My lunchmates and I took a side-trip to Best Buy today, in search of a "Rock Band" setup. We weren't disappointed. I handled vocal duties, the drummer from our band tried his hand at playing fake drums with tethered drum sticks, our resident try-and-abandon-every-hobby hobbyist took lead guitar (I bought his practice amp when he gave up actually ( Read more... )

. . . and the show was a smashing success. I'm still a little jazzed from performing for a real live crowd.

Naturally, the band is now going on hiatus for at least a few weeks while the bass player's wife has her next baby--and it won't be long after that that the guitar player's wife follows suit. With this level of fecundity in the band, I don't ( Read more... )

Two days until the big show . . . and one last practice tonight. I'm still a little shaky on the lyrics for a couple of songs, but my "cheat" book is in order and I'm fairly comfortable with everything I need to sing and play. And it looks like the weather is going to cooperate, to the extent that it will be not raining and not terribly hot on ( Read more... )

Last night was "do or die" night for songs on the party set list, and 3 songs that we've been working on will not be featured. The bass player pointed out that we were spending a disproportionate amount of the scant practice time remaining to us working on a couple of songs that aren't ready, when we could be better served polishing up many more of ( Read more... )

Three practices left before the big party gig, and apparently we have secured the services of a sound guy from within the department ranks. He'll actually be at rehearsal tonight to get a look at our set-up and meet the band . . . should be cool!
Soundtrack from My Morning Walk

Another foggy morning, with visibility down to less than a quarter ( Read more... )

I got in a bit late this morning after oversleeping. Mid-week band practice really messes with my circadian rhythms, which have otherwise been pretty awesome lately. I haven't even been using an alarm clock for several weeks now, and I get up early enough to get through my morning routine (including a walk) in plenty of time to get to work. I guess ( Read more... )

I took a look at the set lists we've laid out (subject to fine-tuning), and my lyrics folder, and I've got a little homework to do before practice tonight . . . to the tune of tracking down lyric sheets for at least the five or six missing items that I have a prominent vocal role to fill (and, looking ahead, also for the other dozen or so missing ( Read more... )

The 25th Anniversary gig went off without a hitch, and we're getting lots of positive feedback . . . particularly about "One Week", which we had never performed in public before today. We had time to do all five of the "bumper" songs we had planned, and a couple more besides. We pulled "Mustang Sally" out of mothballs since it had sounded so good ( Read more... )

I was munching dark chocolate M&M's on the ride in this morning just to get a little sugar and caffeine into my system, lest I doze off on southbound Highway 100. I can just about deal with Thursday night practice, but we threw in a quick Monday session as a final tune-up for our appearance at the company's 25th anniversary meeting this Wednesday. ( Read more... )

I've been remiss . . . I got so wrapped up in what I was doing at work (whether that was particularly useful is a separate matter) that I haven't updated in a couple of days, despite having taken two rather nice walks to give myself a little easy filler. I did not walk today. I was out until one o'clock for band practice, and slept in as much as I ( Read more... )