Blast Off!: Difference between revisions

The success of Weezer's first album stirred up a lot of mixed feelings in me-- "Yay, I'm happy" as well as "I'm not sure this is the life I want to lead." I set about exploring and expressing those feelings in a rock musical called ''Songs from the Black Hole''.

I had the perfect opportunity to work on this project when Matt had to go back to the United States because of a family emergency leaving the rest of Weezer in Hamburg, Germany, in the middle of a tour, with nothing to do for a week. Karl and I rode the subway to a studio every day in the outskirts of the city. [Today, we still remember some of the subway stops that were called out by the monotone, automated, male German voice: "Kristuskirche... Osterstrasse."]

At the studio, I recorded "Blast Off" which I had re-worked and expanded from a 1993 songlet "Negativland". The song was to be sung by the four male lead characters in the musical, Jonas (me), Wuan (Brian), Dondó (Matt), and our mechanoid M1 (Karl). MI's part I sang with a vocoder. The song expresses the characters' different feelings about heading out on space mission, or, in other words, my different feelings about heading out on tour and up the charts with a rock band.

From my 1995 notebook:

Act I

10 May 2126

Scene I (The Main Deck)

Betsy II blasts off with a 5-person 1-mechanoid crew aboard, bound for ...?

Captain Jonas feels a strange sense of trepidation that his mates, Wuan and Dondó, do not. They are simply stoked to be on this ship, partying, bound to return as heroes. Mechanoid M1 warns them not to forget the mission: ...?