Rocktober was a while ago, man.

One warm spring day, I skipped school, as I did with some frequency. I was all of about 16. I was perusing through the bins at the Electric Fetus, and I found a cut-out copy of Polvo's Exploded Drawing double album. I purchased it, went home and listened to it, and found inspiration I didnt know that would be lurking under the simple album art. After a couple consecutive listens, the out-of-tune guitars playing a mixture of abrasive classic rock still riffs and eastern melodies (one of their best lyrics: 'we just bought a sitar. be prepared.') I knew what had to be done: I had to pick up an instrument. So I picked up the bass guitar, mostly because I was fascinated by the size of the damn thing.

And now, after seven years of playing, I'm feeling down in a bad bad way. Playing in a band has always been something I had wanted to do; to channel dynamicism and energy into racket. Now, defeat has kind of filled some of that space.

Nearly two months ago, I answered a craigslist ad: "Bass player wanted. Some experience good. Our influences: Lightning Bolt, Mars Volta, Sonic Youth, and older Modest Mouse." After a dozen or so re-schedulings, we made it happen this morning.

When I typically play bass, alone or with people, I try to drink two beers. It gets me physically loosened up and seems to get the stream of consciousness going. So, I showed up to their practice space with my amp, some pedals, one of my basses, and a six of red hook in bottles. The guys helped me unload my stuff and we set up. I shook hands, offered beers, and tried to be as congenial as possible. The dudes were all 19 and while none of them accepted a beer, one was particularly not happy with the offer of liquid grains. I explained that all I need is two to get me relaxed and with flow. They seemed to shrug it off.

We set up and got ourselves tuned. I downed the first beer. We chatted about our interests and school. The drummer erupted into a beat, and I went in, as I should and so did the other guys. It seemed to kind of work. We stopped after about twenty minutes to break. I bought a bottle of water and returned to the space. One of the guitar guys noticed on the back of my bass's headstock I had scrawled a Minutemen lyric. From the song History Lesson pt 2, the 'Hey Mr Narrator...' lyric. He asked me why I had written it. I explained, "It's just a happy song. It's about enjoying music with your friends. It felt like an all right thing to want to be reminded of." I admitted it was kind of dorky, and he replied with a drawled-out 'Oh-kay' and kinda frowned a little bit.

Regardless, we went back to playing, and eventully, everyone started noodling around, doing their own thing. The drummer started playing some weird tribal-esque beats, which I tried playing along with. It sounded good and the drummer and I kinda meshed with it. The guy who didn't like my Minutemen quote stopped me and asked me to turn down my treble on my amp, producing a more dull thud. While I was trying to make enough of an adjustment to appease both parties, I looked to the drummer who looked pretty annoyed all of the sudden. Once I got the treble watered down, the other guitarist chimmed in: "we were thinking, like we would write the songs." He was repeatedly pointing to himself and the other guitarist. I looked to the drummer again, an he was staring down at his kit.

"How many songs have you written?" I asked. "None yet." He said, "But we thought we'd write them, bring them to you, and you guys would supply the drums and the bass and fill in what we've written. Cuz thats kind of how songs work."

Fundamentally, I've always believed that rock music in any form should be about collaberation. I've always thought, the sum of several different styles often champions a prima donna being backed up by several invertabrates. I wanted, in that moment, make a stand for myself. I felt paralyzed.

It's never been my goal to out 'indie-rock' anyone, to resort to posturing and seeing who can make the most obscure references. Never have I cultivated an extreme indie-rock fashion sense, though I have a total Ian McKaye hair-did that should trump most others. It seems to me, most bands that are successful are built on respect and solid interaction within their mutual styles. I don't have it in me to be a scenester.

"Do you feel like we could get together next weekend and work with some stuff?" The guitarist asked, "like what we need is a drummer and bassist who don't play in a way that [dominates] over our guitars." "In all honesty", I said, "I don't think it would be respectful to anyone, their influences, or the investment of their time to fit into any role without an equal amount of input. I wouldn't feel right asking anybody to surrender that." He countered, "Well, you'd write your own bass line for our songs. It's just that we have a vision of what we want for our band."

I turned off my amp. "Nothing personal," I said. I unplugged the cables and coiled them. "I just want to play my own stuff just as much as stuff other people come up with." I put my bass in it's case. "I don't think the stuff I will come up with will work out very well for you or I." I shook their hands. I went home.

I'm feeling bad. I don't feel like I said or did anything wrong, but I feel like seven years of playing alone and aspiring to play in a band has been a kind of silly goal. I've made an effort on at least 11 countable occasions to form a band, none of which have resulted in anything. I feel bad, like break-up bad. When I see people like Ian McKaye or Mike Watt or Kim Gordon in interviews, I'm thinking that I'm more cut out to appreciate what they do, rather than try to do any of it for my own satisfaction. I don't want to call it defeat, but thats what it feels like. And not defeat by any particular person or thing other than discouragement.