Last night I cooked a pretty decent Lasagne and Fraser and I sat down to try to dicuss getting some focus on writing some music. It;s something which continues to to escape us. Our other commitments both musical and non-musical usually get in the way. Rather than just knocking together some chord structures and lyrics, we are trying to move away from guitar strumming and have some music that exists without the guitar. I'm so used to holding up a singer at an open mike with guitar chords, and it's become mundane.
To cut a long story short - we've come up with yet another reason why we can't just sit down and write. In order to limit the ambition a little in order to get something done, we're going to try to at least meet a little more often instead of just meeting when we have a gig to prepare for.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tamira's gig.
Yesterday was a pretty fun filled day. I was going to mix the recordings from the last open mike, but somehow I managed to delete all the files. It was one of those...
"Oh shit..... pooof gone...ah well... what am I going to do now?"
Tamira told me she was stressing a little about pulling her band together. No one is doing what they were told and she was worrying about that night's gig. She asked me if I would come along to her practice and give her some support. Karolina was on the way out the door to the gym, so I suggested she swap it for a bike run to Duivendrecht and back instead.
Before we left for MelodyLine - we had to finish Kenneth's birthday present. I'm racked with guilt. It just didn't make any sense to head over to Scotland for the big man's 30th, so we decided to film a sketch/birthday message for him. It was a roaring success - so maybe we're do that more often.
Anyway... it was a lovely cycle - Blue skies - but baltic cold. No matter how fast you cycled, your legs never warmed up.
When we arrived the band were already there making lots of noise. The only people I hadn't met before was the twin guitar team of Jelmer and Darren. Tamira was feeling the pressure of trying to get everyone to focus on their set-list and learn the songs. Part of me was really glad[Sorry Tamira :-)]. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that gets stressed about getting people motivated.
After a few songs I could see what her fears were. While there were plenty songs that went well, it was a big undertaking to bring together 7 people to learn 30-40 songs in a matter of weeks. Different people had different abilities more importantly different levels of effort were being put in. The main issue I could see was that Lisa and Tamira were getting frustrated with having to manage recognition of mistakes and how the group as a whole go about having to find a solution. I spent a lot of the time wondering what my bands sounded like when I was 16-17 and just starting out. We laughed and joked a lot, but we had much less patience for mistakes. We had probably got over the fear of admitting and recognising mistakes from playing in the more formal setting of a brass band.
Anyway - they were doing very well, and given time, I think it would really start to gel - but Tamira was quite rightly stressed about making it gel for the imminent gig that night. I tried to keep pretty quiet so that I wasn't interfering while at the same time letting Tamira know that I was there if they needed some advice.
We headed back and left them to it. We were babysitting Appie at night, so Karolina was going to stay behind while I headed to the gig.
I left for another cold cycle across Amsterdam at about 9:30. It was strange being in the bar and not playing or not having any stress or responsibility to set things up. I got a little worried when I realised I was about the 3rd audience member there, but it very quickly filled up and turned into one of the busiest nights that the Cafe has had.
Rene was on fine form and relishing being the superbusy barman. He was running around like a mad man all night but very successfully playing host to I guess around 60 drinkers at one time. I was avoiding the solo drinker mantel and spent most of the night trying to coax some photos out of my Camera. I think things are starting to go well.
For the band there were a few ropey moments in the first set - mainly caused by nerves and lack of preparation. From the first break onwards, they just got better and better. The audience really embraced them and as the drink flows the night really gelled. I was very impressed and proud of Tamira.
I left half way through the third set. I knew that if I stayed to the end I'd have to wait until everyone cleared up before I could leave.
I passed home via Coco's to see if Fraser was around - but it was far too packed for me to even attempt to head in...
A rare late night saturday for me - and no late night takeaway!!!
"Oh shit..... pooof gone...ah well... what am I going to do now?"
Tamira told me she was stressing a little about pulling her band together. No one is doing what they were told and she was worrying about that night's gig. She asked me if I would come along to her practice and give her some support. Karolina was on the way out the door to the gym, so I suggested she swap it for a bike run to Duivendrecht and back instead.
Before we left for MelodyLine - we had to finish Kenneth's birthday present. I'm racked with guilt. It just didn't make any sense to head over to Scotland for the big man's 30th, so we decided to film a sketch/birthday message for him. It was a roaring success - so maybe we're do that more often.
Anyway... it was a lovely cycle - Blue skies - but baltic cold. No matter how fast you cycled, your legs never warmed up.
When we arrived the band were already there making lots of noise. The only people I hadn't met before was the twin guitar team of Jelmer and Darren. Tamira was feeling the pressure of trying to get everyone to focus on their set-list and learn the songs. Part of me was really glad[Sorry Tamira :-)]. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that gets stressed about getting people motivated.
After a few songs I could see what her fears were. While there were plenty songs that went well, it was a big undertaking to bring together 7 people to learn 30-40 songs in a matter of weeks. Different people had different abilities more importantly different levels of effort were being put in. The main issue I could see was that Lisa and Tamira were getting frustrated with having to manage recognition of mistakes and how the group as a whole go about having to find a solution. I spent a lot of the time wondering what my bands sounded like when I was 16-17 and just starting out. We laughed and joked a lot, but we had much less patience for mistakes. We had probably got over the fear of admitting and recognising mistakes from playing in the more formal setting of a brass band.
Anyway - they were doing very well, and given time, I think it would really start to gel - but Tamira was quite rightly stressed about making it gel for the imminent gig that night. I tried to keep pretty quiet so that I wasn't interfering while at the same time letting Tamira know that I was there if they needed some advice.
We headed back and left them to it. We were babysitting Appie at night, so Karolina was going to stay behind while I headed to the gig.
I left for another cold cycle across Amsterdam at about 9:30. It was strange being in the bar and not playing or not having any stress or responsibility to set things up. I got a little worried when I realised I was about the 3rd audience member there, but it very quickly filled up and turned into one of the busiest nights that the Cafe has had.
Rene was on fine form and relishing being the superbusy barman. He was running around like a mad man all night but very successfully playing host to I guess around 60 drinkers at one time. I was avoiding the solo drinker mantel and spent most of the night trying to coax some photos out of my Camera. I think things are starting to go well.
For the band there were a few ropey moments in the first set - mainly caused by nerves and lack of preparation. From the first break onwards, they just got better and better. The audience really embraced them and as the drink flows the night really gelled. I was very impressed and proud of Tamira.
I left half way through the third set. I knew that if I stayed to the end I'd have to wait until everyone cleared up before I could leave.
I passed home via Coco's to see if Fraser was around - but it was far too packed for me to even attempt to head in...
A rare late night saturday for me - and no late night takeaway!!!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday Tunes Jam - 27th Jan.
A great Jam last night. I'm finally managing to focus on the musicians and accepting that I don't have much control over how many people turn up to watch us. When I arrived, Fergus was there to play bass and I was pleased that Eoghan had come down to see what we were doing. Fico was also there - and he always has fun while he's playing, so it made for a good start.
We had a lot of fun running through various songs and and exchanging ideas. It was a very song oriented start to the Jam. Normally I throw out a few songs to warm people up before we try to bring together some jams, but we plays a number of songs led by either me or Eoghan. It was great to have Eoghan along to take the lead a little and also to sing some great harmonies for the stuff I was doing. The stuff I remember is Sympathy for the Devil, Talkin' bout a revolution, Man on the Moon, Whiskey in the Jar and Dancing in the moonlight.
We also had a new face at the Jam - Cecile - who started very well by getting us to Jam a version Glory Box by Portishead and then slotted in really well on vocals and guitar.
After that, Danielle arrived and I felt there were enough people who could play guitars and sing, so for the first time so far in our Jam Sessions - I took to the drums. It's been a while, and I get pretty self-concious about whether my bass drum is in time, but I'm pretty sure I coped okay and no-one noticed that I've not played in months and my brain disagrees with my arms about my drumming ability.
After this, I sat back with Karolina and let everyone do their thing. We had almost no audience, but around 20 musicians. Robert came along and Karolina even played(Zombie). The night closed with me playing Bass, Robert playing guitar, Bram playing keyboards and Den playing drums.
I had a great night. I think I'll branch out to Bass and Drums more often.
We had a lot of fun running through various songs and and exchanging ideas. It was a very song oriented start to the Jam. Normally I throw out a few songs to warm people up before we try to bring together some jams, but we plays a number of songs led by either me or Eoghan. It was great to have Eoghan along to take the lead a little and also to sing some great harmonies for the stuff I was doing. The stuff I remember is Sympathy for the Devil, Talkin' bout a revolution, Man on the Moon, Whiskey in the Jar and Dancing in the moonlight.
We also had a new face at the Jam - Cecile - who started very well by getting us to Jam a version Glory Box by Portishead and then slotted in really well on vocals and guitar.
After that, Danielle arrived and I felt there were enough people who could play guitars and sing, so for the first time so far in our Jam Sessions - I took to the drums. It's been a while, and I get pretty self-concious about whether my bass drum is in time, but I'm pretty sure I coped okay and no-one noticed that I've not played in months and my brain disagrees with my arms about my drumming ability.
After this, I sat back with Karolina and let everyone do their thing. We had almost no audience, but around 20 musicians. Robert came along and Karolina even played(Zombie). The night closed with me playing Bass, Robert playing guitar, Bram playing keyboards and Den playing drums.
I had a great night. I think I'll branch out to Bass and Drums more often.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Cosy January Open Mike.
Last night we had a great Open Mike night. It was that great mix of having practiced, having an audience and having enough friends there to make it good fun.
When we started the bar was actually empty. We’d hit the spot between after work stragglers and late night drinkers. We decided that we’d start rather than hang around. We started with Goodnight Girl by Wet Wet Wet and by the grace of Marti Pellow the bar had an extra 20 people in it when we finished.
It was Burns Night and we had planned to give some Burns songs a go, but the preparation hadn’t amounted to any more than printing out the chords. We thought we might have got away with it when the bar was empty, but once we spied some strangers in the bar, we lost the bottle and plumped for a good crowd pleaser – Fat Bottomed girls.
We now felt we had sufficiently impressed to try the first of our new additions for the night – the boys are back in town. I think we did it justice. There were a few little stumbles in the vocals, but otherwise I think it was pretty good fun.
Onto the guests…. Andre was up first. He did some great original versions of While my guitar gently weeps, Moon river and one of his own about an island where it’s always raining.(The UK???)
After that we had Grandpa Death at our open mike for the first time. He must have been keen, cos he bought a new guitar for it. He added to the Scottishness or even the Ayrshireness of the event and gave us some amazing original bluesy tunes.
Gareth then showed us how it was done and knocked out some great cover choices – including Purple Rain and Take your Mama by the Scissor Sisters and Driftwood by Scottish band Travis. :
By this point it was clear that we had enough talent to sustain the night and there were lots of smiling faces and happy musicians, so my job was done. Fraser and I even managed to sit down for a pink of the black stuff:
The photo makes me look a little satanic, but I was really enjoying the night and even relaxing a bit.
Tamira, Lorenzo and Lisa had come along ahead of their Debut gig on Saturday at CC Muziek Café. The play some Tubthumping, some Natalie Imbruglia, and some Stealer’s Wheel(more Scottish music). Things are coming together and I think their gig should be pretty good if anyone needs anywhere to go this Saturday.
We then had a folk group, but I’m afraid I don’t know their names. They’ve been down before and they are a great bunch. Me and Fraser even got up for a jam for their last song:
We had now got to the stage where there had been enough drinkers to make the bar happy and enough musicians to remove our fear that we were going to run out of material. We could now sit back, relax and knock out a few tunes. The tunes included “Guess that’s why they call it the Blues”, Man in the mirror, the boys are back in town(again), and then I broke a string on Lola. So we finished with a 5 string medley of Pokerface, Kids and Zombie.
Here’s some of the songs that were played:
When we started the bar was actually empty. We’d hit the spot between after work stragglers and late night drinkers. We decided that we’d start rather than hang around. We started with Goodnight Girl by Wet Wet Wet and by the grace of Marti Pellow the bar had an extra 20 people in it when we finished.
It was Burns Night and we had planned to give some Burns songs a go, but the preparation hadn’t amounted to any more than printing out the chords. We thought we might have got away with it when the bar was empty, but once we spied some strangers in the bar, we lost the bottle and plumped for a good crowd pleaser – Fat Bottomed girls.
We now felt we had sufficiently impressed to try the first of our new additions for the night – the boys are back in town. I think we did it justice. There were a few little stumbles in the vocals, but otherwise I think it was pretty good fun.
Onto the guests…. Andre was up first. He did some great original versions of While my guitar gently weeps, Moon river and one of his own about an island where it’s always raining.(The UK???)
After that we had Grandpa Death at our open mike for the first time. He must have been keen, cos he bought a new guitar for it. He added to the Scottishness or even the Ayrshireness of the event and gave us some amazing original bluesy tunes.
Gareth then showed us how it was done and knocked out some great cover choices – including Purple Rain and Take your Mama by the Scissor Sisters and Driftwood by Scottish band Travis. :
By this point it was clear that we had enough talent to sustain the night and there were lots of smiling faces and happy musicians, so my job was done. Fraser and I even managed to sit down for a pink of the black stuff:
The photo makes me look a little satanic, but I was really enjoying the night and even relaxing a bit.
Tamira, Lorenzo and Lisa had come along ahead of their Debut gig on Saturday at CC Muziek Café. The play some Tubthumping, some Natalie Imbruglia, and some Stealer’s Wheel(more Scottish music). Things are coming together and I think their gig should be pretty good if anyone needs anywhere to go this Saturday.
We then had a folk group, but I’m afraid I don’t know their names. They’ve been down before and they are a great bunch. Me and Fraser even got up for a jam for their last song:
We had now got to the stage where there had been enough drinkers to make the bar happy and enough musicians to remove our fear that we were going to run out of material. We could now sit back, relax and knock out a few tunes. The tunes included “Guess that’s why they call it the Blues”, Man in the mirror, the boys are back in town(again), and then I broke a string on Lola. So we finished with a 5 string medley of Pokerface, Kids and Zombie.
Here’s some of the songs that were played:
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Monday night practice fuelled by Peking Duck
Fraser came round with a whole peking Duck last night and some Japanese beers. On fuel like that it was impossible for it not to have been a good practice.
We video'd the songs to get an idea of how they are sounding. I really need to learn to use the video functions on my camera though - cos the 5 minute video was 2 GB... so it's almost impossible to do anything with.
We've moved yesterday's songs from the level where we can't sing them, to the level where we can't sing them but people might just appreciatte that we put in the effort. One of the biggest cheers we've had at the Open Mike is when we did Somebody to love by Queen. I think people liked the fact that we played it even though it was clear that we would never do it justice.
Anyway... the sun is shining... we're practised and it's the Open Mike tonight....
We video'd the songs to get an idea of how they are sounding. I really need to learn to use the video functions on my camera though - cos the 5 minute video was 2 GB... so it's almost impossible to do anything with.
We've moved yesterday's songs from the level where we can't sing them, to the level where we can't sing them but people might just appreciatte that we put in the effort. One of the biggest cheers we've had at the Open Mike is when we did Somebody to love by Queen. I think people liked the fact that we played it even though it was clear that we would never do it justice.
Anyway... the sun is shining... we're practised and it's the Open Mike tonight....
Monday, January 24, 2011
Sunday night practice
Fraser was round last night and we had a practice for Tuesday's open mike. It's been a while since I even played an acoustic guitar never mind practiced with Fraser.
After watching a documentary on the greatness that is Thin Lizzy, I gave Boys are back in Town
a go. We had tried it many moons ago and it hadn't worked, but I surprised myself and it seems to come together. It's pretty fast so you really have to feel the rhythm if you're going to spit out the lyrics in time, but I think it should hold itself together and the crowd should enjoy it.
The other one I have been toying with is Two of Us by the Beatles. I think it’s an excellent duet, but it’s a bit high for one of us and I'm not convinced we'll get it pinned before Tuesday.
We’ve been wanting to do an Elton John song forever. My favourite(due to a love of the film Almost Famous) is Tiny Dancer – but it has a bridge that we just can’t get to sound right. We also tried Your Song….. but we couldn’t pull it off. We’re now giving 'I guess that's why they call it the blues' a go, but even that is proving quite difficult – Elton’s deceptively hard.
I’ve been listening to loads of Stone’s recently. I wanted to do Prodigal Son, but we’re not going to have time to get it prepared. Under My Thumb is a lot simpler, but it needs some orchestrating to make it interesting.
Anyway… we’ll work it all out tonight and anyone that fancies hearing them can pop into Mollys on Tuesday
After watching a documentary on the greatness that is Thin Lizzy, I gave Boys are back in Town
a go. We had tried it many moons ago and it hadn't worked, but I surprised myself and it seems to come together. It's pretty fast so you really have to feel the rhythm if you're going to spit out the lyrics in time, but I think it should hold itself together and the crowd should enjoy it. The other one I have been toying with is Two of Us
by the Beatles. I think it’s an excellent duet, but it’s a bit high for one of us and I'm not convinced we'll get it pinned before Tuesday.We’ve been wanting to do an Elton John song forever. My favourite(due to a love of the film Almost Famous
) is Tiny Dancer – but it has a bridge that we just can’t get to sound right. We also tried Your Song….. but we couldn’t pull it off. We’re now giving 'I guess that's why they call it the blues' a go, but even that is proving quite difficult – Elton’s deceptively hard. I’ve been listening to loads of Stone’s recently. I wanted to do Prodigal Son
, but we’re not going to have time to get it prepared. Under My Thumb is a lot simpler, but it needs some orchestrating to make it interesting.Anyway… we’ll work it all out tonight and anyone that fancies hearing them can pop into Mollys on Tuesday
Friday, January 21, 2011
Jam 20th January
My second jam session of the year, and we’re starting to relax into the rhythm of the thing. People are turning up and know what’s going to be happening. We had a pretty slow start tonight. Our “house band” still consists of Devin Deen and I. Tonight we were pretty quickly supported by Andre Smoge, who is a Norwegian I had met by chance the night before. He’s a jack of all trades musician who I don’t think fully showed his full deck last night but he was keen to jam and play bass, guitar or jam some vocals which is always good.
We started with an extended Jam of Sympathy for the Devil to an almost empty bar. This gave way to some free jamming with Andre skat singing. I’m not convinced it’s the stage for free jamming. No one seems to be able to hear each other and it can drift toward a rabble at times. Still we persevered and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. After that the bar got a bit busier, I ran through a few songs with ted on Bass and then a younger guy on drums(Name to be added) joined us.
After a short break, some of the regular musicians(meaning they’ve been before) showed up. Dave, Robert and Coco’s own James started the inevitable blues jams to blow away the cobwebs. Slow minor blues a la Since I’ve been loving you and various other bits and pieces.
After that things went all Latin, José from Venezuela and Janan(sp??) from Cuba who gave us some great latino loungey music. Danielle Cornelissen and Will joined in on drums and guitar to and there was even some dancing:
From this point, I knew there were enough musicians about that I could have a seat and start to enjoy it without the stress of wondering if I’ll have to perform too much or if the bar will be totally dead.
While it all went latin up the stairs, I had discovered that Tamira and Lisa had sneaked in down the stairs:
Tamira and Lisa took to the stage backed by Devin, Deen and Alfons. The stage was getting busy and my previous plans to sit on my arse and take some photos were quickly thwarted by the dreaded decibel meter which seems to edge above 86dB every time anyone enjoys themselves or my arse hits something soft.
Okay. Rant over. Tamira and Lisa were wonderful, and the practicing is starting to pay off. They have a gig in CC Muziek Café on the 29th January, and it’s guaranteed to be a fun evening.
By the time Tamira finished everyone was ready for bed, but the diehards stayed on for around an hour of Danielle jamming with Robert, Deen, Andre, Dave and Devin. Very extended versions of Louie Louie, Ring of Fire and The first cut is the deepest made for a great close to the day and luckily it was during this that Andy Reeves from the Amsterdam Stun pooped in, so I can only assume that he thinks it’s always that coherent. Thanks Danielle.
All in all a great night which started with me unnecessarily stressing about no musicians coming; but it turned out to be a pretty good night. We still don’t have the audience numbers that we’d like but hopefully happy musicians is a good sign that word of mouth should start to take effect.
Here´s some of the songs that appeared during the evening:
We started with an extended Jam of Sympathy for the Devil to an almost empty bar. This gave way to some free jamming with Andre skat singing. I’m not convinced it’s the stage for free jamming. No one seems to be able to hear each other and it can drift toward a rabble at times. Still we persevered and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. After that the bar got a bit busier, I ran through a few songs with ted on Bass and then a younger guy on drums(Name to be added) joined us.
After a short break, some of the regular musicians(meaning they’ve been before) showed up. Dave, Robert and Coco’s own James started the inevitable blues jams to blow away the cobwebs. Slow minor blues a la Since I’ve been loving you and various other bits and pieces.
After that things went all Latin, José from Venezuela and Janan(sp??) from Cuba who gave us some great latino loungey music. Danielle Cornelissen and Will joined in on drums and guitar to and there was even some dancing:
From this point, I knew there were enough musicians about that I could have a seat and start to enjoy it without the stress of wondering if I’ll have to perform too much or if the bar will be totally dead.
While it all went latin up the stairs, I had discovered that Tamira and Lisa had sneaked in down the stairs:
Tamira and Lisa took to the stage backed by Devin, Deen and Alfons. The stage was getting busy and my previous plans to sit on my arse and take some photos were quickly thwarted by the dreaded decibel meter which seems to edge above 86dB every time anyone enjoys themselves or my arse hits something soft.
Okay. Rant over. Tamira and Lisa were wonderful, and the practicing is starting to pay off. They have a gig in CC Muziek Café on the 29th January, and it’s guaranteed to be a fun evening.
By the time Tamira finished everyone was ready for bed, but the diehards stayed on for around an hour of Danielle jamming with Robert, Deen, Andre, Dave and Devin. Very extended versions of Louie Louie, Ring of Fire and The first cut is the deepest made for a great close to the day and luckily it was during this that Andy Reeves from the Amsterdam Stun pooped in, so I can only assume that he thinks it’s always that coherent. Thanks Danielle.
All in all a great night which started with me unnecessarily stressing about no musicians coming; but it turned out to be a pretty good night. We still don’t have the audience numbers that we’d like but hopefully happy musicians is a good sign that word of mouth should start to take effect.
Here´s some of the songs that appeared during the evening:
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Abandoned practice
We were going to practice tonight -but the cafe was double booked. Petra Jordan was recording a few songs before playing that night. I finally get Fraser along to a rehearshal and it falls through... oh well. We had a nice evening wandering through the city on one of the first dry evenings of the year. We stopped off in Bazaar on the Albert Cuypstraat. It's truly wonderful.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Bloggy Blog Blog
I´ve had a day of tidying up blogs. It served as a means of collecting together everything that I have(from an internet perspective) and reminding myself what I´ve achieved. Here´s the current roster of blogs, webpages etc:
Online Musical diary blog - This is where I try to regularly post what I´m up to musically to encrouage myself to keep active and chart a little bit of progress in my activity. This is re-aggregated to my homepage as well - so don’t feel any pressure to read or comment twice.
Thursday Tunes Blog - I´m hoping I can get some more people to start to contribute to this and use it to promote our weekly Jam Session a little.
Keep It Creative Inspiration Factory - My non-musical guise where Kenneth and I explore creativity and inspiration.
My Website - The home for everything that´s not a blog or Facebook.
Online Musical diary blog - This is where I try to regularly post what I´m up to musically to encrouage myself to keep active and chart a little bit of progress in my activity. This is re-aggregated to my homepage as well - so don’t feel any pressure to read or comment twice.
Thursday Tunes Blog - I´m hoping I can get some more people to start to contribute to this and use it to promote our weekly Jam Session a little.
Keep It Creative Inspiration Factory - My non-musical guise where Kenneth and I explore creativity and inspiration.
My Website - The home for everything that´s not a blog or Facebook.
Friday, January 14, 2011
First Jam of the year
Last night was the first Jam of the year at CC Muziek Café. Devin has been holding down the fort while I was in Scotland for Christmas. From now on I expect every Thursday to be filled with the trials, tribulations and joys of hosting a Jam Session.
Devin, Deen and I had a practice the previous day before opening to run through a few things. I’m hoping these Wednesday sessions give us a chance to build a semblance of a house band, but I was a bit disappointed that it was just the three of us running through my Open Mike chords, maybe I tried to do too much on my first week back at work. The mood lifted when Marcel Gorski came in and I ran through a few old classics with him. Sadly he couldn’t be there last night.
Anyway… I was there nice and early to get things set up, and was glad when Fergus came in. I met him through Fraser at a drinking session few months back and remembered that he said he played the bass. It was good to see a new face. My on-going fear of the Jam Sessions is that it’s just me stumbling through songs, and I don’t yet have a core group of people who’s talents I know; I miss Javier, Fraser and Sandra.
Before we even had things set up, we had a band of Devin, Deen, Höskuldur, Fergus and Me. It was enough to run through a few songs and blow off the cob webs. Fergus made a great difference to our Bass-less practicing the previous night. I think we probably did Angie and Dancing in the moonlight. Pretty soon a quiet guy named James joined in with some wonderfully improvised acoustic guitar over the top of everything. We continued like this through another several songs, before I eventually was able to take a break and leave the band to a few jams.
It was sounding pretty good from off the stage. The bar was still pretty quiet but it was good to hear a jam still continuing while I wasn’t playing. Ted and Mathew were there to talk to René about making a promotional video(watch this space).
After a while I returned to the stage and we ran through some more Jammy songs now that I had a feeling for our Ad-Hoc band of the night. If memory serves me correctly we ran through Knockin on Heaven’s door, All along the watch tower and Battle of Evermore with Marco now adding some acoustic guitar. By the time I finished that lot, we also had Dave Harmonica Hulks, Geert and Robert waiting to play. The combination suggested blues was the order of the Jam, and I left them to shuffle away for a good 20 minutes.
Tamira had been chilling in the smoking area down the stairs waiting for the band to go on. I was quite jealous of the coziness down in the smoking area, while I was upstairs being paranoid that everything wasn’t running smoothly. Eventually her Bass player(Lorenzo arrived) and we put together a band to do Tubthumping, Boots and MGMT… before we returned to some blues Jams until the end of the Jam.
All in all it was a pretty good jam. It started slowly, but eventually there was lots of happy musicians playing away who seemed to be really enjoying themselves. We still don’t have enough audience members braving the tough January weather and Winter Depressie to come out and see us, but hopefully with the number of musicians we have that will slowly come.
Below is a list of some of the songs that cropped up during the night:
Devin, Deen and I had a practice the previous day before opening to run through a few things. I’m hoping these Wednesday sessions give us a chance to build a semblance of a house band, but I was a bit disappointed that it was just the three of us running through my Open Mike chords, maybe I tried to do too much on my first week back at work. The mood lifted when Marcel Gorski came in and I ran through a few old classics with him. Sadly he couldn’t be there last night.
Anyway… I was there nice and early to get things set up, and was glad when Fergus came in. I met him through Fraser at a drinking session few months back and remembered that he said he played the bass. It was good to see a new face. My on-going fear of the Jam Sessions is that it’s just me stumbling through songs, and I don’t yet have a core group of people who’s talents I know; I miss Javier, Fraser and Sandra.
Before we even had things set up, we had a band of Devin, Deen, Höskuldur, Fergus and Me. It was enough to run through a few songs and blow off the cob webs. Fergus made a great difference to our Bass-less practicing the previous night. I think we probably did Angie and Dancing in the moonlight. Pretty soon a quiet guy named James joined in with some wonderfully improvised acoustic guitar over the top of everything. We continued like this through another several songs, before I eventually was able to take a break and leave the band to a few jams.
It was sounding pretty good from off the stage. The bar was still pretty quiet but it was good to hear a jam still continuing while I wasn’t playing. Ted and Mathew were there to talk to René about making a promotional video(watch this space).
After a while I returned to the stage and we ran through some more Jammy songs now that I had a feeling for our Ad-Hoc band of the night. If memory serves me correctly we ran through Knockin on Heaven’s door, All along the watch tower and Battle of Evermore with Marco now adding some acoustic guitar. By the time I finished that lot, we also had Dave Harmonica Hulks, Geert and Robert waiting to play. The combination suggested blues was the order of the Jam, and I left them to shuffle away for a good 20 minutes.
Tamira had been chilling in the smoking area down the stairs waiting for the band to go on. I was quite jealous of the coziness down in the smoking area, while I was upstairs being paranoid that everything wasn’t running smoothly. Eventually her Bass player(Lorenzo arrived) and we put together a band to do Tubthumping, Boots and MGMT… before we returned to some blues Jams until the end of the Jam.
All in all it was a pretty good jam. It started slowly, but eventually there was lots of happy musicians playing away who seemed to be really enjoying themselves. We still don’t have enough audience members braving the tough January weather and Winter Depressie to come out and see us, but hopefully with the number of musicians we have that will slowly come.
Below is a list of some of the songs that cropped up during the night:
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