Four Person Splunge - A Step Back

The last couple of sessions have been so encouraging, so it makes sense that sooner or later, there would be one that wasn't. Participants included Jason, Nick, Jared, and myself.

Sal let us know in advance that he wouldn't be making it for several good reasons, but we still had two other guitar players involved since Jared was returning, so no big deal. Then we got a call at the last minute that Steph had an emergency and wouldn't be making it. That took some of the wind out of our sails, because she's now singing about half the lead vocals, and when she's not singing lead, she's often singing a significant backing part or playing percussion.

And so we soldiered on with the guitar/guitar/bass/drums line-up we had, with me handling most of the lead vocals and Nick contributing where he could. On the plus side, we got a lot of work done on the foundations of some of the songs. We must've spent a good two hours working on three songs at the beginning, making sure we had good tempo, an ending, and various other things we needed to coordinate exactly the way we wanted them. We then moved on and got through a surprising amount of the usual list, with me singing lead on several of the songs Steph has been doing (ones I used to do) and Jared taking most of Sal's lead guitar parts where he could. We even worked on an entirely new song for us, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Dani California", which sounded surprisingly good in light of the fact that we'd planned to have Steph sing lead on it, so I had to sing that as well as playing Flea's bass parts. Not easy. I'd say it wasn't as much fun as the last two or three sessions have been, but it was certainly productive.

On the negative side, we're still spending far too much time on basics, working out little rhythmic problems in the guitar parts that should be getting fixed in the course of individual practice rather than in a group setting. We'll continue to work these things out as they emerge, but the recurring nature of the problem concerns me. I realized that coordinating three guitar players and having at least one miss most of the sessions would cause problems at times, but I didn't think it would be this difficult this often.

Balance Issues

It's been a tricky month or so. Bad Stuff, including computer problems and my job reverting to some extent to the Bad Old Days, and Good Stuff, including a new car and getting very excited about how the music project has developed over the last couple of sessions.

The interesting thing has been watching what has pushed my buttons and thrown off my balance during that time frame, and it seems Good Stuff is just as bad as Bad Stuff that way. I've learned a few things, at some cost, and time will tell if I can keep my equilibrium a little better going forward.

Another Six Person Splunge with Bob as Guest

Another six person music project session with a slightly different grouping involving Jason, Sal, Nick, Steph, myself, plus Bob, the lead singer from one of my old bands, TAAZ. No Jared this time, but he's scheduled to be back for the next session in two weeks.

I've resurrected a fair portion of my old PA system, which means that the vocals could finally be heard over everything else and the overall sound quality improved immensely. Between having a decent PA system and Bob sitting in with us, the vocals were up to what I'd consider public performance standard most of the time. We have some work to do vocally, but not as much as I'd thought. Bob was a valuable set of ears as well as a voice (singing lead on "Peaceful Easy Feeling", "Wonderful Tonight", and a third song that escapes me at the moment), making several useful suggestions on vocal arrangements, not to mention functioning as sound man for most of the day. "Lola" and "Take It Easy" had vastly improved three part harmony, even with just the regulars singing. We even had one song ("Black Horse and a Cherry Tree") involving four voices at the same time. I'm a sucker for good harmony, and we had it this session.

We still seem to have some bothersome rhythmic coordination problems. Some songs would sound fantastic for a verse and a chorus, only to lose the feel somewhere in the next verse. Some of this is lack of familiarity with each other, since this was only the second session for about half the group, and some of it is one person or another not knowing the song well enough. These things can be fixed with practice and everybody seemed to realize that. I was very encouraged by a number of bright spots across the board from every participant, especially since a lot of those moments were players growing into a role within the group. It'll be interesting to see how Jared will fit in when he rejoins us for the next session, since we'll be adding one of his choices, "Dani California".

We're going to slow the pace next time, and put a more concerted effort into sorting out the parts of songs that we're having trouble with. I'm looking forward to what we might sound like on some of these songs with the bugs truly worked out of them.

Not Going to DexCon This Year

I've come to the difficult conclusion that I'm going to skip DexCon this year. My enthusiasm for RPGs isn't what it was, and I find myself too busy with other things (mainly my musical actitivies) to put the time into it to do it as well as I'd like. It isn't lack of preparation, as I'd finished enough material ("Room Service" and "Another Mission from God"); it's just that whenever I started preparing for DexCon (submitting events, making room reservations, etc.), I noticed that I kept finding reasons not to follow through, and finally decided to listen to myself.

One odd thing about this is that RPGs and music seem to take up the same headspace for me. I don't know the reason for that; I've simply noticed over the years that when I'm doing one, I don't feel much like doing the other.

The reason the decision was so difficult is that it feels almost like quitting a long term job because I've been doing it for so long. I couldn't tell you how long it's been since I've had a year that I didn't go to at least one convention as a player, if not as a GM. I'm fairly sure that streak goes back to 1985 or so. I finally realized that stepping away for one year wasn't going to make that much of a difference to anyone, and that it might help me regain my enthusiasm in the long run.

I'm not giving up roleplaying entirely. I still plan to follow my local GURPS Cabal campaign through to a conclusion, then reassess how I'm feeling from there.

"Lost" - Yes, They Were Lost, All Right

I'll keep this spoiler free, and that's not terribly hard, since they didn't tell us anything anyway.

I'm sure the last ten minutes was the part they've supposedly had written from the beginning, and I think the finale would have been much better without that part. Frankly, they could've ended the show at any point after the first episode and still used almost exactly that same ending. It was a feel good ending that brought a lot of couples together, and meant absolutely zip-a-dee-doo-dah in terms of what was happening on the island. I'm actually okay with how things resolved on the island itself, and wish they'd left it at that without bothering with the flash sideways stuff and the coda.

Not only did they fail to answer some questions, they failed to answer just about every question, after asking our patience all of the way and swearing there would be answers if we only hung in there until the end. I enjoyed the character aspects of "Lost", but I'm going to make a point of avoiding anything these writers do in the future after they've been party to such a cheat in terms of the mythology ultimately meaning nothing at all.

"Room Service" Playtest

I was able to run a playtest for my newest Paranoia scenario yesterday. Overall, it worked out pretty well, though I think it needs a few tweaks, since the ending was a bit muddled. Everybody said they had a good time, though. Big points to Nate for stealing the show as Harp-O-MRX, though Scott P. was especially good as Chic-O as well.

I enjoy playing running Paranoia, but I'm not sure I have much else to say of my own with it, at least for now. I have one concept that I think is fun, but didn't fit with the rest of "Room Service", so I had to leave it out. Time will tell if I have the opportunity to use that idea in another scenario down the road.

Six Person Splunge

For the first time, this session had some of the feel I've been shooting for with this group. We had Jason, Sal, Jared, and I from last time, plus a third guitar player/singer (Nick) and a female singer/percussionist (Steph).

Steph started out singing harmony and playing percussion on a few songs before taking the lead on "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty and "Runaround" from Blues Traveller. She also plays flute and keyboards, but didn't have either available to her, and her voice alone would be reason enough to invite her again. Sal expressed the opinion that the bits of percussion she was playing really added to the overall sound as well.

Nick was singing with a group for the first time, and picked the Kinks' "Lola". I wouldn't say it was perfect, but it was a fine first try. We only had one microphone for the three of us, so we had to share, but it was a blast to have three voices to work with again.

I hadn't been sure about three guitars at the same time, but it worked out well overall. Sometimes we just had two of them playing when one of the guitarists didn't know the song. I have to give credit to Sal for coordinating the three of them in ways that worked out (different voicings, etc.).

With our respective schedules, I suspect this session will be more the exception than the rule, but everybody said they had a good time and have already been e-mailing me about when we'll get together again. I'm really looking forward to it.

Drunk Dialed By An Ex

Ex-bandmate, that is. My phone started ringing at roughly midnight on a weeknight earlier this week. I picked it up, assuming it had to be something serious for someone to be calling me at that hour, and it turned out it was somebody I'd been in a band many years ago, suggesting that we get the band back together to play sometime. He said he'd been watching a documentary about the Doors, and since we'd played a couple of Doors songs, it reminded him of the old band and got him thinking about it. I'm sure he was who he said was, because it would be even weirder for someone to call pretending to be him after all these years.

He didn't actually sound drunk, but I can't think of any other reason someone would make a phone call like that. If it was supposed to be a joke, it doesn't seem funny to me, even from the point of view of the caller. It also doesn't make any sense that he would want this band to get back together for any reason at all, because he wasn't on good terms with any of the members within two years after the breakup. And why would he insist on giving me his phone number and asking that I call him back if this was a joke? The only answer I can think of is that it is actually somebody else's phone number, but that would be a really lame joke, too.

If it wasn't a joke and he wasn't drunk, I find it hard to believe he'd seriously expect me to be receptive to discussing a band reunion at that time of night. Very strange...

Chanting

My yoga teacher hosts a group meditation session once a month, and this month we tried chanting, which was something new for me. We were accompanied on the harmonium, a sort of cross between an organ and an accordion, played by one of the participants.

I felt a little odd about it at first, then became more comfortable as I settled into what was essentially musical performance in an extremely unfamiliar genre. We had three men and three women, so it was a good mix of voices. I kept feeling the urge to play an instrument, since I rarely sing without one unless I'm driving. After we were done, it was very easy to settle into our usual meditation. I might have to experiment with something like this at home. All in all, a very positive experience, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'll bet it gave my teacher's neighbors something to talk about, though, since we had the windows open and I'm sure we were clearly audible for some distance.

Local Cabal Campaign - First Session

We finally got my new GURPS Cabal campaign off the ground this past weekend. We got off to a good start, with some of the characters actually meeting before they were supposed to. Surprises like that are one of the reasons that RPGs can be better than fiction at times. The group consists of a voodoo priestess trying to locate a lost mystical artifact, a ghost trying to solve her own murder, the reincarnation of Sir Kay of the Round Table, a vampire trying to mainstream as a police officer (working night shift, naturally), and an apparently regular guy in his late teens who simply can't be permanently killed by any means.

I've already been able to weave in an abundance of references to my ongoing GURPS Cabal convention sessions, and will start working references to the home campaign into the convention sessions when I start writing the next one.

One of the more entertaining aspects for me is that I've tied together bits of all of the characters' backgrounds a few layers beneath the obvious, so that those ties will eventually surface as fun surprises for the players. It reminds me of the Lost TV series. As those common elements are revealed, the result should be a conclusion with epic consequences for all involved, effectively ending the campaign, but my best estimate is that it will take about two years for that to happen.