First miRthkon Gig
Music-wise, I've been super lucky to get to do a lot of unique things. I've played big venues, toured weird corners of the planet, enjoyed some large crowds, and survived some stressful high profile gigs.. but perhaps one of my proudest musical moments was my first miRthkon show.
Rewind back to Saturday, Novemeber 11, 2006...
I played guitar/keyboards in a band called Research & Development - a rather large ensemble led by the bass player Nat, who also played bass in miRthkon. Nat called me up with some bad news: he blew a tendon in his right hand. The silver lining was he could (and would) get surgery to fix it, but he'll have to cancel all gigs in the meantime, including a miRthkon/R&D double bill the very next Saturday.
Of course, I'm a bit of an over-confident musical-challenge freak, and like being a hero, so I offered to take over playing bass in R&D while he heals. And, what the hell, I said I could also sub for him in miRthkon. He was into the idea, but what about this gig next weekend? Could I really absorb both books in seven days? "No problem!" I said.
That very afternoon Nat came over with R&D bass charts and walked me through them, and we had R&D rehearsal that same night. So there I was, having zero time to relearn that set of material on bass. I was slightly irked by some of my bandmates' initial lack of confidence about the last minute instrumental shift and having to play a "sloppy gig" but attitudes changed by the end of the evening.
I didn't really know the miRthkon gang all that well at this point (nor their music, truth be told), but I eat avant prog for breakfast - how hard could it be? Wally, the miRthkon bandleader, was very appreciative of my willingness to learn their material in a week, but also understandably skeptical.
Wally immediately sent me the charts and various live recordings and demos. I listened to them and read along. Oh - it's not just some riffs - it's actual advanced level shit. I was excited to dig into this stuff but as I leafed through dozens of black pages my heart dropped. I was totally in over my head. Damn. But at this point all the various other musicians involved were already informed about me stepping up to the plate and happy the gig wasn't cancelled after all, and thus I couldn't wuss out now.
Sunday I did triage on all the R&D/miRthkon tunes. During the week I spent every ride to/from work listening to songs in a loop and every lunch hour staring at scores and every night picking out the most absurd 12-tone through-composed basslines tangled in a mine field of time signatures, ledger lines, and uncommon tuplets. Actually it was a testament to Wally's and Rob's highly accurate and thorough notation that I was able to digest this material in such a scant time. There were also a couple miRthkon rehearsals which were ass-kicking but nevertheless encouraging. But I also had to simultaneously hone all the R&D stuff on bass which wasn't any small feat, either.
The show was a musical success. Hot damn I played a lot of notes during those two sets, and most of them were correct. No trainwrecks, either. Not many people were there to witness the spectacle, but whatever. I know I rocked it. I ended up playing a few more miRthkon shows until Nat healed, but ultimately he moved on from the band and I became the full time bassist.
This experience helped bolster my confidence a few years later when due to thwarted plans I played my first Secret Chiefs 3 live show with zero band rehearsal (that's a different tale). Funny aside: during that first Secret Chiefs 3 tour Nat came out of retirement to sub for me on bass at a miRthkon show.
