Tag: Music

Band Practice

Tonight was our first band practice in something like three weeks. We have a gig in a month but rehearsal time has been hard to come by.

The main focus right now is getting a handful of new songs up to speed. Some of them are songs the band played with their old guitar player, so they are only really new to me.

I expected us to be rusty and sloppy and not very good, but we played surprisingly well. It was pretty intense too and my finger tips are burning. My calluses were not as hard as they should be, and the strings were digging in to my skin something fierce. I need to practice at home more than I do.

We have until Saturday October 8th to get our collective shit together again. We will be ready.

No, not That John McLaughlin

Yesterday I saw a trending topic on twitter that threw me for a minute. It was “John McLaughlin”. I immediately thought, oh crap did 2016 take away another of my favorite people?

John McLaughlin was a political commentator who had a famous talk show. He passed away yesterday at the age of 89.

I don’t mean to imply that I was happy about the death of this man. I don’t mean that at all. I will say, however, that I am very happy to learn it was that John McLaughlin, and not another John McLaughlin.

John McLaughlin is an English jazz guitarist. I’m not sure he’s human though because human beings should not really be as amazingly talented as he is. He’s one of those guys who make your favorite rock guitarists feel inadequate the way you feel when you listen to your favorite rock guitarists. Know what I mean? Imagine how good a mortal human being can be on a musical instrument. Then imagine someone who is 100 times better than that. That’s John McLaughlin.

50/90 — An Update

You all remember 50/90, right? Write 50 songs in 90 days? July 4 through October 1.

I haven’t done anything in a couple of weeks (at least). I rocketed up to 27 ideas in progress, recorded guitars for 13 of them, and vocals for three. Then I just lost the umph, as it were.

My rule is, a song isn’t complete until there is a full demo. My other rule is that I wanted all the guitars to be recorded with a real amp instead of a sim in GarageBand. Today, though, I decided that if I was going to get any more work done (finishing is kinda out of the question) then I would have to go back to amp sims and headphones instead of making real, actual noise.

So if I get some sleep tonight I might spend my pre-telecommuting morning in the cellar plugged into my computer, listening with headphones, while trying to not wake my step son who will probably sleep really late because he’s a teenager and that’s what teenagers do.

Rock.

50/90 – Day 13

When I woke up this morning I had 22 songs in progress, four with rhythm guitars recorded, and one with a vocal idea sketched out.

At this moment I have 24 songs in progress, eight with rhythm guitars, and still just the one vocal idea.

I don’t feel too terribly well today though, so there’s a good chance all the stuff I did today will need to be re-done.

We’ll see.

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Show Recap – Sort Of

My fist gig with Lizardfish was two nights ago.  How did it go?

Well, I’m typing this right now so that must mean I survived.  That’s a good thing, right?  Right?

I punched out of work at 5:30 and had the car loaded up by 6:00.  When I got t Mike’s I loaded my amp, board, and gig bag into the car, and helped him load some things too.  Greg was there and he helped us both.  Kevin had already picked up his drums earlier in the day.  Mike’s cellar looked a little strange without our tons of stuff everywhere.  

We were planning on getting to the bar around 7:30 or so.  Being 4th of July weekend I included traffic into my schedule, but ended up going back roads from Mike’s house and was super early.  I actually watched some Netflix in the car to kill time.

The bar itself is on the second floor, so lots of carrying heavy stuff up stairs.  Let’s just say the big fat, totally out of shape guy was feeling it.  I was covered in sweat and we hadn’t even set up yet.  Oh yeah, and it was HOT in there.  We set up all of our equipment okay.  I thought there would be someone there who knew their way around the house PA.  There wasn’t.  Greg figured it out, but some of their gear… I’m not saying it looked like a fire hazard, but I think they’ve probably been lucky.  The audio stuff was ok though and we got a sort of decent mix.  We had to tweak it as the night went on.

The crowd was much bigger than I expected, which was a very happy surprise.  When the first set started I think we were pretty tense as a group.  There were some mistakes.  I screwed up on Greg’s mother’s favorite song.  I bet she hates me now.  Sorry.  I also kicked off the Eddie Money song in the wrong key.  Effin’ train wreck there, Robbie.  Still, everyone said we sounded good.  I thought we were okay, but we could have been better.

The second set though.  I’m not sure what happened, but we were confident, we played tight as a unit.  I was relaxed and played as well as I’ve played in a long time.  Every song went over better than we had hoped.  It was a really good set, and it was fun.  I was feeling pretty proud of us when the set came to an end.

The third set is where we hide the clunky songs as most of the crowd is either nicely drunk by then, or has already left.  Still, the good vibes continued.  We actually played a request.  As we got near the end though, I think we were starting to run out of gas.  The adrenaline was running low.  I had managed two and a half sets without any pain in my hands at all, but with four songs left, or so, it started creeping in.  When it was over I was feeling a little relieved.  I don’t know that I had another song in me.

As for all my new gear, it held up well.  My amp was on the floor right behind me and I couldn’t hear it very well.  I learned that a few of the new pedals are a little more sensitive in the knobs department than I expected, and I was moving the volume controls around a little as I was stepping on the switches.  I need to watch that in the future as it messed a couple of things up.

I think the people who saw us who had also seen the band play with their original guitar player were pleased enough that they won’t turn on us (at least they seemed that way outwardly, who knows what they were really thinking), and I know for a fact that we won over some new fans too.  We played a good show, we had a lot of fun, we helped a few people enjoy their Friday night.  All in all I’m very pleased, and looking forward to the next show in October.

One last note.  We didn’t get paid much, but what we got we split between us before we left.  What did I do with my share?  Did I spend it on new gear?  Nope.  Did I buy my beloved wife (who stayed for the whole show!  Thank you, sweety!) a nice meal?  Nope.  What did I do with that money?  I used it to open a new bank account!  Yeah!  Responsible rock and roll for the win!  

Pre-Gig Rituals

I haven’t played a paid gig since 2005. (I wonder if I could find our old website on archive.org and maybe get the exact date. hmmmm) I know there were things I used to make sure I did before I left the house to load in at the bar, but what were those things? 11 years seems like such a long time.

This morning before work I did the ceremonial trimming of the finger nails. Skipping that step has in the past resulted in me having to rip them off mid-set, which pretty much guarantees they’ll be way too low and hurt a lot.

I spent my lunch break performing the ceremonial changing of the strings. Both Gibsons are ready to go, although I only plan on playing one of them. The other is an emergency back up. During the string changing, one of the old strings tasted blood. A clipped end stabbed the side of a finger on my right hand and drew a little blood. Nothing that will be an issue tonight, unless I develop tetanus or something.

I have a little pile of stuff on the dining room table that I will throw into my backpack. Extra strings, extra cables, an extra fuzz pedal, an extra glass slide even though I have no intention of playing any slide tonight. You never know.

What else?

I skipped eating lunch in favor of strings, so I have to feed. I’m working from home, so maybe I’ll order a sub.

I have not yet had the ceremonial vomit. That wasn’t always a thing, but it has happened. Given the 11 year gap, it wouldn’t surprise me if I order a sub and then hurl it later tonight.

Too much information? Yeah.

Less than three hours left in the work day. Then it’s load out of Mike’s house, load into the bar, play three sets over 3+ hours or so, then load out of the bar, load into my house (maybe the garage?), and GO TO SLEEP YOU OLD MAN!

Murtaugh, indeed.

What is That Sound?

I was in the cellar tonight, working on my pedal board. I took everything off and then rebuilt it (in a new signal order) one pedal at a time in the hopes of finding where the awful noise I was hearing last Sunday came from. I never found the noise, but that may be because my amp was down as low as I could get it and still hear it.

The first pedal I put in place was my tuner. I plugged it in and played through it, knowing that it wasn’t the culprit, but also wanting to be methodical. I started noodling around because my ES-335 going clean into my Deluxe Reverb sounds pretty wonderful. To my surprise, I did hear a weird noise. What is that sound? It was a high pitch sort of rattle. It was intermittent. Is there something wrong with the spring reverb? Is it related to how hard I pick the string? What is that? I stopped playing. The noise stopped. I started playing again. The noise came back. Okay, I’m getting pissed off now. I stopped playing again and the noise stopped… for a second, then it came back without me playing.

It was not my amp. It was not my guitar. It wasn’t even in the house.

It was a bird.

Singing along.