The sound of a spacebar punctuates the three-minute mark of InDreama’s “Saw a Blind Dad.” It tags the end of a sluggish section of plodding drums, phasing vocals and a guitar lagging just behind the rest. Draped over it all is a whooshing digital wind that gives way only to the sudden scrape of feedback.
Just imagine your parents listening to what comes next:
Nik Fackler doesn’t have to. InDreama’s main character, divided into a number of voices on the forthcoming, self-titled album, introduced his band to his parents — and for the first time anywhere — at a reunion of his parents’ band, Bumpy Action. It didn’t go well:
About 30 years separate Fackler from Dereck Higgins, 57, who further explained the difference between Bumpy Action’s crowd and the folks who responded positively to InDreama’s second concert.
“Each generation has to have its own voice,” says Higgins, who plays bass in the live version of InDreama. “The hell Nik’s going to come up and play some Lynyrd Skynyrd. Are you kidding me?
“Just like when I played with my dad, I played his stuff," he continues, speaking in front of his collection of vinyl in his home. "But once I created my own voice, the hell I’m going to play some motherfucking blues if I can help it.” Higgins hates the blues, he says.
While Fackler has recently released an album, directed music videos, toured across a few states and as of Aug. 21 sits at No. 10 on the College Music Journal chart with his other band, Icky Blossoms, he didn't pick up music until the age of 21 with The Family Radio, joining Higgins. By that time, Higgins had already had a musical influence on Fackler, sharing not only his records, new and old, but the stories behind them.
Having taken up film as his form of creative expression — mostly as a form of rebellion against his parents' choice of music, he says — Fackler worked on his first feature film, Lovely, Still, until he reached the age of 23. When it released in 2008, he says it felt as if something died. Throughout his travels across North and South America promoting the film — which being done had left a void in his need to create — he turned finally to making music as a way to express his newfound feelings and perspective. This is how InDreama came to be:
Now as the album composed mostly in GarageBand celebrates its plan for release, Oct. 23 on Team Love, Fackler and Higgins are working out the final touches. The test pressing arrived on Monday, and Higgins looks forward to being able to help sell the record and ship it internationally through his YouTube account and the community of vinyl listeners and collectors he has found.
Plus, he no doubt hopes to keep sharing his own massive record collection with Fackler, who now knows a little more about Higgins and his thoughts on their friendship:
Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska's managing editor. You would never guess who his musical father is. Reach him at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.