Disco: The Learning Curve.
We did a gig with a dep guitarist on wednesday; Mario introduced me to him with the words, "This is Adrian. He defies logic."
Played a wedding in Kent yesterday. A lot of the set was new material; Mario is expanding the band's repertoire for a new lineup that plays 70s disco stuff. Well, I say lineup, but a better term might be "package". He runs and fronts several bands; the determining feature of each is the repertoire, but they're all drawn from the same core group of musicians, with the lineup on any given night being down to availability.
Disco is wonderful material for a bassist, but drumwise it's so minimal that I kept falling asleep while trying to learn the stuff. (Though at least this makes it pretty easy to dep for; I even played one track at the gig that I'd not rehearsed or even learned, and no-one would have known.) It's proving very useful to be able to carry material with you to gigs which you may need to learn or revise at short notice. This was the stated reason I treated myself to an MP3 player at Xmas, though the truth is I just wanted it because, ooh, shiny. But over the last few gigs it's really come into its own. Plus it helps the long journies home fly by.
Went out for a meal with the family on friday. As per family tradition, it was a joint birthday get-together for me and my brother; equally traditionally, it was about 2 months late. He took the opportunity to hand me an email address, from a chap he'd met who was an XTC fan who lives in Swindon, and had seen X-sTatiC when we played there. As bizarre coincidences of the "it's a small world" variety go this one was pretty impressive, when you consider that he was on holiday in Australia at the time...
Played a wedding in Kent yesterday. A lot of the set was new material; Mario is expanding the band's repertoire for a new lineup that plays 70s disco stuff. Well, I say lineup, but a better term might be "package". He runs and fronts several bands; the determining feature of each is the repertoire, but they're all drawn from the same core group of musicians, with the lineup on any given night being down to availability.
Disco is wonderful material for a bassist, but drumwise it's so minimal that I kept falling asleep while trying to learn the stuff. (Though at least this makes it pretty easy to dep for; I even played one track at the gig that I'd not rehearsed or even learned, and no-one would have known.) It's proving very useful to be able to carry material with you to gigs which you may need to learn or revise at short notice. This was the stated reason I treated myself to an MP3 player at Xmas, though the truth is I just wanted it because, ooh, shiny. But over the last few gigs it's really come into its own. Plus it helps the long journies home fly by.
Went out for a meal with the family on friday. As per family tradition, it was a joint birthday get-together for me and my brother; equally traditionally, it was about 2 months late. He took the opportunity to hand me an email address, from a chap he'd met who was an XTC fan who lives in Swindon, and had seen X-sTatiC when we played there. As bizarre coincidences of the "it's a small world" variety go this one was pretty impressive, when you consider that he was on holiday in Australia at the time...