JW - 1/5/2013

It's been about a month since we've played together, and everybody made it.  The first couple of songs were predictably rough around the edges, but then we got it together.  We focused on the songs that sounded the worst at the last show, and sounded better today than we did then.

We hadn't successfully agreed on any new songs to work on via e-mail, so we talked it out in person during this session.  It didn't surprise me when it turned out to be a fairly large list, but the composition of that list did surprise me.  New songs included: "Birthday" and "Let It Be" by the Beatles, "867-5309" by Tommy Tutone, "Movin' On" by Bad Company, "No Matter What" by Badfinger, and "Surrender" by Cheap Trick.  "I'm a Man" remains on the list, but semi-sidelined.  "Jesse's Girl" and "Some Kind of Wonderful" weren't mentioned.  There seemed to be solid consensus on the new choices, with no more than one band member seeming to dissent in each case.

Andy has been playing "Let It Be" from time to time while testing keyboard sounds, so no surprise there, though we hadn't really discussed it as an actual band choice before.  "Movin' On" was a spur of the moment thing originating with Keith, and since it worked well enough on the fly, we'll refine it a bit and keep it.  I'm looking forward to "Surrender", as it's been years since I played it on a regular basis.  The vocal parts are Big Fun and I think they'll sound amazing.

I'm going to be sonically experimental again for a while.  I'm not going to replace my wireless rig (at least for now), so I'll be putting my pedal board back in place to buy myself some distance from my amplifier and to provide some options to modify my sound that I haven't used since before I upgraded to a more powerful amp.  I'd like to experiment with using the harmonizer on the string break songs to fill out the band sound when we're down one guitarist.  I'll also almost certainly return to using a chorus effect here and there for emphasis.  And I'll explore some other options as I come up with them.

I stuck with my Ibanez 5 string throughout today's session (though I'd brought the Rick as well), and changed my sound there as well.  I kept my amp settings the same, but backed off the treble and overall volume coming from the bass itself, so the active electronics weren't as hot as I've been using.  I plan to experiment heavily in the coming weeks to see if I can still have a quality sound and lessen the difference in volume I've had between my two workhorse basses.