Just got home from band practice. Lucy did not pull the football away from Charlie Brown.
My finger tips ARE KILLING ME. The last two songs we did I could barely play. My fingers just said, “yeah we’re done for the day” and that was it. Outside of that, things went pretty well. There probably won’t be a practice next week as our drummer is traveling, but after that I hope we can get onto something like a regular schedule.
We did it. We have had two band practices in a row. Oh thanks be to the gods of bad middle aged cover bands, we pulled off two Sunday practices in a row!
I fought with my gear through the whole thing. I have something in my signal chain that is adding a weird whistling noise and when it reaches my overdrive pedals it gets LOUD. I ended up bypassing half of the board and it seemed like it fixed the problem for a while, but eventually it came back and kept getting worse. If I had to guess I would say it’s probably my power supply. I don’t know. I think I might bring my stay at home pedal board next time and see if it had any similar issues.
I also just wasn’t vibing with my amp. The Vox AC15 is fun and I like using it when I record at home, but when the band was playing I was missing my Deluxe Reverb. I might swap them next time. Or maybe I’ll swap the pedal board next time and then swap the amp the time after that.
Look at me, making plans for the next two practices, as if I wasn’t just worried about ever having two practices in a row again. Why don’t we focus on the next practice actually happening before we start looking beyond that, m’kay?
As for me personally, my playing was awful. Probably worse than last week. That’s okay though, I will get back up to speed soon enough, assuming we get ourselves on a regular schedule, of course.
How about a couple of gear pics?
I didn’t get my hopes up last week and everything worked out. Now we’re shooting for two weeks in a row. Should I be excited?
Last week we had our first band practice in months after more false alarms than I care to remember. After all the fails I refused to get excited about it until we were all actually in the room together. Once we were though… rock and roll bro.
Now we’re talking about practicing again tomorrow. One week later. Is it going to happen? Is it going to fall through? Are we on or are we dealing with another false alarm? I don’t want to get too excited. I don’t want to get my hopes too high… but we’re practicing at noon tomorrow and my stuff is already packed up.
Rock and roll, bro.
The car was packed up… did the band practice happen? It’s been so very long…
Yes! Yes it did happen! All four of us were there. The first band practice in ages!
Yes, we sucked but who cares! It was fun and we weren’t nearly as bad as we could (should) have been. We have tentative plans to try again next week. Fingers crossed, folks. A few practices… get back into playing shape… relearn a bunch of songs… book a gig. That’s the hope. We’ll see how it goes.
I don’t want to feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football but… that might be the case.
We have a band practice scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Will it happen? I keep getting my hopes up and they keep getting canceled at the last minute. Should I be excited about this or should I be resigned to the fact that it’s going to fall through.
I don’t want to feel like Charlie Brown. I am choosing to be excited, but maybe not quite as excited as I was the last bunch of times.
So which guitar should I bring to the practice? Whichever it is, it’s going to need new strings. I’ll decide in the morning.
The band practice is on the books for 4:00pm tomorrow. I should be super psyched.
I’m not.
We’re going to get slammed with a snowstorm tomorrow afternoon. Practice is going to get snowed out.
MUTHA PUSS BUCKET!
I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but I swear that mother nature hates my guts. What a bitch!
It still looks like Sunday will have a band practice. The first one in ages.
I need to put new strings on my Les Paul Standard. I also need to not get too excited because statistically speaking it’s probably safe to assume something will take the plans and cock them up.
Ugh. I want to be in a band again! AARRGGHH!!!
4:00pm on Sunday?
We’re trying to setup a time for the band to get together this weekend. I think everyone is in. At least we’re all in as of this moment. I need this. I so need this. I don’t even know when the last time all four of us got together to play was. It’s been way too long. So long that I was pretty convinced it would never happen again. Pessimistically I am still pretty convinced that it is never going to happen again but I am choosing to look on the bright side right now, like the ray of fucking sunshine that I am.
My fingers are crossed. Band practice on Sunday. Make it so.
I want to go home. I’m in the office, 44 miles away. Tonight I want to cook dinner for my beautiful bride and then move some furniture around to make room for a new couch. I got seven hours of sleep last night so I am not terribly tired right now (and it feels weird) so I know I will have the energy to pull it all off. I just wish I were at home so I could just punch out of work and do it all without having the long drive home wedged into the middle of everything. Blah.
Here’s another cat photo that I took this morning before I left for work just because Robin the cat is adorable and she was very willing to pose for the camera today.
Unrelated question… the band Facebook chat left off with hoping we could all get together at some point after the first weekend in January. The first weekend in January is now over. How long should I wait before I start the discussion up again? How soon is too soon? Should I wait three days as if it were a kind of first date thing? Do the same stupid rules apply? I don’t want to sound too eager even though I am SUPER eager to get the band moving again. I want to play. I want to gig. I want, want, want.
I want my band back. We were so close to having it back, what the hell happened? We were actually talking about trying to book a show around Halloween. Instead, we never played together again. Why? How?
What if I can’t get my band back? What happens then? If the band is over, do I want to start a new band? Do I want to join an existing band? The thought of either option is just overwhelming to me. Why? I don’t understand it.
I just want to play, you know? It is all the other stuff that has to happen to allow one to just play that I can’t wrap my tired, old man brain around right now. I could blame it on the holidays, but I was spinning my brain around this long before the holiday season started.
I just want to play.
Inside the Red Head's Head 