The time is now...
Practicing this Thursday, which is cool. I really want to sort out all the old stuff this month.
I'm going to ask Dan and Joe to jam with me on Wednesday evening. I'm hoping I can sort out guitar and bass lines with them, and also some third part vocals. Me and Richard are sounding a lot better vocally - but sometimes you just need that third vocal line to really push the songs along.
I've drawn up pretty much a checklist of what needs to be done, which I intend to follow until completion. In the meantime, I can work on new songs and I will finish a demo in the next two weeks.
Hopefully, the whole thing will coincide so that we finish of polishing the old set in time to start working on new songs. That way, by the end of March we will have around 9-11 songs ready to go and play live. I'm telling the rest of the band that come the end of March, I am dispatching demos to venues and beginning the quest for shows again. April sees the end of my lectures, and May the end of my exams and thus my whole University course. In other words, time is shortening to be sat around waiting for it to shorten - if I can just manage the film and game music, the various other hobbies and projects long enough to get everything in order I can be free and easy to work on the band full time. Once we have a set everybody can agree on, the equipment to make the music sound as it should, and the shows and dates arranged - there is really nothing more for us to do but to go out 'there' and play music to people, which is really the fruits of our labour. I am excited about the future of the band now, perhaps moreso than ever. I need to talk with them all though, I want to make it apparent to everyone (myself included, I suppose) that this is the 'now or never' stage we've always known was coming. We have been children right the way through the career of our band, though most of the time we wouldn't admit it. Looking back in hindsight I can see how unready I was to handle something of the magnitude I was trying to create. We were always wondering why other band got it right, and now I realise it was because they had bided and used their time constructively and then released themselves upon the public when right to do so.
We haven't used our time as well as we could have, but in some ways we are like old men with our music. Sometimes, I feel so instinctive of what we're going to do, it's quite amazing. We have, if nothing else, come to know each other as musicians, and now we have the maturity and independence to achieve our aim. I need to explain all this though, and have done with the ambiguity of aims and expectations. This band is intended to go to the top of whatever path we choose. We're not underground, we haven't been borne to a scene or risen from the phoenix of a cult - we intend to make lasting music for people who like music. Accordingly, the 'now or never' mentality doesn't mean I wish to set a time frame for the band to succeed in, but that there can be no turning back from the path should we all choose to follw it. Money will spent, time will be given and effort shall be placed into the band at all times. No more shall something happen "after this" or "when I get that". I, on a personal level, have always felt I was biding my time with this band. Alarmingly, I find that the 'post-university' plan I had for the band has now reached its opening stage. It is exciting, because I have no more excuses, and I've waited so long to say that. No more "but I'm young" or "I have things to do" or "I planned to wait for a bit". The band starts here, the way I planned it for a long time. After the time for excuses has gone. To still be together, the 4 of us, writing and playing and being friends, has proven to me that this can work, and that indeed it was 'meant' to perhaps.
And so, all that remains for me to do is discover whether my comrades wish for the same thing, although I'm sure they all do. Once we have all decided that this is the band, the people, the music and the lives we want - then we begin properly. Likely this Thursday will be that moment when all is discovered, the anagnorisis upon which much of our focus has been spent. Oh what an interesting year I'm in for...
I'm going to ask Dan and Joe to jam with me on Wednesday evening. I'm hoping I can sort out guitar and bass lines with them, and also some third part vocals. Me and Richard are sounding a lot better vocally - but sometimes you just need that third vocal line to really push the songs along.
I've drawn up pretty much a checklist of what needs to be done, which I intend to follow until completion. In the meantime, I can work on new songs and I will finish a demo in the next two weeks.
Hopefully, the whole thing will coincide so that we finish of polishing the old set in time to start working on new songs. That way, by the end of March we will have around 9-11 songs ready to go and play live. I'm telling the rest of the band that come the end of March, I am dispatching demos to venues and beginning the quest for shows again. April sees the end of my lectures, and May the end of my exams and thus my whole University course. In other words, time is shortening to be sat around waiting for it to shorten - if I can just manage the film and game music, the various other hobbies and projects long enough to get everything in order I can be free and easy to work on the band full time. Once we have a set everybody can agree on, the equipment to make the music sound as it should, and the shows and dates arranged - there is really nothing more for us to do but to go out 'there' and play music to people, which is really the fruits of our labour. I am excited about the future of the band now, perhaps moreso than ever. I need to talk with them all though, I want to make it apparent to everyone (myself included, I suppose) that this is the 'now or never' stage we've always known was coming. We have been children right the way through the career of our band, though most of the time we wouldn't admit it. Looking back in hindsight I can see how unready I was to handle something of the magnitude I was trying to create. We were always wondering why other band got it right, and now I realise it was because they had bided and used their time constructively and then released themselves upon the public when right to do so.
We haven't used our time as well as we could have, but in some ways we are like old men with our music. Sometimes, I feel so instinctive of what we're going to do, it's quite amazing. We have, if nothing else, come to know each other as musicians, and now we have the maturity and independence to achieve our aim. I need to explain all this though, and have done with the ambiguity of aims and expectations. This band is intended to go to the top of whatever path we choose. We're not underground, we haven't been borne to a scene or risen from the phoenix of a cult - we intend to make lasting music for people who like music. Accordingly, the 'now or never' mentality doesn't mean I wish to set a time frame for the band to succeed in, but that there can be no turning back from the path should we all choose to follw it. Money will spent, time will be given and effort shall be placed into the band at all times. No more shall something happen "after this" or "when I get that". I, on a personal level, have always felt I was biding my time with this band. Alarmingly, I find that the 'post-university' plan I had for the band has now reached its opening stage. It is exciting, because I have no more excuses, and I've waited so long to say that. No more "but I'm young" or "I have things to do" or "I planned to wait for a bit". The band starts here, the way I planned it for a long time. After the time for excuses has gone. To still be together, the 4 of us, writing and playing and being friends, has proven to me that this can work, and that indeed it was 'meant' to perhaps.
And so, all that remains for me to do is discover whether my comrades wish for the same thing, although I'm sure they all do. Once we have all decided that this is the band, the people, the music and the lives we want - then we begin properly. Likely this Thursday will be that moment when all is discovered, the anagnorisis upon which much of our focus has been spent. Oh what an interesting year I'm in for...