One year ago today: September 20, 2020, he broke the bullshit barrier.
Five years ago today: September 20, 2016, voting for floats.
Nine years ago today: September 20, 2012, ‘London’ meant GMT.
Random years ago today: September 20, 2007, a foiled thief.
This afternoon is scheduled for rehearsal, noting they have cancelled three at the last moment already. I can’t really proceed until I have some kind of list, since I treat every tune as precious. I can’t put that kind of effort into something we don’t wind up playing—if I can avoid it. I’ve chosen 20 tunes off the list they supplied as most promising. The three week delay so far has allowed me to write my specialty “rhythm” bass lines to most of them. Will this pass muster? Check in later. If they cancel this practice, I’m pulling the pin unless some guarantees are extended. I plan work on the shed once it gets light, so if you see pics, I got started.
Here’s the ten-foot trench and hoping it doesn’t rain. I have all the materials laid out right in time for me to run out of energy. The next picture is the underground cable, which I may encase in a plastic pipe anyway upon discovering I have enough extra lengths. Not the sheds are wired for 20A but the receptacles and all other is rated for 15A, including the circuit breakers. I’ve never had a breaker trip on me from over use unless I was up to something.
The band did not call to confirm rehearsal as promised, but I took the chance and got ready to head over there. I’m leery of pouring to much time into the project until I learn the game plan. For now it looks like they may not have one. I do know that many of the songs I just finished learning may get dumped because nobody liked them except the guitar player.
As always, I like to record my impressions of bands before and after so take these as observations, not critiques. Because the rhythm player and I had rehearsed independently, there developed a synergy where by he anchored his chording on my bass lines, and I do have excellent timing. I’ve had this situation before and there is a snag. While he learns he can count on the bass line, the others learn to listen to him, which is pretty natural for most bands.
Speaking of equipment malfunctions, my whistling kettle quit whistling. I didn’t know that could even happen. Kettle, you had one job. Next, there is millennial battery technology, or more accurately, lack of it. In my day, if you had a rechargeable battery with a handy outlet, you left the thing plugged in and it would keep itself fully charged. Now, if you don’t plug it in, the battery dies in about an hour and if you leave it plugged in, it will swell up and possibly catch fire. Way to go, there Brandon. And where is my salt shaker? How could I lose a salt shaker?
Seminole Indian reservation, Florida.
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My rush for today was to get the window glass installed. I barely managed by the time I had to quit to get ready for rehearsal. The band guy was supposed to call me to confirm. I got nothing but left him a reminder. I’m beginning to question how serious these guys are. This montage shows how far I got. The framing is secure, you can tell by how straight the wall looks. The tin is cut on three sides and bent to form a drip cap.
Once what you see here is done and a few minor touches on the interior, this part of the work comes to a halt as I return to the office bedroom. I had intended to put shelves in the shed. But I would have been creating more work for myself if I’d not finished this wall first. Fitting that glass was a lot more challenging than I thought.
The rest of today’s notes are concerned with band practice. The tough fact is that without that rhythm player, these guys are a mess. It was pretty bad, which I’ll go over in some detail, stressing this is for historical purposes. The band is dealing with a situation that may or may not be capable of resolution.
We’ll start on stage right and work back to me. The lead player is like every lead player I’ve met out east. He wants to play lead, all the time. He cannot chord well, even when shown an undemanding pattern. As soon as the music starts, he loses the chop and can’t find it again. However, there could be many ways to set that right.
This must have been known to the band, as the keyboard guy tried to fill in on rhythm, but face it, his forte is the piano. I see now that the rest of the band is stuck on a groove, that every song is played much the same. This changes the character of the music and is very similar to comping. You can’t tell what tune they are playing until you hear the lyrics. He gets credit for trying but when he asked, the others agreed he should be on the keyboard, despite the fact many tunes on the list have no keys in the versions we play.
Every group has its weak spot and in this one it is the drummer. He’s hung up on a beat and gallops. For clarity, he plays roughly the same drum pattern to every song, and it seriously detracts from the sound. Galloping is speeding up. In this case, he speeds up just a little after every roll or turnaround. He also has no sense of where the stops are. It’s borderline terrible when the band stops, he keeps playing full blast, then realizing something just happened, he stops and does a roll over top of the band as they commence again. I have not seen this on a similar scale since I was fourteen.
The overall sound is so bad it is embarrassing. The other members have learned to speed up along with the drummer, so by the end of most tunes we are up around 180 beats per minute. If the song is already fast, he goes off the stop of the scale. Normally this requires immense effort to correct. I can calm things down by keeping the bass on tempo, but it can take eight or ten measures for the drummer to catch it’s him. Yes, it sounds like what I’ve just said, plus I do not like being the one who keeps the band on tempo because I’ve discovered half the audience will think it’s me making the mistake. Plus, much of my playing is sparse, following a whole different philosophy of what playing in a big band is about.
Last, let’s talk about that bass player. He doesn’t seem to know a lot about what guitar players go through, or if he does, he’s not that empathetic. He tends to play the tunes so that they sound like the originals. He has a habit, when filling in for music he’s never heard before to ask if there are any minor chords in the song. Then, he finds it odd when nobody knows. (This is another band that makes work for themselves because they do not know the Circle of Fifths.)
Where does this go from here? Well, they are still closer to playing out than any other band I’ve found in the territory. They were quite aware of everything that went wrong. Their practices are not really practices because every band member is still playing their own version. It was the first try without a long-term member. I’m not so sure about their learning curves, they often lapse into bad habits and there is an unforgiveable tendency to play the wrong chords, especially the lead player when he does get around to chording.
ADDENDUM More on music, now that I’ve had two hours to pore over the situation. I could step in to make changes, but I won’t. That’s management and I don’t to it for free. I’ve decided to continue since more time may bring corrections and if not, I know well how to play bass in a band that is less than tight. Put it this way, on stage with me is not the place to pretend you know your stuff. And on stage is, in my opinion, the best place to get most guitar players off their backsides.
This band has a long way to go. I hope no place that knows me hires this group. I had expected a lot more to start with, but I’ll continue in hopes. A lot of effort was wasted because during the past three weeks, I spent time learning the list they gave me. Only to discover they dropped nearly half those tunes because the rhythm player liked them and they didn’t. The band leader has repeatedly failed to call about such changes as promised. And he seems bewildered by e-mail and the drummer, well, he wondered why I didn’t learn all 100 songs just in case. Maybe because I don’t play them all the same way?
