…I just don’t seem to write in it. 8 Days! 8 Days since my last blog!
Yikes, it started last Monday with a lot of snow. I stayed in and chilled out. I work about 23 hours for my TA position so I spend a lot of time grading the discussion board responses. In fact, I was on the road so much last week, that I did not have an opportunity to grade much of anything. So I spent about 7 hours grading today, amongst other things. There are some things of a personal nature, which I can’t go blabbing on about in this blog but suffice it to say that has been eating a lot of time up too. Anyhow, I’m here and ready to type, so let’s talk about my three shows last week!
Show 1: Thursday–Lycoming College–Williamsport, PA
I played at Lycoming last February and it stunk. That sounds mean to say but people didn’t seem to like me very much and it wasn’t in a very ideal location but I am definitely one to give second chances, like when I played in Farmington back in October and it went 1000% better. The same thing happened this time around. There was a small but super appreciative crowd and they really seemed to dig the performance. There were a few requests: Tom Petty, The Beatles and it went great. No other real highlights about the show except that I had some new friends of mine open up: The Twilight Session. They were cool guys and after we went out to a local pub and hung out. It was nice at the pub but weird because people smoked there and that doesn’t fly in Massachusetts!
The ride was uneventful. It took 7 hours and I listened to “Freakenomics” on CD on the way there. It was interesting and talked about how economics and incentives drives everything in society. it talked about the hierarchy of a crack gang!, and how child seats weren’t necessarily safer for children, and how real estate agents might not work in the best interest of their clients and all these unrelated things but it was super interesting.
Not the CD I listened to on the ride home. I’m a fan of Mitch Albom’s sport reporting but not his book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”. It was a nice concept, well told but it was waaaaay to sappy and melodramatic for me. It reminded me of “The Lovely Bones” but I like “The Lovely Bones” better at the time. I don’t regret reading it…but yea, it wasn’t for me.
I also drove through Scranton, which is AWESOME because I am a big fan of “The Office”. It takes place and Scranton but I didn’t stop because the weather was crappy. I did stop, however, just outside of Scranton and got 6 shirts that say “Lackawanna Wonderful”. I got one for me, my roommate Bob, my drummer Max (oh yea, Max is my new drummer…we’ll get to that later), my girlfriend Marie, my sister Danielle, and my cousin Lauren, ALL of us big Office fans.
So the trip was nice, but I was exhausted because I didn’t sleep more than four hours the night before and was up sort of late with the Lycoming people at the bar after and I got up early. Unforuntately, the fun didn’t stop because I got back to cambridge by 2:30 and was out the door by 4 and during that period I had to spend some time on my TA work, which leads me to my next show.
Show 2 — Friday — Holy Cross (FULL BAND!)
So I arrived home, did some work, ate some pasta, and was out the door to practice. We were without Andy at practice before the gig so I met with Brian and Max at Brian Packer’s house. We went through the tunes and things are definitely coming together. It’s funny because I’ve seen Max play with Chad Perrone and with Cahill as well as with Alison Wood and he’s a pretty flawless drummer but it was interesting to watch him struggle through songs…kind of enlightening too. I don’t write technically advanced compositions but he still had to ‘learn’ them like any other musician.
That being said, the new band has some good chemistry. We’re working out the kinks but I think we’ll be able to put some time and get everything perfect. I am a little concerned, however, because I found out today that Max might be gone from February 20th-March 27th for a gig in Florida, which is great for him but puts us in a tough spot. I don’t begrudge him this opportunity because it’ll give him some money he sorely needs but we just got rolling with him! Luckily, I have a couple other drummers in mind so I don’t think we’ll have to cancel any gigs because of it. I’m really ready to take things to the next level so as soon as I get a verdict on Max, I’ll get things rolling!
So yea, we arrived at Holy Cross and had to park illegally because there was a basketball game and EVERY SPOT was taken so we literally parked with our hazards on for like 4 hours.
Anyways, we played this show with Forever in Motion, who is basically one dude solo, and Fly Upright Kite who I admire and envy due to their station in the Boston music scene. We played second after Forever in Motion played a short set. Our set was fun except for the fact that the microphone wasn’t properly grounded and I kept shocking myself, which sucked. I have a tendency to get really close to the mic and that was bad in this situation. Asad from Fly Upright Kite had trouble with it too but he was able to get them to switch out a speaker and everything worked fine…
There was a weird phenomenon at this show. I’ve played at Holy Cross like 7 times and they’ve been nice to me but the shows are infrequently attended and it’s hard to build a buzz there. I had my interns promote the heck out of this show by sending 100s of messages on My Space and there were some results we probably had like 10 people show up because of the My Space messages, which seems like a small percentage but actually isn’t all that bad from an odds standpoint. We played the middle slot rather than last because we were concerned that Fly Upright Kite would bring a slew of people who would leave after them but the opposite kind of happened. After we played, the place thinned out considerably. They’re always good to me there and it’s a shame that there events are so poorly attended (well the musical events…). The first time I played there, I opened for a comedian and it was packed.
As for our actual performance, we were loose and played pretty well considering it was our first show as this kind of unit. Max complained that he played ‘through’ the songs rather than with the songs, which can be credited partially to Andy’s spotty bass playing. Brian Packer played well, but I think I’ve been too liberal with what I allow him to do and he overplayed. He’s a fantastic drummer but I have to realize I write songs, not necessarily guitar-oriented music. I do think, however, that we can find a good balance to make things work. Not to say that I was free from mistakes. I think I sang so-so. I didn’t reach a ton, though I don’t think it mattered because a lot of people said that they couldn’t hear the vocals to begin with.
With all those criticisms, I’d still grade us a B on the performance. We collectively had a fun time and I think it translated to the audience, which is important for us. We had a solid groove a lot of the times…Execution was shaky but I think we are going to be a great unit (provided that Max sticks around…if not, we’ll move on).
Fly Upright Kite is one of those bands that I’m jealous of. They play a lot of shows (too many perhaps?) and have a consistent draw in some places but seeing them play Friday to a sparse crowd made me realize that they’re not all that different from me. They still struggle and play bad gigs…Still, it’s always fun to play with them and I hope we get to play soon.
We hung around and talked to FUK until like 2 o’clock. I was in bed by 3 and was eeeeexhausted.
Show 3 — Saturday — Copperfield’s in Boston
I got a phone call on the way to Holy Cross from my friends from the Boston Molasses Disaster (we were supposed to play the ill fated Paradise Lounge show in December with them…) and they needed a couple bands for a show on Saturday. I told them I’d play if they can’t find someone but I’m always hesitant to get involved in a band show and play solo. Well, I called them on Saturday and it was a go. I was going to play first.
I spent most of Saturday getting my life back in order. I had been preparing for Holy Cross and was on the road for a while so I had to organize some stuff. I prepared and headed over to Copperfield’s. This bar is in the Fenway area and I’m glad I found i. It’s a 140 capacity place, which is great because it’s more ‘my level’ than the Paradise Lounge. They pay the bands well (bands set cover and make 100%) . The vibe is good and it sounds pretty good in there too.
I played a good set and got to see some mutual friends with the BMD guys. One of my interns, James, played with his band Poor Boy’s Reason and it was cool watching play. He’s one of the most aggressive drummers I have ever seen in my life. He just bangs away on them.
I was super impressed by BMD. It’s always nice to support friends and see them play but they kicked ass. A lot of it. They were a jam band but I never would have thought that they would be able to put everything so tight like that so quickly. Granted, they’ve been rehearsing for a while to get ready for the show, but bravo!
I think we’re going to set up a show with them for Todd’s (their bassist and friend of mine) birthday and I think it’s going to be great.
– Conclusion –
So this is a mondo sized entry to cover my lack of entries from before. I’ve been working with the interns to design new t-shirts, the new CD is almost done being mastered (maybe I’ll blog about that process tomorrow!), and we’ve gotten over 120 My Space adds in the last 2 weeks. The interns have been doing great great work. I’ll ellaborate more later. I have to clean the kitchen, eat some lunch, play some guitar, then head to Springfield!
Later days.
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