Crashpoint to Reform?

Can't sleep, and this is on my mind so...

Earlier this evening Cj who I'm now in Aki Maera with text me to say some mutual friends had enjoyed the Crashpoint stuff and that it was a shame we weren't still together. I wholly agreed with this. When I was at the Just Kroozin fundraising event with Natasha and the 82s last week (blog to come later) and saw a storming set from the band Almost Easy, I considered the music I was playing (Good indie rock from the Fakes with a not-so-busy gigging schedule, quite restrained soul music in the 82s and bass in Aki Maera and who the hell knows what Post Hardcore actually sounds like anyway) and found myself missing the days when I could take the stage with an electric guitar and play rock songs that I'd had a hand in writing. So yeah, I'd quite like the band to still be together as well.

Quick history for the uninitiated - I put Crashpoint together with Cj in late 2007, still hurting from Jack's Legacy and my experience with The Dastards having sucked all the fun out of playing bass. Band members came and went until shortly after our first gig we settled on what became the definitive lineup of me on guitar, Emma on vocals, Jay on bass and Cj on drums. Musically, not the best lineup, and we were never as good as JL was, but it was the most stable lineup and did the most gigs. We recorded a reasonable-sounding demo and kept a steady momentum going on the live circuit for most of 2009. Then Jay and Emma dropped out for their own reasons, we struggled on for a bit with some different people but as it was going nowhere and neither Cj or I could afford to keep the band going indefinitely for its own sake, in May 2010 we sadly stepped down and added Crashpoint to the list of the also-rans.

Since then, amongst everything else we've done, I've tried various different things with Cj and Aki Maera has lasted by far the longest. Now on Facebook Cj's on about putting Crashpoint back together for one final show to go out with a bang. I'm against this, for the following reasons:

1) We've already done our farewell show. That was in February 2010. I made it clear a number of times during the show that this would be our last one, until we could get ourselves sorted out, and we never did. I drove home that night knowing perfectly well it was all over and crying my eyes out to The Poet and The Pendulum. Losing Crashpoint didn't hurt as bad, or for as long, as losing Jack's Legacy - we were nowhere near as good, and I was certainly not as close to the individual members - but putting myself through that again will for me be at best a waste of time that I don't really have, and at worst a desperate attempt to recapture something I lost nearly two years ago which will hardly be conducive to a great self-esteem.

2) Even if that first point didn't apply, we could barely get anyone to come to our shows when we were a band. Who's going to come to see us now, when we haven't been active on the live circuit for nearly two years? I for one find it very difficult to get people to come to gigs, (usually the only way I manage it is if I drive them there myself,) any new 'fans' will be disappointed that there will be no continuity in the band, and everybody else has presumably either forgotten about Crashpoint or weren't there for us the first time, and simply won't care if we do a reunion show.

3) To be fair Cj has picked up on this one already - we're not going to get the definitive lineup back together now. Emma left the band because the strain the style of music was putting on her voice was causing her some damage, and she's busy with In Between Seas now so I can't imagine her wanting to do it again. Jay's busy working as a chef. That just leaves me and Cj, and while we were the only two members of the band to be involved right from the start to the end, we couldn't manage it on our own.

Could we ever get back together and do Crashpoint again as a band? It could be done, I think. We'd need to find a new bass player - one that we can get on with, actually wants to do the band, and can play bass, you'd be surprised how hard they are to find - and that would be the bare minimum. Possibly we'd need a lead guitarist. I wouldn't waste my time looking for a singer when I can sing most of the songs myself anyway. And I'd love to write songs again in that environment (Marcus writes the songs for Aki Maera, and the one song we play that I wrote we did at the end of Crashpoint so it's not like I've written anything new in a band setting since then) and perform them with the same kind of energy that I've been sorely missing these last couple of years.

Unfortunately, I can't see that happening either. Aki Maera's got it's first gig coming up at the end of the month and we've been working very hard over the last few months to make sure it goes OK, we're not going to abandon it now for our old band. It's very easy to get disillusioned with finding band members (of all the people who contacted us off websites for the positions available in Aki Maera, Ian was the only one who got as far as meeting us and lasted more than about a week) and it's not a process I'm keen to repeat now that we've finally got the lineup sorted out. And I honestly have not got time to put Crashpoint back together and do it alongside all my other bands. Maybe, if Marcus ever decided to pull the plug on Aki Maera, we'd have time to give it another go. But we know perfectly well he's not even close to doing any such thing, and quite rightly so for all the work that's gone in to it.

So overall, I think it's a no. And to be honest, I was happier with the dream of rocking out on stage with my either of my old bands than contemplating the practicalities of actually going through with it. But it was interesting to think about for a while.

Got gig blogs coming up, and another gig at the Wharf later today - see some of you there. Maybe.