I Just Wanna Rock (Living with Joe Satriani)

March 8, 2010

We don't have a TV.

I guess that's why home life, or in our case apartment life, is very busy for us. You'd be surprised what you can do without television. Anyways, you can watch just about anything online and our place is probably the most internet accessible apartment in the city. 

Some families have a TV in every room. We have computers, six total, all of them Macs with the exception of one that will soon be replaced by a Mac. One computer, the Mac with the broken disk drive, is on my treadmill so I can listen to music or watch movies while I am power walking. 

The PowerBook G4 is the one I'm using now. The iMac is in my husband's studio for all his music composing. That's where the PC is too but he only uses the monitor as a second viewing screen. Finally, the two other Macs, MacBook Pros, are in any given place in our apartment at any given time and when my husband hits the road, so do they.

Enough about the Macs. You want to know about Joe Satriani, right? But I'm sure the infamous Professor Satchafunkilus has a Mac too. All musicians do and if they don't then I'm sure they really want one. Anyways, I'm getting there. Patience, my dear boys and girls.

When my husband is gone, I write and sing and dance and have free rein of the place, which by the way is another perk when you're the wife of a roadie. Also, (I'm sure my mother-in-law would not believe this but I swear on my father-in-law's corvette and on her corvette for that matter) the apartment stays clean. 

When my husband is home, the apartment is not as clean as usual because there are a few unpacked suitcases that stay stuffed for days. His socks also have a life of their own and when they are home they like to lounge on the floor (also for days). We lounge too and (also to my mother-in-law's surprise) we cook a lot. 

We've managed to have our own spaces in our small place. His is the loft and mine is the living room where most of the natural light streams in during the day. We have cathedral ceilings and large windows with a great view of the Von's grocery store parking lot, the 10 freeway, and airplanes flying into LAX. 

When my husband is home, we also work on music together. He composes and produces and I write the lyrics and sing. When the blinds are drawn, I'm sure that the people out there can see into our little world, especially when we are in the loft recording our music. 

I am sure they're thinking, "who is that girl in her pajamas with oversized headphones and a blue sweatband around her head and what in the world is she saying into that microphone. Wait. There's a guy too. He's at the computer. What is he telling her? Oh wait. Now she's throwing the headphones down and stomping off. What in the world! Why don't they ever watch TV like normal people!"

So yes, it can get dicey when we are both at home but it's not only when my husband is being the producer and I'm acting like Kanye West.

My husband is a Joe Satriani disciple and will do just about anything to follow him even if it means purchasing a $2,000 JS 1000 Ibanez guitar to get a front row seat at the local Guitar Center where the Satch-man is hosting a workshop. No worries if he has to later tell his wife that he charged it on the credit card. "But I got it signed," he said. "It's priceless." I'm looking for hidden cameras because I swear we have to be filming a commercial.

I wasn't too happy about the charge but I understand, to a certain extent, where my husband was coming from. I've seen Satriani in action. My husband and I had gone to one of his concerts at the Wiltern with a few friends. Going there was like landing on Planet Testosterone. 

I thought I would be bored watching a bunch of men rock out to a guy wail on his guitar for an hour without any lyrics. But the music was amazing and Satriani made that guitar sing like any rock diva out there. I quickly decided that "Surfing with the Alien" is by far my favorite song by him. It's just out of this world, man!

Later, I would read somewhere that Satriani was inspired to play the guitar when the great Jimi Hendrix died. He had heard the news while at football practice and told his coach that he was dropping football and picking up the guitar. More power to you dude! He was only 14 years old.

Incidentally, my husband was 14 years old when he first heard Joe Satriani's "Summer Song." He was at home and actually had a TV back then. A Sony commercial came on with the song as the theme music. After some investigating, my husband learned who the composer was. He was hooked and asked his mom for an electric guitar. 

I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that since his teen years, my husband has come a long way with his guitar skills and he is pretty daggone good. He plays all sorts of stuff both on electric and acoustic, but his favorite songs to play are none other than the songs by the ever-talented Joe Satriani. 

At home, my husband frequently shreds Satriani songs on his guitar. Oftentimes, it is while I'm trying to write an epic story. When this happens, it is like trying to have a rock concert at the public library during mid-term week. Not a good idea. 

Either I have to wear earplugs or he has to put his headphones on. The diva in me refuses to wear earplugs and listen to myself breathe. So he usually concedes to wearing headphones.

In fact, he's currently wearing his headphones and laying down a backing track to Satriani's "I Just Wanna Rock." I know this because, even with the headphones, I can still hear whispers of the song. I'm sure it's loud under there.  

For all you non-musicians out there, a backing track is basically a Karaoke version of a song for instrumentalists. Apparently, there is no backing track available for Satriani's "I Just Wanna Rock" so my husband has taken on this sacred responsibility. All you Satriani wannabes will have him to thank. Now you will have this splendid up-tempo song to jam to while you don the apropos bucket hat and sunglasses.

This is, however, an unusual night in our household. I've managed to invade a little of my husband's studio space, comfortably plunked down on the couch and working on this blog. So here we are, the writer and the musician, peacefully coexisting -- at least for now. Great. He just slipped his headphones off and turned up the volume. Not bad though. Rock on!

Wifey of a Roadie - Out!

P.S. Listen to my husband's "I Just Wanna Rock" backing track here.

Missing You

My grandmother died on April 5, 2005. She was 92.

Grandma, hands down, was the first person to introduce music into my life. A very devout believer in God's Kingdom as the solution to mankind's problems and the Holy Scriptures as a guidebook to living a good life, she regularly had a Bible study with me, my sister, and my two cousins.

During these studies (held in our houses) us four young girls would learn about staying morally clean, obeying our parents, and of course Jesus Christ and Jehovah God. Each lesson would vary but always, and I can't emphasize this enough, we sang a religious song after opening prayer and before closing prayer. 

They were called Kingdom Melodies and they were beautiful. The songs were about doing God's will of telling good news to all, living forever in paradise, and no more pain. We sang them so much that we eventually had them memorized. And let me tell you, Grandma could carry a tune! She could hit those high notes like Mariah Carey!

As we got older, Grandma didn't feel the need to have Bible study with us anymore. She figured it was up to us now to take what she had taught us and find our own way. Some of us stuck to the teachings and some of us didn't. But all of us never forgot those Kingdom Melodies. How could we? Grandma was always singing them.

I would stop by her house to visit and eat (because you could never visit Grandma and not eat) and she would be in the kitchen making chicken adobo and humming a Kingdom Melody - letting those notes spin in the air along with the aromas of vinegar, soy sauce, and steamed rice.

One of my fondest memories of my Grandma was when she made homemade donuts. Flour was all over the place, especially in her hair and on her face and hands. I'd often linger by her side waiting to lick the batter from the spatula and bowl. Most of the time, I had to do it when she wasn't looking because she was paranoid of salmonella poisoning. Sometimes I got a lick in and sometimes I didn't. But one thing was certain, I'd be humming a Kingdom Melody right along with her before the last batch of donuts were done.

There was no doubt that Grandma not only had an appreciation for God but she had an appreciation for music. She loved to hear us girls play the piano (we all took lessons) and as kids we frequently put on impromptu shows of song and dance for her viewing and listening pleasure. She always clapped (even if she didn't know who New Kids on the Block were). As time went on and technology advanced, she was also able to enjoy Karaoke. Oh how she laughed whenever someone got a low score (that someone was usually me).

When I got married, she was pleasantly surprised to find out that my husband was like a one-man band and could play just about everything. He could even play some of those Kingdom Melodies on the guitar. Grandma was impressed and had my husband's back from then on. "Very nice music," she would tell him. Then she would turn to me and say, "don't be a tumultuous wife." 

She was sharp as a whip and sang those Kingdom songs up until she had a stroke in 2005. That's when she started fading fast. Coincidentally, it was a rough time for me. My husband had already left for California with high hopes of pursuing a music career. 

I stayed behind to tie up a few loose ends and those "ends", which included leaving a much-loved career and my family, were not easy to tie up at all. Now my grandmother was passing away and facing the inevitable was not easy without my husband around. They say that death and moving are among the top most stressful situations. I was dealing with both at the same time.

Before I flew out to Los Angeles for a few days to help my husband secure an apartment, I visited my Grandmother at the nursing home. I don't know if she was conscious of me or not but I stroked her hair and held her hand. Then I sang. 

I didn't care if anyone heard me and I didn't care if I sounded terrible. I sang every song she taught me, all the while praying that she wasn't in pain. I told her that I was going to California for a few days and that everything was okay and that she could go now and I'd see her in that paradise that she so often talked about. Then I gave her one last kiss on her forehead and left with a heavy heart.

I was only in Los Angeles a day or two when I got the call that my Grandmother was gone. I didn't cry at first and shed only a few tears later that night. The next day my husband and I flew back to Virginia for her funeral. 

It was a crisp and sunny afternoon. I still remember the pink and white petals from the flowers of the spring trees falling like snow -- something that never ceased to fascinate my grandmother ever since she came to America from a small province in the Philippines where there was no such thing as cold white stuff showering from the sky. 

We laid her to rest next to my grandfather who died 18 years prior and I realized that she went on for a long time without her other half. But I also realized that she had the hope of seeing my Grandpa again and that those Kingdom Melodies helped her keep that hope alive. We said one last goodbye and, of course, we sang those songs that she loved so much. 

Maybe I was in shock or maybe I didn't want to deal with it just then, but as I mentioned before I wasn't as emotional as I thought I would be. As the years passed by the memory of Grandmother's death faded into the back corners of my mind. 

But earlier this week, as I was lying in bed, thoughts of my Grandmother flashed in my mind like a lightning storm. I could see her face coated with flour, I could smell her cooking, and, most of all, I could hear her singing. 

Tears broke from my eyes like a heavy rain. All my husband could do was hold me. "Why are you crying?" he asked.

"When did my Grandma die?" I managed to say.

He thought she had passed away in March but somehow I knew I was crying because it was close to the day of her death. The only thing that could calm me down was a song. I forced my thoughts upon the lyrics of one of my Grandmother's favorite Kingdom Melodies -- a song about restored youth, no more tears, and a resurrection of the dead -- and I let it carry me off to sleep like a lullaby. 

The next day I got curious and I looked up when my grandmother had died. It was no surprise that it was the night of April 5, 2005. I had broke down on the day and hour of the five-year anniversary of my Grandmother's death. 

It's funny how you can never forget certain things even if time has nearly erased them. There are events and people in your life that come to your mind like a song that you've heard a long time ago. Suddenly, you catch yourself singing it for no apparent reason and you can't get it out of your head.  

The memory of my Grandmother came back to me like a song. I'll sing it for the rest of my life along with those Kingdom Melodies. 

Wifey of a Roadie - Out!