Four Man Splunge - Power Outage

Attendees: Sal, Nick, Jason, and myself. We lost power at the house before the session even started. Not good for an electric band! Sal made it to the session about 45 minutes late due to bad weather and traffic. So we got everybody set up and went out to an early dinner. It was good to have a little time to talk about nothing in particular.

So once we got started, the guitars were noticably more powerful this time between Sal's return and Nick's new amp. Vocals were still nicely clear and audible, and I'd made sure I'd taken my allergy meds this week, so it was one of my better sessions in terms of vocal performance. Nobody had a time limit, so in spite of the late start, we played every song on our list including a stab at "Losing My Religion", except for "Science Fiction Double Feature" and "Peaceful Easy Feeling", more because the majority of the group wasn't in the mood for them than for lack of time.

Highlights: I was happy with my own vocals for a change. "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" with the group guitar riff in full force sounded good and came together well, for the most part. Jason still needs to sort out a drum bit toward the end, but this song is much stronger than it was two sessions ago. The second time through "Psycho Killer" was one of our best performances of that song. Harmonies on "The Kids are Alright" were good. "Dani California" still isn't stageworthy, but keeps tightening up just a little bit each time.

Lowlights: Everybody else still seems to tire out before I do, resulting in a lot of sloppy playing and general testiness after a certain point in the session. "Sherry Darling" doesn't seem to work, and we'll probably drop it in favor of another Springsteen song. I've gotten it down fairly well, but nobody else does, partially because the only recorded versions of it are live, and it's hard to hear instrument specific details well enough for the others to pick them up.

I tried constructing our song list a bit differently this time, with most of the songs that needed serious work scheduled for the beginning of the session and the stuff we know cold bunched together at the end. This didn't work out well, as it seemed to destroy morale at the beginning of the session. It took longer to reach the point where we got sloppy, and we weren't as sloppy as usual once we got there, but I had the feeling that everybody enjoyed the session less because of the damage to their confidence. I'll have to try something different again next time.

Nick will be trying to pick up the lead vocals for "Losing My Religion" and "Orange Crush", both by REM, for the next session. That would get him up to 7 songs out of 25. Not bad, but I'd really like to get him up to singing lead on about a third of the material.

Bruce Springsteen: London Calling

I've never been that much of fan of Springsteen's music, but I've often heard how impressive he was as a performer, so I wanted to see him in full concert action. I wasn't disappointed.

The first thing that impressed me was the immediate intensity of the entire band's performance from the beginning of the opening song. No easing into the set here! Band members weren't necessarily jumping around; they were just obviously fully engaged in what they were doing. They all looked as though they were having the time of their lives. Bruce himself was soaked in sweat by the third or fourth song.

The other thing that struck me was how he moved the spotlight around to the other band members. Springsteen makes sure that every band member who wants spotlight time gets it. The only band member who didn't seem to get front time was the bass player, and judging by his persona, he was just as happy to stay in back of everyone else. The shifting focus kept the show from getting dull, and meant that Bruce didn't have to try to carry 100% of the audience's attention every moment. And yet there was no question of who the band leader was, even if you'd never seen or heard of Springsteen before. He moved the spotlight around, but it was always clearly his spotlight to move.

Downtime between songs was rare. As soon as one finished, he was already counting out the beginning of the next. And every band member knew exactly what was happening next at all times.

I suspect that Springsteen's role model for stagecraft is evangelist preachers, and I believe this was a very conscious choice. Bruce plays the working man part well, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he is actually a whole lot more intelligent than his stage persona reflects.

Would-be professional musicians should watch this concert and take notes. There are good reasons this man is called the Boss.

Three Person Splunge - Nick's New Amp

Attendees: Nick, Jason, and myself. Nick has been talking about getting a new amplifier for quite a while and finally pulled the trigger this week. I must say that it was a much improved sound, and we were able to hear a lot of it because Sal was ill and unable to attend this session, leaving Nick as the only guitar player. We covered a lot of ground, especially in light of missing a core group member.

Highlights: Getting the group riff relatively correct on the Warren Zevon version of "Poor Poor Pitiful Me". We've been playing this song from the beginning and have kept making changes for one reason or another, so it's never really settled into place. We also finally got the groove right on "Runaround". We built on the groove established on "Low", though we did miss having the lead guitar parts.

Lowlights: "Psycho Killer" just didn't work this time, and none of us know why. We played it relatively late in the session and we were all getting tired by then, so maybe it was just fatigue setting in. As we've added material, the sessions have been running longer. We've been running out of gas and starting to sound bad by the end. We've got to get enough songs down solidly so we can cover more of them in one run through, or even skip them entirely for a session without losing quality in the process.

We're tentatively scheduled to get together again in two weeks, and I'm hoping we'll get to hear what we sound like with Nick's upgraded amp and Sal being back.