I just added a post to the Lizardfish website. Rehearsal last night wasn’t just good, it was constructive in a way we haven’t really experienced yet. At least not since I joined the band.
I was going to just reblog it here, but apparently I’ve shut that function off. Oh well.
We had our first band practice in about a month tonight. Much to everyone’s surprise it went really, really well. Are we ready to play out? No, but we are starting to feel close.
I forgot my notebook tonight, but amazingly I made it through without any train wrecks. Physically, it was hot and sweaty and there was some finger pain. By the time 8:00pm came I was definitely ready to go home and sleep. I also tore my finger tips to shreds. Other than all of that, it went fine.
Next up is Sunday. The mixing board recordings may begin at that time.
Damn, Tipper Gore is gonna be pissed off at me.
This is a song from Thursday night’s practice. I didn’t include it in the playlist I posted yesterday because I made a dumb mistake during my guitar solo and it soured the whole thing for me. Now that same mistake is going to bring down the might of the PMRC (is that what Tipper’s censorship group from the 80’s was called? I can’t remember).
I was feeling a little goofy all night. I was also feeling a little adventurous. The result, I did a lot of silly little gimmicky things that sound okay when you pull them off, but sound really dumb when you don’t. Most of them sounded okay. During this song I got it into my head that I was going to strum a dominant 7 chord way up high on the neck during my solo. Robin Trower does it all the time and it is super awesome when he does it. Unfortunately for me, having the same first three letters of my first name does not make me as skilled a soloist as Robin Trower. I started playing the little gimmick and then realized… what the hell am I doing? That chord doesn’t work in this key. What are you an idiot? As I stopped I shouted an obscenity. I won’t repeat it here, but it started with the letter “f”. Now I know you’re all crushed to learn that I sometimes say bad words, but you’ll just have to accept that I’m not this pillar of morality that you thought I was. I’m sorry about that (not really).
At some point later in the song it occurred to me that I very nearly yelled my bad word into my microphone. Hehe, thought me. I asked the other guys if they heard it and they said no. I just listened to this recording a few minutes ago and sure enough, I heard it. BOOM, right there where Tipper Gore can be all offended by it.
Enjoy my little eff-bomb! WOOHOO
Being in a cover band is conflicting. On the one hand, I love playing guitar in a band. It’s a freakin’ blast. On the other hand, I generally don’t like most of the music the band plays. Still, it’s a ton of fun.
Here are a few songs from last night’s rehearsal. It was recorded with an iPhone and therefore sounds almost as good as cats choking on cow shit. There are examples of songs that I like to play that I don’t actually like. There are also songs I like to play that I do like. Can you guess which is which?
The band rehearsed tonight. The first weeknight practice since I joined. It was weird having to deal with traffic to get there. That has never happened. We snuck this one in because one of the guys is going on a business trip for a few weeks. It’s tough getting all of us together this summer. Hopefully things will be easier in the fall.
I took my laptop and a couple of my new microphones with me, but traffic made me a tad late so I didn’t take the time to set them up to make a recording. I settled for my iPhone instead. I haven’t listened to it yet. I’ll edit it tomorrow and share anything that sounds decent. It’s going to sound like swill, but it’s always worth listening back. I’ll get the whole room mic’d up soon, but not until next month at least.
We missed a Lizard Fish show last night. It was at a bar that is practically down the street from us, but it was a kid night on the first full day since they came home from camp. I would have liked to have gone, but I would have liked to be home with the kids even more, so we stayed home.
Now that Rush has finished their tour, I don’t have any band to obsess about over their gigs.
Kay Hanley tweeted that Letters to Cleo was going to do something to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first record. If that somehow fails to include Boston shows then there will be full scale riots in the streets.
Pearl Jam is playing two shows in Worcester in October. I just checked Ticketmaster (irony) and there are seats available for both. They are very high on my list of bands I have to see at least once before I die. Perhaps second on the list behind only Jeff Beck. Maybe that’s something to look in to.
Last night Jen and I traveled North to Seabrook, NH to see a couple of friends’ band, Lizardfish. Included in the line up is the legendary co-founder of both the mighty Prime Meridian and Tempest Fero, better known in these pages as Mike the Bass Player.
We stayed for two of the three sets. After two I was just too beat to stay any longer and I was getting worried about falling asleep in the car driving home.
Jen and I had a blast. The band sounded great. Much, much better than they did with their old guitar player. I was very impressed. It was a really good time.
Me being me, I took some video, took some pictures, and basically bootlegged a whole set. Here are a couple of pictures. Imagine the bass player as a 17 year old and you have a start to witnessing the brilliant, mighty, powerhouse that was Tempest Fero.
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Why the Tempest Fero references? Well, I recently made new recordings of two Tempest Fero songs using Garageband. I felt seriously goofy doing it, and yet it was still fun for weird ol’ me. Well, if you look at the post I made prior to this one you will see that I bought a cassette player today. I made that purchase because I found a tape with two more Tempest Fero songs, and they will be re-recorded very soon.
Inside the Red Head's Head 