All My Dead Friends Are Invited

My band, The Nightflower Orchestra plays this Friday for free at the Princeton. We have had two rehearsals, and plan to have another, whether we need it or not.

One of the beauties and benefits of creating a band is creating a shared language. The NFO project started about 7 years ago, with keyboard player Mark Douglas and I. It morphed along the way, in several iterations. We had a very productive two years collaboration with Gord Rempel, Beau Wheeler and Julie, Rees, Kathryn, but then it came back to Mark and I. One year we added Tony, and that three legged dog played a year or two. I had the brilliant idea of asking Ron to play bass- I had no clue he could play bass, and he gratefully accepted the challenge, adding an undercoat layer of paint and romance. We all love to dress up.

The main body of songs was initially written by me and my dogs, Toodles and Maisy, written on our walks, on the wind, songs that came from late night and early morning meditations, blooming in the night, like flowers, these little seeds of what a friend once called Dennis’ little half songs. If I get to be the kid with the crayons, the NFO add the paint, blood, soul, and craft to my scribbles.

We recorded 5 songs a year ago May, the day before I started my cancer treatments. There was a sense of wanting to get these down, just in case…….The EP we created will be called Pre-cancelled For Your Convenience, and includes Lost Cat, King of Bad Notes, She Looked Like Elvis, Icewall and Punk Rock Nursing Home. NFO consists of me, Mark Douglas, Ron Kenji, and Tony Lee.

We laugh a lot. Not just because Tony is one if the funniest people alive. There is a communication we have developed, and continue to develop. Ron and Tony went to school together, played in the Soreheads with Rob Elliot, who designed the cover of our EP.

There a freedom in playing with these fellas. I am free to fuck up and change, and they translate. It is a gift.

I began inviting friends this week to the show. Every time I go through my friends list on Facebook, I am confronted with a lost audience who encompasses my life since at least 2007, if not long before. I pause at each name to think about our relationship and the years that have passed, but it is not just years that are passing. There is a growing number of dead friends, those who I skip over, knowing they cannot attend. They are not even interested.

I am tempted to invite them anyway, all my dead friends. Wouldn’t it be glorious if they came? To see them show up again, to laugh, to hug, to cry.

“I’m so glad we had this time together, just to have a laugh and sing a song, seems we just started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say so long.”