A Post, A Post, My Kingdom...

Or: "Alright, Col, I'll write something!"

I can't say I haven't been busy, it's just that the focus of my dilligence has been the home front and work. My efforts to put in some music/me time over the past couple of weeks has been side-swiped by an exploding boiler and, well, work.

Ok, so the boiler didn't explode, but it was making a tanking noise like you wouldn't believe, and after being treated (by an expensive plumber who subsequently refused to return my phone calls) to a dose of descaler and inhibiter, went from incredibly noisy to silent. Not the good silent, mind you. The oh-shit-it's-fucked silent. The only sound to be heard was the noise made by hundreds of £10 notes being flushed down the toilet.

ON THE PLUS SIDE...

We now have a new boiler, complete with hot water and heating. I've also cancelled our good-for-nothing British Gas service contract, which will save (=offset cost of new boiler) around £300 a year, at least whilst the new thing's under warranty. If you look at it that way, factoring in all the wasted days taken off work waiting for incompetent BG 'engineers' who may or may not turn up... well, at this point a little peace of mind goes a long way.

Am I whining? I think I am. Let's move on.

As usual, I'll preface the next bit with 'I'm not going to blog about the band, but...'

I'm actually feeling quite positive about the new band right now. Remember Rockschool? The course I did last year? Were you not paying attention? Really. You should be ashamed.

Anywho, one of the real newbie guitar players from Rockschool surprised me and my bassist (another Rockschooler) when she invited us to her band's first gig! Wot? Eh?
Impressed? Me? Hell yes.

So, we went along, not knowing what to expect and it was brilliant self-styled housewife punk (in a way). Our co-student held down rhythm guitar perfectly. She says she made some mistakes but we didn't notice. Really, really proud of her.

Seeing her up there was a real kick in the butt. I don't think it's too much of an ego trip to say that we're better musicians than they were but when it comes down to it, we're still farting around and they're up there, doing it.

As we stumbled out of the venue, bassist heading home, me heading out to find a vacant podium to dance on (it was Saturday night and all the clubs lay between me and home), we were both fired up about nailing down a short setlist and getting out there. In principal, we thought of doing roughly 50:50 covers and originals, just to be in the game.

Whilst under the influence [cough] I agreed that I'd stick to lead, pushing our other guitarist to rhythm for now. He's the better all-round player, mind, it's just that my lead's better than my rhythm, so it made sense at the time for me to concentrate on my strengths in the short term.

I also said I'd have a go at singing during rehearsals. That lasted about 5 minutes! I don't think I've found my 'key' yet. I'm not sure I have one.

Okay, so we're kinda looking at nailing down a few covers (which we pretty much have, anyway, though we need to bring in vox) and polishing up some originals for variety. Long term it'd be good to go 'all originals' but due to pressure of work for everyone, that's not so easy. So far, the only vague song ideas have been tabled by me, but I've told the guys to bring any ideas they have to the next rehearsal.

Okay, so that's it for blogging about the band!!!! The main point was that we're all in agreement that there's no real reason we shouldn't be up on stage, performing... so that's where our drive is aimed at.

I've not really come back to the album sessions since I last blogged. EZDrummer's come in handy at acoustic jams we've had round at our place, though. Plug and play.

So Col, there's a post :-) Any chance of an iPhone link on your demos?

Metal Update

After a few weeks of uncertainty I've managed to clarify what the position with me and the metal band is... or at least I think I have.

The party line is that I'm more than welcome to learn the songs, come along and play at rehearsals as and when I can/I want to. 'The band' per se is still in an emergent state and so it's not really a case of who's in the band and who isn't right now, it's predominantly a handful of musicians getting together, shaking the tree and seeing what (if anything) falls out. I made it pretty clear that I don't currently see it as a permanent thing (though who knows... maybe I'll have an untapped talent for it!) but for now it's better to be playing with other people than not, right?

I've not had the chance to practice many of the tunes on their songlist, so I need to get back on the horse and dig my heels in. The other guys are clearly way ahead of me as far as learning the songs goes, which seems to concern me more than it does them!

I still have other feelers out there. Still waiting for some callbacks [cough]. I actually do think that in the long run that the only way things are going to happen the way I want them to is for me to take the wheel and put a band together myself. In the meantime, though, I'm gaining experience of how studios work etc, which is all valuable stuff. None of it's hard, but when you don't know stuff, you don't know stuff, right?

What else..?

Erm... the WAES Rock School course should be starting next Thursday. Really looking forward to that! I just spoke with the head of music there and she said that she expects the course to go ahead, though they currently haven't reached the required minimum number of students. D'Oh! SO... anyone out there who's interested, check out the WAES website here. The course is from 6-8pm on Thursdays in the Victoria/Pimlico area.

Evening update:

OW! ARMS HURT! BACK HURTS! EARS BLEEDING! METAL FATIGUE... AGAIN!

"Seek & Destroy" sought me out... and destroyed me!