JW - 4/29/12

Turns out that Bill's vocal problems weren't entirely due to his performance last weekend; he had also picked up a nasty sinus infection.  He was still struggling with it for this practice, but not as badly as I'd expected.

We played through most of our third and fourth sets, which took longer than it should have.  Sounded good for the most part, but not as much of an upgrade over the second set as I thought it would be.  We're still making a lot of goofy little mistakes that we probably shouldn't be.  I think everybody is getting a little bored and getting sloppy because of it.  We tried to record the session for potential demo material, but the recording didn't take for technical reasons, even if the performances had been good.

Band leader Dale raised the possibility of our playing in a battle of the bands.  Most of us weren't thrilled with the idea for several reasons, in spite of the fact that first prize was fairly impressive as these things go.  The consenus was that it wasn't worth hanging around all day waiting to play a few songs.  However, in the absence of other work, there seemed to be some agreement on playing a couple of open mike nights to build support for when we actually get out, as well as getting some feedback on what we're already doing.

Played the Ashbory bass on a few more songs this time, including "Kryptonite" and "Tush".  There's a particular sound I'm getting on that bass that works well with some of the JW material.  That's three songs now, and I've been thinking I wanted to hit four before bothering to bring the "baby bass" when we play out.  I have one more in mind, but I think it'll be controversial with my bandmates.

I really think we need a goal in sight to pick up band morale and focus.  Open mike nights aren't usually my idea of fun, but playing a few of those might help.  I'd expected us to have something scheduled by now, even if we hadn't actually played anywhere yet.  We aren't going to able to practice for the next two weekends, which won't help, either, though we're going to sneak a Wednesday night in early next month.  I hope we can get this thing off the ground soon.

Isolation

No Jefferson Wheelchair session this past weekend because singer Bill wasn't up to it after sitting in with another band on guitar the night before. 

Also feeling a bit isolated in general anyway, which doesn't help.  Not getting along well with several of my co-workers recently, for reasons best not posted publicly.  Let's just say we approach work (and life) very differently, and they're not terribly interested in any form of compromise.  The closest we've come is an unspoken agreement to leave each other alone, which works from a functional perspective (since most of what we do is talk to other people outside the company), but it's not what you'd call a particularly pleasant working environment from my perspective.

And I haven't been doing anything socially, either, outside of family stuff.  It's mostly due to a lack of time after work, family obligations, yoga, and musical practice is factored in.  Splunge had been as much (or more) a social event as a band, and while I still think I made the right move musically, I miss hanging out with those guys.  I get along well enough with the guys in JW, but we're all busy and don't have a lot of opportunity to really get to know each other personally.

I've talked about this with my wife, and we agree that I seem to need some time to simply hang out with people I get along with more naturally, which has been in short supply.  I have a RPG session scheduled this upcoming weekend that includes some of the people I've been missing, but once again, work, family obligations, and musical practice are threatening to force me to cancel.

I really have to reorganize my time somehow, and don't know how to do that without giving up something important to me, but I've got to come up with something.

JW - 4/13/12

The song list has been pared down to focus on creating a smoothly flowing four set list with a few "string break" and cushion songs in case we're running short. Some of the songs cut will be back later for variety's sake.

So the plan for this practice was to work on the first two sets, plus a few other songs here and there, and whaddaya know, that's what we did! The first set (mostly easy songs we haven't played for a while) seemed a little ragged, but after we took a break, the second set reminded me how good this band could be once we file off some rough edges. Keith and I were doing a better job of giving each other vocal room, as I decided to back off worrying about vocals and focused on my playing, singing where I could. He appeared to be doing more or less the same, and it worked.

I went in with something of a different attitude this time, thinking of myself more as a hired gun than a band member. The irony is that the result was much more what I had in mind in the first place. I think the lesson here is to shelve my own ego, focus on making the instrumental groove work, and the vocal opportunities will come.

I'm really looking forward to next week, when we play the third and fourth sets, which include most of our strongest material.