It all started in a pandemic
It was March 2020 and a three-month winter escape to Palm Springs had just come to an abrupt end. My wife and I were safely back home in London, Ontario after a white-knuckled drive through nine states.
In three frantic days, we covered 3,800 kilometers of highway, logged eight fuel stops and spent a couple of nights in hotels. With OCD-grade conviction, no mitigating measure was spared to avoid touching or breathing the invisible germ that came out of nowhere.
We knew very little of COVID-19 in the early months. But seared in our minds were troubling reports of soaring death rates and images of stoic Italians singing wistfully from their balconies.
Locally, a beleaguered and vulnerable medical profession pleaded with us to stay home to help stop the spread.
A man and his instrument
A guitar has never been far from reach most of my adult life. For me, it’s always provided something of a therapeutic release. A means of recalibrating mind and spirit in a stolen hour of basement time, strumming and singing songs to fit a mood.
Guitar playing for me started when a good friend, Bud Vallee and I joined a beginners guitar class in the mid-eighties. Basic chords and strumming conquered in the educational intimacy of a class of twenty. We were about the only ‘mature students’ in attendance when our graduating class performed a closing ‘concert’ in the auditorium of a public library. Ball caps flipped backwards, we eagerly took the stage with our more presentable adolescent classmates.
Our first taste of the thrill that comes with performing live came when our wives—about half the attending audience—leapt to their feet, arms swaying rhythmically in appreciative simulation of waving lighters, while our 20-piece guitar ensemble laboured through a crude rendition of Jailhouse Rock.
I had experienced my first live gig high.
The catharsis of music
In the isolation of a lockdown and worry of a global pandemic, I again turned to the guitar. Playing around with Neil Young’s, Harvest Moon, I decided to customize the lyrics. The result was a hastily composed and under-rehearsed song of support for our weary healthcare heroes.
There was a surprising level of interest in the effort—if social media likes, shares and comments are any indication. Whatever the case, to me the attention qualified as tacit approval for more of the same and covidized covers of The Needle and the Damage Done and Ahead by a Century, quickly followed.
When it seemed the distraction of music had provided a measure of solace to friends in troubled times, I pivoted to lyric-legitimate covers of songs I found comforting or inspirational.
And the beat goes on
One of the more active voices of support for early pandemic posts, was twice former colleague and longtime friend, Annette Henry. There is special meaning in the feedback of a fellow musician and I knew Annette to be an excellent drummer. Like me, she had long loved music but a passion for playing arrived later in life.
In one of his last recordings, John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” For some of us, artistic aspirations lay dormant in the years dominated by developing careers and the raising of children. As careers settle and the kids grow older, our inner rock stars awaken and our real personas take the stage.
Annette got her drumming start at The School of Rock, Kitchener-Waterloo and I had the pleasure of seeing her play a couple of public bar concerts with her fellow students. One of my inspirations for trying to improve at guitar was seeing how good a drummer she had become and the fun she was clearly having at these live gigs.
The next couch cover I had earmarked was a favourite Blue Rodeo song, Head Over Heels and I thought how cool it would be if Annette was able to add drums to the project. I had been dabbling at the time with some sound software and figured I may be able to synchronize separate tracks for a decent audio recording.
As it turned out, Annette had also been toying with the possibility of our collaborating on some music during the lockdown. With a recent addition of a home recording system of her own, she was all in.
At that time we had no idea we were on our way to a string of choreographed covers, like Nicks and Petty’s, Stop Draggin My Heart Around.
It’s all about the bass
Another career colleague and music-crazed friend of mine is Ian Chambers. Ian and I never worked from the same office, but we had many occasions to unite at company conferences and functions. Discovering early on that we both played guitar, we would bring our gear to multi-day events and play in one of the hotel rooms in the evenings.
On a trip to London, Ian dropped by the house and we jammed in my basement. One business trip I made to Ottawa, he rented a small studio, rounded up a drummer and we spent an evening doing our best to make some music.
Ian’s interest in playing took hold earlier in life. He’s more of a lifelong rocker and as a member of multiple bands over the years, the most experienced of the three in live performances.
I happened to be chatting with Ian as Annette and I worked on Head Over Heels and asked if he’d be interested in chipping in with some bass guitar in our little project. After discussing the mechanics of recording his part he agreed to join us emphasizing one caveat, “but I don’t sing.”
But that condition was soon to change, as witnessed in our playful rendition of I Wanna Be Your Dog.
Introducing The Twenty Bit Bunker Band (TB3)
Somewhere in the process of recording Head Over Heels, I had the idea to synchronize videos with soundtracks rather than settling for a straight audio recording. With an old Adobe program I hadn’t fully explored, I figured I may be able to mix sound and video from separate recordings produced at homes in London, Ayr and Ottawa.
After the completion of our first video cover, New Years Eve 2020, we were pumped at the prospect of a sequel. If we were going to do that, we figured we may as well have a name. Because it all originated out of playing music from our respective pandemic bunkers in a lockdown, we settled on The Twenty Bit Bunker Band.
More than a year and 13 covers later we can attest, from a COVID-19 standpoint, Twenty-One also bit.
A fraternity of common purpose
Maybe it’s because we don’t take ourselves too seriously and aim for improvement rather than perfection. Maybe it’s because the win for us is playing music together—albeit from several hundred kilometers apart. But one of the more satisfying aspects of this virtual band experience is the supportiveness and ease with which we exchange ideas and suggestions.
This is a band unburdened by ego and we understand that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We value one another’s contribution and raise each other’s game. We encourage experimentation and applaud the effort and successes. There are loose targets rather than deadlines for this band. Two of us are retired and have long since purged that word from our vocabularies.
Ours may not be the purest covers you’ll ever hear, but we sure do have fun putting them together.
Never stop learning, because life never stops teaching
If there is a foil to boredom for the 50 or 60-somethings, it may be found in the invigoration of learning. I’ve played guitar much of my life, but I’ve learned more about music and musicianship in the past year with my cyber bandmates than I have in the decades of dabbling, before it.
For me the past year of playing music has awakened an appreciation for the finer points of music making. When I listen to songs, I appreciate nuances I never did before. In the past I would hear and evaluate a piece very superficially—the overall appeal to the ear or perhaps the quality or poignancy of the lyric.
Now I appreciate layers beneath the surface: how the drummer sets the pace and the intricacy of patterns produced by the various kit components; how the bass guitar reinforces the beat and enriches the overall product; the skill required for guitar solos and the countless variations and roles of the rhythm guitar.
Whether it’s learning and playing new and challenging songs, the art of audio recording, audio mixing and videography, or how three people effectively collaborate and create music remotely, we’ve all learned something out of this venture.
Live performance versus studio recording
Whatever strides we make in our ‘studio’ produced covers, it can never be the same as performing live. Annette and Ian have much more experience in live performance than me.
Though I did get a taste of the performance high when Ian and I played before close to 100 senior management colleagues for a two-song set at a company conference in Toronto (when the real band for the function graciously allowed us to plug into their gear during a break).
There’s a completely different energy performing live. I fed off the boisterous enthusiasm of colleagues as we poked a little fun at the CEO while belting out spoof covers at the conference. I witnessed it as an audience member at Annette’s School of Rock performances. I’ve seen the engaged crowds from the videos of a couple of Ian’s live gigs.
But even without a live audience, jamming in the same space is a different experience than playing and singing into a blank wall at home. It’s dynamic and spontaneous. You feed off one another, playing to the drummer’s beat and riffing off each other’s sound and energy as you cover or create music.
Put your cyber hands together
Perhaps the biggest difference between performing live or studio recording is feedback. In live performances reaction comes in real-time. You put in the practice and hopefully get it right as there are no do-overs. The crowd may dance to the music or join in the singing. If they like what you’re putting out, you know it immediately. If they don’t, you have an opportunity to adjust on the fly.
In the world of home studio recording there is a greater margin for error. Minor mistakes can be patched up after the fact. Overdubbing a background vocal or layering multiple instrumental tracks can enrich the sound, particularly for a three-person band.
When an audience is reached solely through social media, the reaction is less clear. The proportion of likes, shares and comments provides some feedback, but it’s an imprecise measure. People may think it’s great and scroll on, or they may not even listen to it and toss in a courtesy “like.”
But we really didn’t get into this for a viral moment. We know when we’ve collectively raised the bar for ourselves with a solid cover and we recognize when one of us has broken through personally with instruments or vocals.
For us, this venture is more about broadening skills and having some fun. For our take on I Wanna Be Your Dog, we changed up the lyrics to add our own pandemic spin and Ian showed up in full ‘Iggy” character to pop the vocals. What we all get out of this may have been best captured in a random comment by Ian: “I feel good when I play tunes.”
Where words fail, music speaks
A recent study out of Harvard confirmed music truly is the universal language. Its sounds and lyrics can lift spirits or bring a tear to the eye—in any language. The mere hearing of a long-forgotten song can transport us to another place and time. It would surely be difficult to find someone who hasn’t been profoundly touched by music, at some time.
It’s possible that neither Yarborough & Peoples or Rihanna was referring to The Twenty Bit Bunker Band when they recorded “Don’t Stop the Music” but we’re having far too much fun to quit working on covers just because the pandemic appears to be receding.
We have a long list of songs we’d like to try and many ideas for breaking new ground in videography. As long as we have a semi-soundproof space to play and the generous indulgence of our families who put up with all the noise, we can collaborate on songs from anywhere.
Maybe we’ll even get together in one place sometime for a live jam.
From a couch and campfire crooner to a cyber band with friends, I can think of few better ways to rock a retirement.
I’m Derrick Coyle; proud husband, father and grandad, happily retired in London, Ontario after a long and satisfying career in the world of insurance. SilverFoxWise is a personal blog created to indulge a longtime passion and scratch a creative itch; an introspective boomer’s cathartic canvas of musings and perspectives. Thanks for coming along for the read.