party on, Radiant

There are perks to having a rock band in your basement 3 hours a day. 

For one thing, it's harder to hear the screams. I see the clenched fists, the red faces with wide open angry mouths. I can perceive that a preschool misdeed has gone down, but the specifics are lost. Also, there's always a dance soundtrack. Sometimes it's Blue Oyster Cult, aka Cowbell, sometimes it's an extensive techno robot jam or screaming 80's guitar lead, and on occasion, our take on modern worship. Another pro: my kids can sleep through anything. In fact, sometimes when the shredding stops, they wake up, irritated at the silence. There are 5 extra people filtering through the house and entertaining my kids. Sometimes T & B go down there and sit on the stairs until they are overcome with temptation, probably because of the "rock beat" and try to get in on the band space, only to be bounced.

It's not all gravy, though. (For you poor Yankees, gravy is like heaven, but liquid) It's loud, and sometimes it makes your brain rattle a little. Sometimes rockers have to perfect a riff or something and they play the same thing over and over for 1,324 days, or they plug everything into in-ears and so you just hear drums. For hours. I mean, it's  quality drumming and all, my favorite! But you know. 

Lucky for me, we have the sunroom. The sunroom will be the first to go in the apocalypse. I have a feeling it's being held together by household nails and mold. It was a crazy experiment by an amateur homebuilder in the late 70's, as far as I can tell. Anyway, it's this crazy room tacked on to the back of the house and therefore, relatively disconnected from the vent system and the wood floors, which are the primary sound conductors. Here I sit, with 3/4 of my children and a bag of trail mix, listening to a faint continual guitar playing in the baby monitor and drums, always drums. 

It's important, what they're doing. The hours of practice pay off in a live environment, when they don't have to worry so much about remembering the songs, so they can be freer and more prophetic. It's loud, but it's worth it. I love what Richy does for a living, and I love being part of it.

And I will love it in an hour, when they stop and I can relax my ears to the sound of my children hitting each other with Hot Wheels.