Ab, Db/G, D/Bb. These fucked up chords, along with a patented Lebofsky dropped-beat-for-no-reason, became the foundation of an oddly catchy melody which felt to me like an anthem for seafaring weirdos. And so the lyrics ended up being an abstract mish mosh of verses celebrating ocean travel. I laid down the drums first in one take, no click. Then the bass, the piano, the guitars, some organ pads, and four vocal tracks (two low, two falsetto). Total pop production.
I drove to the listening party at Steven's house. As much as it feels good to force yourself to get unstuck, it's also incredibly inspiring to hear the musical offerings of brilliant friends going through their own different and difficult creative situations. I never know how well my stuff will be received, but the gang seemed to enjoy it. A glimmer of hope for my musical future, I guess.
Around this time my band life was coasting on fumes, the midst of a four year stretch which were all kinda like "build" years. During that time I still wasn't sure if I was slowly giving up on music or what. Which is funny as I was still gigging, and leading a band doing my songs. Also Fuzzy Cousins broke ground on our debut album. Perspectives get warped when one is burned out.
I always wanted to be a filmmaker - that was my plan back in high school. New technology was making it easy for me to get back into the groove of that, and I used my shitty flip phone camera to take video bits which I painfully synced up to music in a very early version of iMovie. By 2008 I was keen to do a video for "Bumble Bat" and started the process of getting some basic performance footage inside my house but the lighting sucked and the camera was fussy and I threw in the towel on that project.
I did eventually get an adequate video camera. On March 14th, 2009 I woke up with a vague idea to do some outdoorsy footage of me hiking with "Bumble Bat" as the soundtrack since it has a lovely walking pace. Jenya got up super early to do a bakery shift, so I was kinda awake as well during the sun rise. I grabbed the camera, a backpack full of pillows, a hat, and I set forth to get some shots and see what happens. I aimed for Tilden park, which seemed like an obvious choice.
As I drove out of the neighborhood a plot and punchline came to me where - spoiler alert - the video would be me hiking everywhere and then at the very end discovering I locked my keys in the car. So right then and there, at a red light, I took some shot of my keys in the ignition. Including one shot of the keys jiggling due to me punching the car so hard. Ha ha. So those were the very first scenes captured.
I got to Tilden and parked at the base of the Peace Grove Rotary hike, which is a solid uphill of about 500 feet to one of the better views of the whole Bay Area. I took some scenic routes, collecting shots of me trudging along. I'd set up each shot all by myself a la Survivorman. Despite constantly running back and forth with the camera I still made it to the top of the hill in 40 minutes, took some footage of me up there drinking from my Nalgene bottle, then worked my way down.
It was still only like 9am at this point, so I stopped by a different part of the park near the Space Sciences Lab where I worked. More playing around on the trails, and then this where I captured the end scenes where I realized I didn't have my keys. I actually set up a camera perched upon another car in the parking lot. While doing the heavy acting some other person came up the trail to see me there, wearing my backpack and staging my own shots. He was concerned and confused, but I lied and said I was training for a real backpacking trip and that seemed to satisfy him. That awkward conversation is captured on video and sitting on an old hard drive somewhere.
I continued driving down Grizzly Peak, stopping occasionally to nab more "climbing up or down some weird hill" footage before heading to Redwood Regional Park for some changes of scenery. That's where I got the sequences involving redwoods, obviously. Also the sun was high enough and at an angle that I got one shot of me in shadow, which I was able to do by mounting the camera perfectly inside the chest strap of my backpack.
I got home with what I thought was enough coverage, but ultimately I needed a couple more sing-along sequences, which I did standing in front of a giant fir tree in my neighbor's yard. I also got the b-roll footage of me playing bass, guitar, and piano close up, along with me at the drums. To get the timing right I had the music playing on my sony ericsson phone. Unfortunately for the drum bits I didn't realize I left the phone sitting on a floor tom and easily noticeable. But I was too lazy to redo all that. So unprofessional. Oops.
Jenya came home from her shift in the early afternoon as I was already starting to edit these parts together. She then had a rehearsal downstairs with her awesome and very loud band Long Thaw. I continued to edit through that chaos, and got the video up to YouTube that night. Easy! There was no social media back then so.. that was that.
Almost a year later I was in miRthkon as a full member and we were prepping a giant multimedia production for our set at the CalProg festival. We needed as much footage as we could muster, and so I cannibalized a lot of the "Bumble Bat" video. I don't think anybody minded. This was basically the beginning of a decade where music once again really kept me busy and fulfilled, so videos took a back seat. Too bad 'cuz that was fun.
..and here’s the video: