Project Recap: Summer 2008

The summer, such as it was in the UK, turned out to be a dry patch for The Project. I'd got to the stage where I knew I wanted to play in a band and was 'out there' looking for other musos, but to no avail. Getting two people into a studio was hard enough, what with everyone heading off on their hols. Trying to get a whole band in one place at the same time proved to be impossible.

So, in the project recap we're lumping July, August and September into one lazy, hazy summer reminiscence!

July:
Move along, nothing to see here! Really! I was really starting to get frustrated with all the 'Join My Band' type websites and the flaky people who inhabit them (most of whom hadn't as yet escaped the ravages of puberty). Finding people to play with was an (unsuccessful) exercise in patience.

August:
Well, the project took a bit of a left turn in August. Having failed miserably to find anyone to play with to date, out of the blue I landed a sesh with a nascent metal band. They had a singer, one guitarist and a drummer. I was invited along to a rehearsal (along with another guitarist) to shake the tree and see whether anything fell out. Unfortunately, what fell out was my elbow joint! Metal strumming simply didn't suit me, it seemed, and as I was approaching light speed on some of the faster riffs the muscles in my right forearm simply gave up the ghost. Shooting pains. Tennis elbow. Ouch. Basically, that not only screwed me as far as playing metal was concerned, but made any kind of strumming incredibly painful!

September:
Upon our return from a brief trip to Morrocco I came to the realisation that there was no way I'd cut it as a metalhead. I let the other guys in the band know that I was done and I moved on. I'll admit I was fairly despondent about this as I had felt I'd fluffed a good opportunity. September came, September went. Things were not looking good!