Vianden

My older son Nathan has been in the town of Vianden in Luxembourg for a music festival for the last two weeks. He auditioned to go after his cello teacher was asked to teach there. Among other things, he got to play at Vianden castle, accompanying child prodigy Umi Garret in Beethoven's piano trio #1. Although Luxembourg borders a few different countries, he apparently hasn't done much sightseeing as he is occupied with practice several hours per day.

I must admit it has been strange having him away for almost two weeks, especially as school has started already and he would normally be starting classes and going to cross-country practice. We are hoping that this will be a memorable and significant experience for him, whether he chooses to be a musician or not. He has been to Europe a few times before, but this is his first trip of any distance that he has made by himself. We are looking forward to seeing him this weekend.

Nathan Plays Popper Tarantella

This is a video of my son playing David Popper's Tarantella, accompanied by his teacher

The Demeanor's - Tonight at King's Music in Lemon Grove

Demeanors, Tonight, 6pm at Metaphor Cafe

The Demeanors are playing a show at Metaphor Cafe in Escondido tonight almost a year after they made their debut at the same place (March 29).

Workin' For a Living

Nathan and his friend Won Ji have been busking to collect money for their high school music program. Here they are playing in front of one of the local Starbucks's.

The Demeanors, Headlining @ Epicentre, Tonight

The Demeanors @ Epicentre, Tonight

Nathan at SOMA Show

Nathan at SOMA Show
Originally uploaded by mikemull

I like this photo. The black and white gives it more drama, and the "spirit fingers" in the foreground are actually a bit ghostly.

The Demeanors @ Metaphor Cafe, Tomorrow, Sept. 20

Fender Mustang

My son Nathan has become something of a guitar nerd. He can identify guitars in videos and movies, and he's always on the lookout for deals on E-Bay and elsewhere for lefty guitars. He finally found one that met both his standards and his price. This is a Fender Mustang, which was the favorite guitar of famous lefty, Kurt Cobain. Clearly, i'm not crazy about Cobain being a role model, but it is a pretty cool guitar.

SOMA

I was leaving work early yesterday to pick up my younger son for a basketball game at 5pm and i had the radio tuned to local station 94.9. The DJ was doing a bit they do every afternoon called the "Dog Dare", which is basically a song request. The DJ was reading this particular request, which went something like this: "My son Brandon is playing his first professional gig tonight at SOMA with his band, The Demeanors". It was a request from Brandon's dad Rich (Brandon is the Demeanor's excellent drummer). It was pretty cool. The DJ mentioned the band and the show three times, i think.

The show itself was really, really good. I was so impressed. I've heard them play five shows now, but this was far and away the best. Part of it i'm sure was just the superior sound quality of the venue, but i also think that the larger crowd gave the whole thing a higher energy. Although the side stage at SOMA is not a huge space, there were at least 200 people in the crowd and most of them were in to the music.

It was a bit bittersweet for the band though, since this was probably the last show for their trumpet player Jacob. His parents, who are Mormon, decided that the rock-n-roll lifestyle is not in his best interest. I understand their concerns, but he obviously derives great joy from the music, and i can't imagine how hard it must be for them to take it away from him. I of course worry about what Nathan is exposed to, but since he's a straight-A student who keeps up with cello, piano, and cross country i figure i have to give him the benefit of the doubt. In fact, every kid in the band is a wonderful individual, and the type of music is energetic and joyful rather than nihilistic and negative.

Ironically, this was also my first show at SOMA. As an all-ages venue, there haven't been many shows over the years that have been enticing enough to overcome the essential creepiness of being as old as the parents of most fans. I did feel pretty creepy last night-- i figure most of the kids assumed i was a narc-- but there were enough lingering parents around that i wasn't the only creepy dude.

The Demeanors @ SOMA, August 22

The kid's band is opening a show at SOMA on the 22nd. Ironically, he didn't know who that is on the poster.

Running With My Son

I've got just over 4 weeks until the Trans-Rockies run, and i really need to be doing more mileage. I had planned to do about 15 today, but after doing 10 hilly miles on the trails near Black Mountain Ranch on Saturday, i just wasn't feeling it. So i decided to go run the 5-mile loop at Lake Miramar, and i asked my older son Nathan if he wanted to come along. He's training to run cross country when he starts high school this fall, so five miles is about right for him.

This is the first time that we've ever really run together. I know that he can run a relatively fast mile, but i didn't know what to expect for a longer run. I let him set the pace at the outset and he hit a pretty comfortable stride right away. We did the first mile in an easy 7:30 or so, and more or less stuck to that pace. He's got a nice, long stride and seems to be pretty fit (it doesn't hurt that he's skinny as a rail) . We did the full five miles in about 37 minutes-- not super fast but i was still pretty impressed. He was clearly not pressing to keep that pace and probably could have done under 7 minute pace in race circumstances. Maybe not fast enough for cross country yet, but much better than most adults can run.

Eventually he's going to be kicking my ass, but i intend to delay that for as long as i can.

The Demeanors at Epicentre, June 6

My kid's band plays at the Epicentre in Mira Mesa on June 6th.

Image by TikiThomas.

The Priceline Guy

My younger son and i were watching some stupid movie on TV and William Shatner shows up in a minor character role. My son says "Hey! It's the Priceline guy". Forgetting for a moment that he's 11 and doesn't get to watch that much television, i said "The Priceline guy! That's James Tiberius Kirk!".

Needless to say i felt ashamed by this major gap i had allowed in his pop culture education, so over the weekend we watched a couple episodes of the original Star Trek so i could acquaint him with the characters. To be fair, Shatner now looks so little like Shatner then that even if he'd seen the show i'm not sure my son would have recognized him. Also, the original Star Trek was incredibly cheesy, but i still find the stories absorbing. Just goes to show that production values aren't everything.

Rules of Parenting

My sons are now 14 and 11 years old, which i figure gives me 25 parent-years of experience. Being a father is not something i've ever studied or practiced; i think the skills that make you a good parent are the same skills that make you an adequate human being in general (and the lack thereof, etc., etc.). Still, beyond the obvious elements of providing your kids with food, shelter, and clothing there are many things that you have to learn from trial and error. The following are some things i believe in, even if i don't always adhere to them:

Your kids need an activity that they don't have a choice about

Like many parents i wanted to give my kids an opportunity to do anything they wanted to try. However, often this means that kids will go from thing to thing with never any focus. We decided that our kids would have at least one activity that they would do for as long as they were our legal responsibility. In our case it turned out to be a musical instrument, but i don't think that's so important as the experience of developing a deep skill over a number of years.

Kids can survive without constant television

My kids still get more screen time than i'd wish, but i've seen people literally amazed to find that my kids don't watch TV on school nights, and they don't have TVs or computers in their own rooms.

Quality Time is Bullshit

The idea that you can get away with spending less time with your kids so long as the time you do spend is structured and productive is absolute crap. Your kids are not a project.

Kids Can Do More Than You Think

Probably the biggest mistake i've made with my own kids is that i have not sufficiently encouraged their *big* ideas. There are many cases where i wish i had allowed their curiosity to draw them into an inquiry of some subject rather than just explaining to them the flaw in their logic. (For example, my older son "invented" perpetual motion a couple of years ago). Fortunately both of them have still done things on their own when they didn't get my help.

You Don't Have That Much To Do With It

You can screw up kids who would have otherwise been normal, but your kids' success in life will not be affected very much by either the genes they inherited from you or the behavior you try to instill. This is probably the hardest lesson to learn as a parent. Your children are completely separate people, experiencing the world and learning in their own way. They are not your chance to fix everything that you regret about your own life.

Allow Them To Fail

My parents were great, and they always stressed the idea that i could do anything i wanted to; but for a long time as an adult i wished they had put more emphasis on self-discipline so that i would have had the tools to work harder for those things that i wanted to do. It took me quite some time to realize that this was my fault, not theirs. Now as a parent i really want to try to impart the things that i've learned the hard way to my own kids. However, they don't call it "the hard way" for nothing. About the best you can do, i think, is to challenge your kids. People use this word often, but few people really mean it in the sense it was intended. A challenge needs to be something that is slightly beyond their capabilities; something at which they might fail but not something at which they are guaranteed to fail.

Rock of Ages

This last weekend my 14 year-old son Nathan went to see Def Leppard, Styx, and REO Speedwagon in concert at the Cricket Wireless Amphitheater. I was younger than he when Styx and REO were starting out, and when i first heard Def Leppard i was 16 (Rock Brigade). This would have been a kick-ass concert in 1980, although then Styx would have been headlining.

I think it was all sort of kitschy and retro for my son and his friends, as if i had gone to see Dion and the Belmonts when i was a kid. He appears to have liked it at least as a technical experience (he was very critical of the Def Leppard sound-- too much bass covered up the guitars he said). He also genuinely seems to like the Styx song Come Sail Away, which i have to admit holds up better than some of the Styx songs i liked when i was in high school (although Renegade still kinda rocks). It's their equivalent of Bohemian Rhapsody, which my son's generation knows from watching the video of Wayne's World. It's sort of odd that kids from the 2000s know about music from the 70s due to a movie about the 80s made in the 90s.

Free Range Kids

About a week ago there was a buzz in the various media about a mom who let her 9 year-old son take the subway home alone from Bloomingdales in New York City. I thought it was pretty cool, though i admit it's very scary also. I'm not sure i'd want my 10 year-old son to rely on San Diego's public transit system, and I have to confess that i don't think either of my kids have had an equivalent test of their independence.

Now, what prompts me to write about this is that when i was 9, i broke my arm while driving an all-terrain vehicle on my grandfather's farm. I was riding down a path with another kid on an ATV, we bumped into each other and went flying. He suffered a concussion and i had my left humerus snapped in half. Needless to say we weren't wearing helmets. I'm not even sure they made helmets at that time. When i look back on this now it seems amazing that my parents allowed my sister and i to ride anywhere we wanted. I get nervous when my kids ride their bikes in our suburban neighborhood.

We had other freedoms that seem odd in this day and age. My sister and i were often at home alone, even at night, and we never had baby-sitters. When i was in kindergarten (in Arizona at that time) i walked about a mile to school each day with one of my classmates. I was 5. I owned my first knife when i was 6, and by 1o or so i was free to use the collection of rifles and shotguns we had inherited from my grandfather.

I can't really say that this turned me into a more independent or risk-taking individual than i would have been otherwise. My life seems fairly mundane by the standards of my generation. I left home at 18, and have lived on my own since, but that was both normal and expected at the time. I suppose that compared to most people in the rural Indiana community that i grew up in, living in California and working in the Internet industry is a slight departure from say, farming, but it's hardly like i became an astronaut or something.

While i think that developing a sense of independence in kids is a valuable thing, i'm also inclined to think that it's probably better to instill them with a legitimate sense of non-conformity. I hope that my kids feel comfortable taking chances and doing things on their own, but i really hope that they pursue their dreams without regard for external expectations.

Mr. Henry Goes To Washington

Henry Drumming in Washington DC
Originally uploaded by mikemull

My son Henry is in the Washington, D.C. area this week with other 5th graders from his school. This is a picture of him drumming during something called "The African Experience".

Off The Freakin' Chain

I took that title from one of the comments on The Demeanors' MySpace page. They were amazingly good in their first show, and think the crowd (other than family and friends) was a bit surprised at how young they were.


They were the first band of the night, being the youngest and the least experienced, so they had the experience of doing the sound check. The Metaphor Cafe is a small club but it has a decent sound and lighting set-up.


They were there early and so we had an hour or so to kill before the show started. It was interesting to watch how the cafe transformed slowly into a music venue as night came and the ska kids started to file in. By 7 there was a decent crowd and they finally started to play.

They began the show with a couple of their more straight punk tunes, with just drums, guitar, and bass. Both are remarkably good songs (in my opinion) and they sounded good playing them. After that they brought the horns on stage and proceeded with their ska songs. Their only cover was Sublime's "What I Got", but all of their original songs were pretty strong. The horns were spot on, as if they'd been playing together forever. My son's friend Ben is evolving into a pretty talented front-man for the band, in addition to being the bassist. Brandon, the drummer, is excellent. He gives them a stronger pulse than the typical ska band and i think it works well. In my obviously objective opinion it was a solid live set. I wish it had been longer, but since Nathan broke a string on the last song it was probably for the best that it ended when it did.

It's definitely weird being at a show as a parent. You figure that in the eyes of the average teen-ager you must be some variant of creepy old dude, so it's hard not to feel conspicuous. Most of the band-members parents ended up gathered in the same area near the back of the club, and it was like some sort of strange reversal of the kids' table.