JW - 8/19/2012

No Andy this time, but the other four of us got together.  We played through the two Bryan Adams' songs again, but the main idea was to work on vocals.  I was particularly glad to be able to do that, since we hadn't really consolidated and retained what we'd done the last time we'd done a vocal session.

We didn't get as far as I would've liked, primarily focusing on the first and second sets, but we did get to spend a lot of time on the Eagles' "Take It Easy", which was the individual song that clearly needed the most work.  Several of the songs sounded much better by the time we were done with them.  The trick now is to put some practice time into reinforcing the improved harmonies and keep them.

I'm getting very tired of the Bryan Adams' songs, but we've got to do what we've got to do, and I do think they'll go over well.  I'll just be very glad when we finally consider these up to standard and can get on with other things.

I arrived a bit early again, so I was able to speak with Dale for a while regarding places to play.  I'd been doing some research from other bands' schedules and found a few possibilities.  Sounds as though he's already on top of things.  The main thing we still haven't addressed is having a decent recording of the current line-up for demo purposes.  We've known for some time that that needs to be done, but once we had a show booked, actual work and preparation for it took priority.  I'm fine with that.  We don't need a lot of places to play, and I'd like to make sure we nail down whichever ones we get before worrying about any new venues.

Geography comes into the picture here.  The Horseshoe Pub is near our practice space, so that's a natural venue for us.  Dale has mentioned playing the Reading area as well, and there are several possibilities on that front.  We talked about playing the Lancaster area, and even Harrisburg or Wilmington, DE.  I don't know if we need to go that far, but I wouldn't write off anything at this point.  We can always drop distant venues in favor of those closer to home if we find we're playing as often as we want to.  I like the idea of spreading ourselves around once we've established ourselves in some areas, so we don't burn out the audience for what we do in a given place.  I can't see how any band manages to play the same bars (and multiple bars in the same area!) on a monthly basis and can still draw people to see them.  I'd love to set it up so we could cycle through three or four geographically dispersed venues over the course of every three months or so, so we'd turn up frequently enough for people to remember us, but rarely enough that they aren't tired of us.

We should have everyone back for the next session.  I hope the next couple of practices are especially efficient, being that we don't have that many before the next show.