From Rich:
Zen Fuse Box and the Daughters of Zen gathered on MLK weekend ‘24 for a productive time of music and the usual mayhem. It’s pretty cool that Steve, Pete and I are still gathering to make music and hang out as ZFB for 15 years now. In total, we've known each other for 30 years and it works due to our shared interest in music and barley beverages. What's more amazing is how our now young adult daughters still take time out of their busy lives to hang out for the weekend with each other and their delusional rock star Dads. We worked on some new-ish tunes that have been kicking around for a while, sampled barley liquids, shot some life-risking video, and had an outing to check out the cool town of Dunedin (Florida, not Scotland). Very excited about the new songs as they have some unique sounds and approaches to songwriting we haven't used before. I got to verbally replicate a splash cymbal on one song, so I can check that off the bucket list! Great weekend and looking forward to more in '24!
From Pete:
This is Pete, lead singer, harmonica player, driver of the Winnebago, and other duties as assigned. We actually don’t have an RV but we are hopeful. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend has been a fairly traditional date for the band to have a new year gathering for working on recording, fellowship-type fraternizing, trying new beer, and marveling at the daughters’ growth and achievements. I normally refer to these recording sessions as the DOZ weekends (Daughters of Zen). I recall one bitter gathering not too long ago when it was just us sad dads sitting around noodling on instruments and lamenting the loss of our long-time back-up singers fearing they had outgrown our musical shenanigans. Little did we know that they would become the revitalizing force to power future DOZ weekends! After all, they have all grown up together since before there was a Zen Fuse Box. This time around we were lucky enough to have all five of them galivanting about K-Popping, TikTok-ing, acai-eating, and doing what all else they do. Mine brought along some old found photos that had shots of them all as babies and toddlers.
Going out eating and consuming mass quantities of beer were highlights but that’s probably not why you’ve been drawn to read tales of your favorite band. So let us discuss the process of music making. Steve in his business suit, Rich rolling down a steep cement walkway in a wheeled chair with his guitar, and me frolicking about on the mean streets of Pinellas County drew looks of amazement from passers-by as we worked on a new video for Je Ne Sais Pas, but one must often do foolish things in the pursuit of great artistry. I believe both Saturday and Sunday nights we labored well past 2 AM crafting the subtle phrases of some long-worked on tunes and a few new additions. The general procedure is to listen to something we have previously recorded in whatever sorry state of development it is in, drink beers, and chatter away like monkeys about what could maybe make it better. “I hear some harp right there” or “maybe a second guitar could go there” or “how about some percussion, clapping, didgeridoo, African thumb piano…et merda” are sentences often muttered. The next release should be Audio Dropouts Vol. 2 so we dabbled a bit with some of the pretty much finished tracks. Then we tackled a grab-bag of original future hits, slathering on everything from ebow to falsetto vocals for the new single key song. Rich added some killer guitar backing to Bulletproof our latest hip-hop venture. Steve records, conducts, but often adds bass and drum licks later since after all the MPQ Studios are nearest to his crib. I got to thinking about how since I’m the One many of my rap lyrics take on a sort of troubled persona many might label as an ideological nut. It seems to work, though. Whew. I could go on, but I reckon this has been about long enough for current listeners and any posterity who may listen. Until next time: audio, video, disco, volvo!
From Steve:
Ditto x2. We had the best time. And he can fart on command.