SpacePants is a band that is controlled by the TUBE.  The TUBE is a performance artist, and SpacePants is the conduit for that performance art. We are scientists, explorers, followers of the TUBE.  Seekers of positive messages.  Listeners to the Universal Love Wave.

1. Such as: hosting a space prom, dragging a tube across a stage for an inordinate amount of time, singing about urinals, playing a tube with a spring, creating a new artistic philosophy, searching hardware stores for instruments, screaming through pvc pipes, improvising, removing classical training sticks from rear ends…

The spaceship of our explorations runs on Energy.  Where do we find that energy?  How do we cultivate it, what do we need in order to get more of it, and how do we become more fuel-efficient? 

Every day we have a finite amount of energy to work with. Delving into the unknown, uncharted, and unwritten requires ample stores of said energy. Each time we step on stage we don’t really know what’s going to happen- we are improvising, we are trying new things, we are stretching ourselves musically and emotionally.

In our work as SpacePants we have found the fountain of renewable energy and inspiration: our ten year old selves. Remember being ten? How exciting the world was!

Are there ways we can recreate that excitement, energy, and enthusiasm in our adult lives?  Take a deep breath or two, start imagining your ten year old self (or any young age that feels potent for you): where are you? What did you and your friends like to do? What did you wear? What did you eat? What games did you invent? What was your favorite music? Are there things you still do that you did as a kid? Traditions? Or music you still listen to? You know what's awesome about being a grown up? Things that felt precious or out-of-reach are now often easily attainable: get yourself some Lisa Frank stickers, eat a Twinkie, or bust out that old album. Now, do a scan: notice how you feel emotionally and physically. Feel that? That spring is always there to be tapped if you’re willing to tend to your ten year old self. 

Staying with this idea, if a kid had a long tough day, ideally an adult was there to tell them to take a nap or eat a snack or whatever they needed. We have to play that role for ourselves too. When you stretch yourself intellectually, artistically, physically you have to then step in and say “hey, time to take a break!” Especially right now, we are all stepping into unknown realms everyday. That may mean, even with our extra inner child energy and inspiration, that we don’t have a lot of room to ponder the great Mysteries of the Universe. A salve for these lower energy times can be connection with others. In SpacePants we have found that if one of us gets amped about something, the other one of us finds it easy to jump on that wagon. We’ve been passing the baton of enthusiasm through the time of the Pandemic, keeping us creatively afloat and engaged. By tapping into 10-year-old Jen and Diana, we can follow what tickles us.

SpacePants is an exploratory outfit. A feeling of groundedness, which could be equated with a basic feeling of Safety, is the vehicle.  There are a hundred ways to become grounded, to signal to the creative entity we are trying to court that it’s okay to come out. These ways include but are in no way limited to:  jumping jacks, breathing slowly, playing make-believe games, exploring nature, making drawings, going to a hardware store to find new instruments, being really weird, dancing, making fart jokes, writing and reading poems out loud, or learning to fly without mechanical assistance.

The testing phase of our experiments often looks like veeeeeery loose jamming with the tube for extended amounts of time. There might be a lot of repetition, sitting on an idea.  There also might be long periods of pure nonsense. This usually happens as we are trying to fully tune into the TUBE’s wishes. We always record so we can see and hear what just happened. Testing while Following The Yes is a challenge because that means we have to fully give ourselves over to the idea and not try to guide it at all: let the idea show you where it wants to go. Evaluation does not occur until we disengage from the test.

Upon completion of the test phase, we enter the observation tank and watch our recordings. As most terrestrial beings know, listening to yourself can be challenging. Still, we usually find a moment or seven that makes us giggle or go “WHAT” or “ how did we do that?” And those are the moments we zero in on. This is where our “composing” comes in: we figure out a way to make the things repeatable- is it an actual musical figure? Or maybe it’s just a feeling we love, or a beat. Try, rinse, repeat.  Then those elements can become the skeleton of a new SpacePants work.

Enthusiasm generates a pathway to enter into explorations of the unknown with others. Riding a wave of co-generated enthusiasm can insulate fellow travelers against the burning suns of self-consciousness, disappointment, embarrassment, and self-doubt. Showing felt enthusiasm for someone else’s leaps of faith can help them land safely in a fresh point-of-view, and that viewpoint can then be the jumping off point for any fellow traveler’s next foray into the void. In this way we expand our circles of wonder and make the ride smoother too. 

When we find ourselves brimming with enthusiasm but we are the only ones that showed up to the party with that cup full, what is a space explorer to do? SpacePants recommends that you just drink it. Drink the cup of your own enthusiasm and get really fucking excited about how spectacular you are. You have the spaceship, and you have the fuel. Burn it up, explorer. Please send postcards back from your adventures with maps drawn carefully so we can find our way to your end of the Universes one of these days.  Thanks.