The real reason I started blogging again...

...is that I got new musical toys to play with (and to blog about.)

The in-laws got me a Eurorack UB1222FX-Pro mixer for Christmas. My sister also got me a gift card to Guitar Center, which meant a spree of musical purchases there and at Musician's Friend.com that went well beyond what I meant to spend.

The initial trip to Guitar Center yielded some cables and a Furman M-8Lx power conditioner. I don't trust the wiring of my old house, and my guitar amp has been buzzing like crazy, so the power conditioner was in order. The more exciting stuff is in the mail.

More on the guitar and recording toys as they come in. More on the mixer when I get more time to play with it!

Why no word?

Not sure why I haven't been blogging right as things have picked up. The crew has been Kevin M on vocals, Kevin C on drums, Mike on bass, and myself on guitar. We worked Far Side for a number of weeks, and basically the 12/8 bar is the only part we need to lock down. Next came The Door, which came together relatively quickly. Only update there is the sparse guitar intro. Stooge and Tomorrow came together pretty quickly from there. Need to nail down the Tomorrow stop. After that its just polishing.

Trying to get a manager to book gigs. Need a name for the band. Wondering how Kevin M's first kid is going to affect us going forward. Things might get interesting again soon...

Anyway, band name ideas:
Team Badguys (From Jen C)
Bottleneck (From Steve N, C1NG)
Good Behavior (From Mike)

Kevin M apparently played in a band named Lesser Offense, so he was making the connection with Good Behavior...


Also, in recent news, somehow a cleanup effort popped the cap in my digital delay pedal. Wondering if I want to replace it or go a different route. Volume/Wah is still the mainstay, and I'm trying to get the Whammy pedal in the mix.

11th Jam: Party Harder

Date: 4/15/09
Location: Mt Prospect Studios

Mike: Bass
Kevin M: Vocals
Ryan: Guitar
Kevin C: Drums
Carl: Guitar

So, I missed the Jazz show at Fitzgerald's, but this was worth it. Kevin C invited his friend Carl to jam. Kevin vouched for him, but I gotta admit I was a little worried when he pulled out the acoustic. No worries. He was solid, even over Stooge. I definitely never heard an acoustic part in Stooge, but it sounded good. Hopefully, we'll keep him showing up with Kevin C.

While we were waiting on Carl, we jammed through a little riff in Dm. Good stuff. Even remembered to turn on the 8-track. Someday, I'll have enough time to develop some of this stuff, but in the meantime, it's just fun to jam through it.

We whipped through Tomorrow and some Stooge after Carl arrived. The Stooge outro was rag-tag, but it finally held together. I know Mike is going to want some clean transitions, but I kinda liked how we followed each other through the mixed-meter stuff. Okay, maybe it was five minutes too long, but I was digging it. Kevin M had the idea to jump back in on vocals after our musical adventure, which was something I had in the back of my mind as well. Great minds, eh? Ha ha ha...

After Kevin M left, we worked through some Cowboy Song. We have a few parts now that are pretty cool. We're going to have to try to work some melody into the fold in the near future. And I haven't even busted out the original bridge I wrote for the song.

When we got bored, Kevin C took the mic and I laid down a beat. It was an upbeat blues groove. Kevin was spewing gibberish, but I liked the sound. I'd love to keep going, but...God forbid these guys let me start switching instruments.

Oh, one more milestone: This was officially the night I realized that my back problems were from extensive guitar jams. The Gibson is by far the heaviest guitar I've played, and thinking about it, I've rarely played standing up for 2+ hrs straight. If it's just me, I'll take a break or sit down. I'm usually on acoustic for composing anyway. Anyway, hanging a 12 pound weight off one shoulder for 2 hrs is a problem. I'll have to figure out how to handle that going forward.

And to think I blamed ice hockey. For shame!

It is Growing

The shipment came in two parts. The set of microphones and stands came Thursday, whereas the rest had to be signed for on Friday. What a tease.

The Phonic Powerpod 780 Plus and two Phonic S715's came Friday afternoon. The most bang for the very least amount of buck. You never know when you will need a system that can pump out 500 watts of rock, but I hope that exact situation happens to me soon.

Still getting the hang of the powered-mixer. It looks like there's a monitor bus and a main bus, but I'm not sure if its set up to handle stereo recording. I at least have a way to get 6 mics mixed down into two input channels. I set up 4 mics to record the drums for a rough cut of Crazy Days. Did it sound better? Not sure. I was able to get a clearer snare sound, but it involved having a mic all in my junk, so it's probably not a long term solution.

Looking forward to the next jam. Kevin M. is out this week, so I might have the pick up the singing duties to break in the PA. Hmmm, I'd better learn the lyrics to my own songs...

2nd Jam: Let's Rock just a Little Harder

Date: 2/4
Location: Mt Prospect Studios

John: Guitar
Jim: Guitar/Drums
Kevin M: Vocals
Ryan: Bass/Drums/Guitar

After losing the argument with Kevin that he really should take my mumbles at face value and write his own lyrics, I relent and send him the lyrics to Stooge. Why did I not send the lyrics to the other songs? They were not on the computer from which I was sending emails to the group that day.* And I thought I could still win the argument that he should write lyrics.

Note to self: Befriend a poet, or at least someone who writes sweet lyrics to rock songs.
Note to self: Realize you're creating a band in which you will soon not have a spot, other than "sound guy" or "fly-dancer."
Note to self: Find some fly-dancers for the band.

Had to throw Kevin's vocals through the compressor and out the little Crate 15-watt practice amp. It actually worked pretty well. Hoping the PA comes by next week.

John, Kevin, and I pounded through Stooge before Jim arrived, and then again after he showed. We pulled that together fast enough that I wished I had planned more for the rehearsal. We messed around with a few songs trying to find something everybody knew. Kevin scoured the Interweb for lyrics of songs we were throwing at him. A little "You Really Got Me" happened.

While Kevin went off to the Interweb again, John, Jim and I got a little minor-rock groove going that alternated between quiet, rim-shot driven verses and harder choruses. John mentioned it was only two chords (I was on drums at the time.) We'll have to bust that out again and develop it in the future.

Plush was the closest we came to doing a cover. That's a possiblity going forward.

Jim mentioned the "Just-to-be-Difficult" riff again. I'll have to work on that one. Mike's gonna love the first rehearsal he attends!

Rock.

*Later discovered that the lyrics were on that computer, just not in the folder I expected them to be in. Even better.