JW - 6/3/2012

Blew through modified versions of the planned third and fourth sets without too many problems, so not much to say on that front.

In preparation for our first show with this line-up, we had the full PA set up.  It was nice, easier to hear everything than usual, and didn't sound any louder than usual to me.

It was also my first practice with my new, significantly more powerful, Gallien Krueger amplifier, as well as bringing my wireless set up.  Left the pedal board at home, as I'm getting everything I need from the amp or the compression effect that the wireless tends to have.

For next week's session, we'll be focusing hard on vocals, which is a more-than-welcome development from my perspective.  Andy will be out of town next weekend, so a full band practice is out, and everybody still wanted to fit as much working time in as we can before our first show.  One of my old bands (Mirage) was much more vocally oriented than this group, and we did two or three pure vocal sessions in the year-and-a-half or so that I was with them, with substantial benefits.  Considering that JW isn't vocally oriented in the first place, it shouldn't take too much doing to step up our game in that regard by putting some focus on the subject.

Andy made reference at one point to the six years they'd been together, and Dale had once said he and Keith had been working together for about ten years.  Now I've got some idea as to how long this group has actually been around.

We talked a bit about the place we're going to play and the set up needed for it.  Sounds as though we're going to be bringing a lot of lighting for a such a small place.  While the stage is small, it's also high enough off the ground that you don't want to fall off, and with the lighting, it's hard enough to see that Andy actually did fall off at a previous performance there.  Keith also referred to changing shirts at least every set because it gets so damn hot with the lights, so I'll want to make sure I have clothes in reserve as well.

I've been reading up on stage presentation due to my excitement about getting out in front of an audience again, and have learned some useful things in the course of it, but I still don't feel as though it's likely that any suggestions I have will be given a lot of consideration by the group, so I'll have to bring what I can to the table and make the best of it, hoping to influence by example.

First JW Show Booked!

We'll be playing our first show since Bill and I joined the band on 6/23/12.  I haven't played in public since the early '90's, so I'm really looking forward to it.  It's a small place, but that's probably best for a first time.  Now we're rolling!

JW - 5/20/2012

Good solid practice this time.  Played through the first two sets plus Bryan Adams' "Cuts Like a Knife".  Not my first choice of song, but I can see it going over.

We had to go back over a thing or two along the way, but not much.  Dale is looking more seriously for work at this point, and it sounds as though something could be scheduled soon, even if it'll be a while before the actual show.

I was really looking forward to this upcoming practice, which was scheduled for Friday night, but it's been cancelled due to Memorial Day weekend activities.  Argh! 

I might have to get the four track out and see if I can get anything decent recorded, just to do some playing.

JW - 5/9/12

Unusual mid-week practice this time out.  Played through our fourth set, mostly, and things are tightening up nicely.

Keith was playing around on the guitar and hit something that reminded singer Bill of "I'm A Man" by the Spencer Davis Group, and the rest of us kicked in behind it.  Sounded really good, and we added it to our list after playing through it just once.  Dale was using some electronic percussion in addition to his own playing.  Keith and I hit the harmony parts right off the bat.  Good stuff.

Still no work booked, but damn, this band sounds good at times.

Back on Balance

I'm taking a "staycation" this week.  It's been a mix of putting a lot of "to-dos" to rest and relaxing more than I usually would.  I'm now feeling much better than when I wrote the recent "Isolation" post.  Everybody has their ups and downs, but work especially has been getting to me.  The cure has been a combination of time off from work and time spent with friends.  This past weekend I worked late Friday night, spent all Saturday with family, followed by Sunday spent on JW practice and a game session run by Don Corcoran, a friend I haven't seen in person for quite a while.

Wife is also off from work on Friday and has plans for both of us that day (more house to-dos), so I have two days remaining on my own.  Maybe I can still get a little recording in before the week is over.

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.

JW - 3/24/2012

I missed the session last week because of house issues, but received an e-mail telling me that the group had added "Substitute" and "We've Got to Get Out of This Place" officially, but also Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" and "Cuts Like a Knife", Guess Who's "American Woman", and the Who's "Pinball Wizard". I was mildly annoyed that they'd added several songs without my having any say in the matter, but figured I'm still the new guy and had missed practice to boot, so couldn't say much. So I came prepared for all of the above, and naturally we didn't play "Place", "Knife", or "American Woman".

We did, however, play "Born Under a Bad Sign", "Jean Genie", and "Suffragette City", none of which had even been mentioned before. WTF? And the bandleader indicated we'll probably drop "Bring It On Home", the most vocal-heavy song we do because he thinks it's not really working, when to my mind, we've barely touched it. Very frustrating for me, since we'll put 30 minutes of practice time into working on some subtlety of getting everybody on the same page re: some guitar riff I barely notice is in the song, but we won't put any time into getting a vocal harmony right that an audience would certainly notice. That's just where the priorities of most of this group are, and I'm not going to be able to change that. I think singer Bill would do it, but the others won't. The problem is that having three voices requires some coordination, where with two, you can just have the lead singer do his thing and the backing singer just sings whatever other parts he can.

Again, there was some discussion of having gotten into contact with management at a place they used to play, but still nothing definite lined up.

"Substitute" is now part of a medley, preceded by "Pinball Wizard", which is fine, but they've cut the bass solo part out because it isn't in the Live at Leeds version. It's not as though I can't play it, and adding to the length of a song is generally considered a Good Thing in cover band circles. No reason given, even when I brought this up. Again, annoying, but not a huge deal.

On a more positive note, the bandleader at least noted that we need to play the easier songs we've been skipping more regularly, if only to tighten them up, which is something I've been saying for the last two sessions. This was prompted by our playing some of the easier songs we haven't touched for a while, and they just didn't sound that good.

I'd thought we were going to have a lot of songs on our list, since we're over 60 songs or so now, which would give us flexibility, but apparently the idea is that we'll drop a bunch of the ones that aren't working as well rather than try to improve them. Not really on board with that, either, since anything vocally oriented hasn't had much of a chance.

I'm very frustrated at the moment, but leaving the band so soon isn't something I'd want to do. Some of this is on me, because I knew from the outset that they weren't vocally oriented; I just saw that as an opportunity for me to step up and add to the band, as I did in my old band Mirage, when it appears it's something most of them don't really want. Still, I'm not going anywhere at this point unless they kick me out. We're still at a relatively early stage, and I want to see how the situation ultimately stabilizes. I may do better just to get my vocal "charge" from recording at home or having some sort of side project. I'd consider going back to Splunge on a once/month basis if I thought I had the time for it.

JW - 3/10/2012

Still struggling inexplicably with "Mississippi Queen", though I've got it at least functional now. It's crazy how tricky this has been for me, when I learned far more difficult songs much more quickly. Just one of those blind spots. It doesn't help that I just plain dislike the song.

Volume was a little lower this time, and we had a decent run through "Bring It On Home" with three part harmony. Still some rough edges, but improving. My vocal role with this band is becoming clearer. I'm singing the higher parts, because I can. Keith and I still instinctively go for the same parts, so I'm going to have to get used to the next part up. This isn't a bad thing; it's a new challenge for me, and largely successful.

Again, some discussion of playing out. Consensus seems to agree with my thought from last time, which is that we're really just about ready, and by the time we get any work scheduled, we will be ready.

Jammed our way through the Who's "Substitute" and "Won't Get Fooled Again". I think we'll be keeping at least the first.

We also played through "We've Got to Get Out of This Place" by the Animals after Bill heard me noodling around on bass and heard something that resembled the bass part for that song. The first time winging it sounded good enough that we rounded off some edges and tried it a second time, which was better, so that was a completely unplanned new song that we've added.

Finally successfully used the Ashbory bass (the one with the silicone rubber strings) on a song with this band. "Hash Pipe" by Weezer really suits the sound I found with a new amp setting. I'd like to find another song or two I can use before it's really worth bringing the Ashbory when we play out. I have a few other songs to try in upcoming sessions.