6/1/2012 – today I lick my wounds

Rehearsal is always a good thing. Even when songs sputter to an end like a dying car at a railroad crossing….it’s a good thing….if only ’cause you’ve identified the songs that should be left on the train tracks to be put out of their misery.

When a song isn’t working it gradually sucks the energy out of the room. Nobody wants to be the one to put a bullet in it, but capital punishment is a necessary evil in rehearsal spaces. On the other hand, when a song suddenly clicks, sometimes for no discernible reason at all, you feel like you can levitate. Knowing smiles return. Drums get punchier. Guitars get crunchier. Bass gets raunchier.

You gotta be prepared to suck while in the process of getting good. It’s a hard lesson to learn. You have to equate “sucking” with “learning”…..in the same way a scientist will tell you an experiment never fails. It may not yield the results you want, but at least it will rule out another path.

And so onward we go. And I think now’s a good time to list what’s been working or what’s been close to working. Just good time well known jamming music…fun to play and (hopefully) fun to listen to. Not all cover band mainstays, but that’s a good thing. You can overdose on the the “What I Like About You’s” of the world. Our main objective is to get the band’s original material across….so the cover songs are what we use to pad out the night. But if the set is structured right, you can slip the originals in amongst the trees and nobody will notice. Or maybe they will notice….in a good way….and grab a CD off the stage and say “you wrote these? how much?” That’s the goal anyway.

Can’t Explain
My Generation
Baby Don’t You Do It/Magic Bus (medley)
Not Fade Away
Light of Day
Jumping Jack Flash
Rocking All Over the World
Slippin’ and Slidin’
Fortunate Son
Shakin’ All Over/Save Me/Gloria (medley)
Up on Cripple Creek
The Weight
So You Want To Be a Rock and Roll Star
The Last Time
Domino
Shattered
The Real Me
Won’t Got Fooled Again

Give us a few more sweaty nights in that room. We’re getting it. Or I should say….they’re teaching it to me. And when I get it, we’ll be ready to hit the boards.

In a bit…

–tf

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