Jammin'

Went along to support Mr Furtheron of the "Guitars & Life" blog (here). He was performing his debut solo acoustic gig for the Rock Til You Drop crew (here). A very good Sunday afternoon all round. Beautiful music, good company... polite conversation [cough].

Furtheron did a great job and says he'll be back for more sets at the Libertine in Borough. For a more detailed write up, check out the Rock Til You Drop blog.

For myself, I'd set aside this evening and tomorrow night to go over the tunes I've selected for the jam on Tuesday, throw around some ideas... basically, get a handle on everything so that I don't walk in looking like a numpty. Why today and tomorrow? Well, Tim's out of town and while he's away, this cat can play.

Erm...

Anyway, that plan's out the window. Got a call last night from my other jammin' buddy, asking whether I'd be so kind as to sit in on a jam tonight. I was a bit torn, but I figured that getting in a pre-jam jam would allow me to blow away the cobwebs and, well, there's always tomorrow, isn't there... [cough].

I can see myself doing all the stuff I should be doing at the 11th hour.

Proposed Song List For Jam

So, here it is... the playlist I've proposed for Blues Jam #1. The idea is not necessarily to learn all the leads etc for a particular version, but to get the rhythm down and have a play around.

I think I mentioned, the line-up is 2 guitars, bass, harmonica and drums. For the most part I've shied away from straight 12-bar blues stuff. I figure we can fall into that as and when we want to have a laugh.

Here we go!

"Smokestack Lightning"
"Key To The Highway"
"Strange Brew"
"Stormy Monday"
"Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out"

On top of that, I've asked the bassist to learn the groove from Donny Hathaway's "Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)" for us to have a loose jam on. For simplicity, he's transposing it up from Eb to E.

Jam Update

So, we've not jammed yet, but here's where we're at.

Influences have been exchanged and I think I'm coming down to a shortlist of songs to get the ball rolling. I'm not thinking that we should be learning covers note-for-note, but I do think that having some basic song structures in place for our inaugural jam would be a good thing.

My top three shortlisted tunes are:

"Stormy Monday"
"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"
"Smokestack Lightning"

Those are the ones I plan on putting chord charts down on paper for, along with maybe a few riffs etc.

In addition to that, I'm getting our bassist to learn the groove riff from Donny Hathaway's "Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)". The original's in Eb, but for simplicity he's going to transpose it up to E. I think we may have to hike the tempo, too. He's looped the bassline and I'm planning on circulating it tonight for the guys to have a listen to/play with.

Plus, I'll tell the guys that if they turn up with a riff, groove or beat idea they want to work up... well, they'll get brownie points!

Concert Review: Indigo Girls (Shepherds Bush Empire)

I suspect I may get some hate mail for this one... hey ho.

First off, I'm going to accentuate the positive: The Girls are fantastic singer-songwriters. Their back catalogue has so many amazingly crafted and executed songs in it. They manage to capture so many emotions in their lyrics that, often, I'm moved when I listen to them.

Even the occasional lack-lustre tune is so wonderfully harmonized that the interwoven lyrics knock the song out of the ballpark.

I love their music. I really do. I think they're under-rated, often overlooked musical geniuses.

Okay, so now here's where I'm going to get into trouble. Please be gentle. I'm just telling it the way I saw it!

Last night I experienced the Indigo's perform live for the first time. The line up was just the two of them on acoustics and, occasionally, a smattering of keys or accordian was thrown in from stage right.

As you would expect, the music was perfect. The interlacing of voices and guitar parts was right on. So much so, that if you closed your eyes you could almost imagine you were listening to the record.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Their recorded music is perfect. So much so, that when playing live last night, what they were doing was recreating something I already knew off by heart. Don't get me wrong, the crowd loved it, so much so that they sang along perfectly to many of the classics. I enjoyed watching and listening but rather than feeling like I was at a concert, I felt that I was part of a celebration of the music.

Does that make sense? It's not really a negative as such. The music was great... as it's always been. With the exception of "Chicken Man" (which totally rocked), I felt like I'd heard it all before, note for note. For me, there wasn't really anything new added to the mix.

I guess when I go to a concert I want to be given an experience that I'd only be able to recapture through imagination and memory. As wonderful as the songs were last night, I couldn't help but feel that if I went to the next show I'd be treated to another note for note recital.

I know, I know... I'm a bad man. C'mon, though, I've dissed a Derek Trucks Band concert before, based on the fact that the acoustics in the venue sucked!

A New Beginning?

So, how did the meet go? Pretty well, I think. Both the other guitarist and the harp player put in an appearance. We drank beer, talked music and politics. Nobody threw a punch. Nobody died.

Not too shabby.

It sounds like we're all in pretty much the same place, musically, both in terms of influences and aptitude. I texted the guys this morning to say it was nice to meet them and, somewhat to my surprise, they both texted back!

Why surprise? Well, I've had meets before which seemed to go really well. We've parted with enthusiastic handshakes and promises to get back to each other with dates and times for a jam. Then what? Well, they've basically ignored my emails and I've never heard back from them. You can't get too precious about rejection, though. It's just not worth it.

So, I don't put too much stock in the first meeting. Musos are flaky. I should know, there are times I've been flaky myself.

I'll admit to a quiet optimism, though. I'm optimistic enough that tonight, when I get home, I'm going to pull Red out of his case, dust him off, set him on a stand a plug him up. That way he'll be ready to go whenever I get the urge to wail.

What I need to do now is to keep the ball rolling. Momentum is key. I've asked the guys to think of songs that they like or songs in the style they'd like to play, if that makes sense. I'm going to pull a few standards out of my behind and send them across. I'm thinking stuff like "Key to the Highway", "Stormy Monday" and so on. Other suggestions welcome, loyal reader! I may throw in some Black Keys and Cream for good measure.

Hey, maybe I'll steal Col's "Monkeyphonics" progression for a stoner jam... you don't mind, do you, fella? Hey, maybe "Melissa" if I can remember how it goes!

I don't want this to be a covers band, unless we do covers but in our own style as opposed to homages. I don't see the point in trying to emulate what other people have done. Having said that, we do need a starting point, even if it's just jamming on a I-IV-V.

If there's something I learnt from my last band it's that you need both a driving force and motivation. If people get bored due to lack of progress or lack of new material to play around with, well, they start thinking about quitting. We don't want that, do we? If I can get us making a noise that sounds like music then that should keep them fired up, no?