Now that we’re the chaotic days of pre-production, with never ending to-do lists and obsessively watching the progress of our Kickstarter campaign for Self-Titled, I’m feeling a little nostalgic for those golden days when we were just a writing group. We’d gather in Mandy’s kitchen and eat delicious snacks (sometimes there was champagne). We’d read what we wrote that month and talk about what we discovered while writing it and what our work sparked in each other. And then we’d get to pick a new album out of the hat. This was the best moment of all because I never knew if I was just about to be introduced to my new favorite band.
The very first month that we started writing, either luck or fate sent me Dresden Dolls. I don’t know how I’d missed The Dresden Dolls before that moment because they hooked me from the opening line of the first song. I’d been putting off listening because once I started there was going to be this obligation to find SOMETHING TO WRITE ABOUT and to MAKE IT WORTHWHILE and PROVE MYSELF, but as it turned out, I didn’t even think about writing that first time and the second time I forgot to.
The album is right up my alley: it’s unapologetically feminine, undeniably feminist, twisty, dark, funny, and ridiculously theatrical. When I finally started writing, I didn’t focus on any one song or story, I listened to the style and the rhythm of the album. A character emerged, and then another. A title. An old idea that I’d been wanted to use in a play but never found the story that fit. Somehow Sleeping Beauty got involved. And that delicious tension of more than a minute of silence before the very last line. I wanted to do that on stage. Could I do that on stage?
I wrote a play. Girl Anachronism isn’t going to be part of Self-Titled this summer, and part of me is sad about this (even though I also love Introduction to Experiences based on Are You Experienced?) simply because it was the first time that I saw what music could inspire me to write. Here's a taste of what got me started:
The very first month that we started writing, either luck or fate sent me Dresden Dolls. I don’t know how I’d missed The Dresden Dolls before that moment because they hooked me from the opening line of the first song. I’d been putting off listening because once I started there was going to be this obligation to find SOMETHING TO WRITE ABOUT and to MAKE IT WORTHWHILE and PROVE MYSELF, but as it turned out, I didn’t even think about writing that first time and the second time I forgot to.
The album is right up my alley: it’s unapologetically feminine, undeniably feminist, twisty, dark, funny, and ridiculously theatrical. When I finally started writing, I didn’t focus on any one song or story, I listened to the style and the rhythm of the album. A character emerged, and then another. A title. An old idea that I’d been wanted to use in a play but never found the story that fit. Somehow Sleeping Beauty got involved. And that delicious tension of more than a minute of silence before the very last line. I wanted to do that on stage. Could I do that on stage?
I wrote a play. Girl Anachronism isn’t going to be part of Self-Titled this summer, and part of me is sad about this (even though I also love Introduction to Experiences based on Are You Experienced?) simply because it was the first time that I saw what music could inspire me to write. Here's a taste of what got me started:
Dresden Dolls is in regular rotation on my iPod, and I still listen to the whole album every single time.
RSS Feed