XY Bumps and Rumps

by James Adams

This is the fifth installment of What’s Happening Wednesday, where you find out what XY Unlimited is doing right now – or at least right now-ish.

One month of XY blogs! Yes! If I’ve counted correctly (never a sure thing), this will be our lucky thirteenth blog post.

My blogging time is limited, because we be rehearsing all day…

Now that I feel very accomplished for blogging maniacally, and now that most everybody should be caught up on XY’s current state of affairs, I’ll be scaling down to weekly entries. DON’T WORRY – you’ll still get Memory Mondays, What’s Happening Wednesdays, and Future Fridays – they’ll just alternate every week instead of all appearing within days of each other. You’re not worried, are you? Good.

Actually, XY has plenty of reasons to worry this week. As it gets closer and closer to game day (the start of our Fall 2013 West Coast Tour), the gods of chance and disaster get hungrier for our souls. Case in point: while at the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival this weekend, I nearly cut the tip off of my thumb with a mango slicer. Yes, this is the same thumb I use to pick guitar strings. No, the mango slicer did not look sharp when I tried to reach past it for a large spoon in my friend’s drawer.

…and rehearsing all night. Sleep is for people who aren’t getting ready for a tour.

I can still play cajón, and Michael can approximate my guitar parts with enough pizzaz that our rehearsals continue. Still, other threats loom over us: for one, Christian has arrived to rehearsal with a Carl’s Jr. burger so many times now that we’re worried he’ll go into cardiac arrest. For another, we’ve had to find someone to fill Macain’s shoes on the tour, as he’ll be taking care of important business back home. (No, “important business” is not a euphemism for drinking as much Diet Coke as the human body an handle.)

You read that correctly: circumstances have forced us to accommodate another change to the starting lineup for this fall. You have permission to cry for us now. The upside of Mac’s absence is Andrew Abaria, whose talent (and fashion sense) have already made manageable the herculean task of teaching our songs to yet another new mind. Andrew’s admirable backside and red piano can be seen in the photo to the right.

You’ll be seeing plenty more of all our admirable backsides as we post photos leading up to and during the tour. Any special requests?