JW - 10/26/2012

No Bill this time, so it'll be over a month since all five of us have practiced together.  Not good in terms of keeping things tight, but at least we've had a couple of productive practices with four of the five of us.  Might even be a good thing in terms of stepping away from the material a little and keeping things fresh, to a point.

Dale gave us the good news that we have our next show lined up at the Horseshoe Pub in December and two more in the coming year.  We'll probably have four practices or so before the December show, so that gives us some time to regroup and tighten up again, as well as adding some new songs.  Now what we really need is one or two more venues, preferably some distance from the Horseshoe.

We continued to focus on new songs, spending time on "Boys are Back in Town", "Lights", "Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet", and "Wicked Game".  There was also some discussion of which of the sidelined songs we were going to bring back for the upcoming show, the possibility of bring back some songs from before Bill and I had joined the band, and which new songs we've discussed that we'll actually start playing.  We didn't touch "867-5309", "Jessie's Girl", or "Some Kind of Wonderful" this time.

Keith and Andy don't seem especially interested in "867-5309" or "Jessie's Girl", saying that the guitar parts are more complicated than they sound, so these songs aren't as easy as they seem to be.  They both said the same thing regarding Badfinger's "No Matter What".  The thing is, I believe it would do us some good commercially to be a little more female-friendly and play more danceable, somewhat more current, material. The right mix of guitar heavy '70s rock and danceable '80's rock could have enough appeal to both genders to make us popular with general audiences.  I learned a long time ago to put commercial considerations ahead of my own tastes, but each musician draws that line in a different place.  The place where the band as a whole draws that line is going to depend on all of us together, and will have to be worked out over time.  We pick up material faster than any other band I've ever been in, so we can have a large enough song list to draw that line differently every night if we want to.  It's good to have options.