"Cleveland Rising", The First Three Rehearsals & Princess Shoes

On Thursday evening, November 15, after packing a guitar, keyboards, keyboard stand and amp into my new VW Rabbit, Evan, Daniel and I headed down to Vanessa's and Tony's house. As Vanessa and Tony have a free standing house, and the rest of us all live at the Statler, it made sense to rehears where privacy and noise level were not an issue. The second we walked in from the dark cold, Aria ran up to say hi. This immediately comforted the atmosphere as Daniel and Evan, who met Tony and Vanessa for the first time that night, began to set up their instruments in the den.

The four individuals all sat down and, still nervous and uncertain of each other or each other's talents, embarked in some conversation and, as warm up, played a vintage R.E.M. song. Afterwards, Vanessa ran a tune past us that she had wanted to share.

The number, "Never Letting Go", is a deep, introspective song focusing on a woman's personal choices. From the second I heard the song, I saw it in the film, in a scene where Marianne, the female lead character, waits at A.J. Rocco's, a local coffee bar, for her first official date with Jacob. She spends the hour waiting, and waiting, thinking about the choices she has made that have lead her to this point. I asked Evan to put on his Director's hat, since he will be directing the movie, and gaged his perspective on using the song in that scene. "I like it." Daniel also jumped in, suggesting that the instrumental version of the song could be used through the movie, an idea which we all embraced.

Vanessa then shared with the crew some musical ideas regarding "Cleveland Rising", a song I had written lyrics for on Tuesday October 30. I know this date because on that day I called in sick to work. That morning body felt weak, clammy and drained. I'm not a big believer of bodies possessed by spirits of the past, but there is no other explanation for what happened to me that night.

The evening before I read an article from Cleveland Magazine. The article was about a semi-famous local beatnik poet, d.a.levy. A man who wanted to dedicate a piece of poetry to this city. A man who, in the 1950's, claimed that that Cleveland had been suffering from a 30 year depression. A man who, instead of being finally recognized for his vision, as his colleague Alan Ginsburg was, was named in an obscenity witch hunt and age 26 was found dead of a self-inflicted gun wound. I read about half of the piece on him in the magazine, including some samples of his poetry, and went to bed. That night I had strange dreams, sensed someone's presence in my bedroom and woke up with a feeling of exhaustion as though I just finished running a marathon. My forehead as clammy as my hands, I picked a nearby journal and began to write. I wrote verse about Cleveland. I wrote it as though I had lived here for 100 years. I wrote it with the wisdom of someone wiser. The truth was, I had no conscious effort writing those lyrics. I simply channelled something, someone else. But the result was worth something. And Vanessa heard the music in her mind.

As Vanessa began to play some melodies and chords for "Cleveland Rising" on her guitar, Evan almost immediately jumped in and then Tony and Daniel joined them. The four of them began to work out the details, including the structure of the song. This resulted in the cutting out of an entire verse, one that mentions King James and refers to LeBron. Vanessa made the good call that the particular verse dates the song, while the rest of the lyrics enabled the song to be timeless. I was open to this and trusted the band to do what was right.

By the time the rehearsal was ending, with my cell phone camera in hand, documenting the evening's event, I had tears in my eyes because of what I saw and heard. The four individuals took an idea, something that was a whisper in the air and began to build it into something concrete, something solid and something stunning.

On the next rehearsal, that Sunday, November 18th, Daniel could not join us, so Evan and I, with his bass and my new Mac in back seat of the VW, drove on down to Vanessa's and Tony's home. As we walked in, Aria, as usual, greeted us with her smile. Aria wanted to play with my camera, so I it to her and some of the great photos from that rehearsal (currently saved on a corrupted disk) came from her vision. I also took photos, with the Mac's built in camera, and the sepiatone added a historic look. At that rehearsal, Aria decided to go multi-sensory and while doing her art, dipped purple paint into a cup of iced Sprite, just to see what the mix of color and bubbles will look like.

Meanwhile, Tony began to play on the guitar a 16th note repeated pattern that Vanessa was humming. This 16th note high-octave rhythmical addition gave the song a new layer - a new dimension, something simultaneously optimistic and reflective. It was a killer hook and watching and hearing its development gave new light to the project.

On the third rehearsal, on Sunday January 19th, the snow was abound and my new friend Chris joined Evan and I on the now very snowy journey to Vanessa's and Tony's home. Chris and Evan discussed southern college sports teams and the retro advantages of record albums, both teaching me the root of the term rock n' roll. (who knew?)

We all safely arrived at The Home of Music and while the band was setting up, Aria was insistent on wearing her princess dress. To enable the band to continue to do its thing, I went upstairs with Aria to help her find princess shoes. "Are these it?" "No." "Aria, are these your princess shoes?" "No, Alex!" Finally Vanessa had to go upstairs and found the right pair. "Alex, look, these are princess shoes." In addition to learning what "Rock n' Roll" was, that day I also learned what princess shoes are - shoes with glitter and sparkles.

In the mean time, Vanessa played a new song she had written - a bluegrass number reflecting her Southern roots. A catchy number with great knee-slapping feel, the song had a good groove and lyrics of depth. Evan quickly jumped into the song, adding his bass, while Tony added his own guitar musicality. It was a great tune that everyone truly got into.

The band then took another cut at "Cleveland Rising" and while Tony had once written down his 16th note addition on Aria's handwriting paper and I shot the previous rehearsal on my digital camera, no one could find the paper and the disk with the video and images was corrupted. So the band tried to recreate the magic as best as it could.

Since January, I decided to take a break from the rehearsals in order to focus on the story. Before the band's first rehearsal in November, I had already read the "Screenplay" book, developed my two main characters and had followed the disciplined exercise of laying out three acts, into 13, 26 and 13 scenes each, attaching the flashcards to the silver boards. And while I was excited by the progress, and have purchased the very expensive Final Draft software, not a word of the screenplay had been written. Evan's feedback to me was "The flashcards are great and you have the love story nailed, but there's no crime story here." So my work as screenwriter was still longs way away from being completed.

The good news that the band, by this time, had fused and bonded creatively. In addition to developing music for the soundtrack, they had also began working on Vanessa's cd, with some songs to be used for both albums. As we are funding the projects independently, with no outsider investors, it is critical to stay fiscally pragmatic while developing the desired creative result.

Since that practice in January there have been several developments on both the music and the writing end of the project. The band rehearsed a few more times and on Saturday March 1 went into the studio to lay down the tracks for one of Vanessa's songs. Additionally, my mom helped me think through the crime plot and gave me two new characters. I have diagrammed the love, crime connection and, to give the movie a more authentic, local flavor made the decision to add the mortgage foreclosures crisis as a subplot to the story. I've also written lyrics to the love song theme and can't wait to see what this band of four does with it.

One thing is for sure - the creative vision of the people on the project is world-class. Vanessa, Evan, Tony & Daniel are brilliant individuals who, when coming together, showcase the ultimate talent syncopation.

I hope to one day invite Leonard Cohen to rehearsal. I think he would be proud.