»9th May 2010

Band

It's been a while since I did a blog update, long enough for people to actually notice. Sorry about that. So here it is, another update. It makes sense for this to be one of those whistle-stop summary of recent events updates, as opposed to a 'some funny shit happened today, lol' update. Some of this will stretch further back than the last blog update but I haven't mentioned it yet for whatever reason.

I joined a band

In September I finally got my act together and made a concerted effort to join a band. I replied to a few adverts posted on joinmyband.co.uk, pushing myself as a bassist/vocalist. Why not guitars? Well there are many guitarists and there are many guitarists that are significantly better than me, vocalists and (strangely) bassists however are thin on the ground so I was hoping a bassist/vocalist would be a pretty tight 'package' to 'market' myself under. I was looking for an established band where I could turn up, play music and go home. The other alternative would be forming some kind of NIN style 'touring band' to play my own music. That would be a lot of effort and I'd almost certainly need a car to pick up wayward players.

The first reply I got was from a band calling themselves Dead Till Dawn, they described themselves as melodic death metal (maybe, it's been a while and I can't be arsed trawling chat logs.) I sent many emails back and forth with the lead guitarist who seemed to be the band leader, we seemed to be on the same page with a lot of influences and he seemed impressed with the stuff I linked him from this site. There were no practices through October for some reason, the first practice was in November at Rock & Roll Circus in Leeds.

I left a band

I found out when we met up for the first rehearsal that I wasn't actually going to be the main vocalist, that they already had someone lined up for that, erm okay then. I found out I was another in a long line of bassists, some of which sound like complete psychos. The first practice was three hours of mostly unintelligible noise, the original songs (one and a half barely deserves a plural) were mostly without lyrics, the vocalist that turned up had very little to do, I was given some backing vocals to do but made a total screaming hash of them because I had no idea what note I was supposed to be singing. I found myself the old man in a band of eighteen/nineteen-year-olds. The second rehearsal was at least two weeks after the first one.

I exchanged many emails with the band, mostly with the lead guitarist. Covers were out of the question. 'What!?' I arranged one of my songs for the band but this was rejected for being 'too old-school'. The writing of the original songs progressed incredibily slowly and weren't particularly song-like: being completely devoid of lyrics; lacking full/any bass/drum parts; with only partial second guitar parts (most of which followed a similar irritating harmony sound); and with little thought given to understandable structures or memorable hooks/riffs. I sent long, verbose emails trying to spur on songwriting. With no progress coming from the lead guitarist's songwriting monopoly I finished off one of the songs myself, filling in complimentary parts for second guitar, bass and drums. This was met with little enthusiasm. I repeatedly emphasised how important covers are for starting bands, especially starting bands who only have like two unfinished songs to play. Eventually, a Trivium cover, was proposed which was never practiced... I became steadily more irritated.

The third rehearsal was in January, the drummer didn't turn up, no one had looked at my arrangement for the ever-memorably-titled 'Song 2'. We spent four or so hours knocking together about three minutes of an accoustic instrumental. With three months yielding only three rehearsals and about as much progress in songwriting as I could achieve in three hours (seriously) I decided to start looking for another band. I didn't formally quit, there didn't seem much point formally quitting a band that practiced so infrequently and had so little to its name to begin with, besides, maybe if they did have another rehearsal I could still turn up to that, it's not like I had parts to learn.

I joined a band

So some time in January I visited joinmyband.co.uk (is this a good advertisement for that site?) again and found some band called Sins of the Unforgiven that were looking for a bassist and vocalist to perform, amongst other things, Metallica covers. This was great, I had realised with DTD (the acronym is better than the full band name) that we were not on the same page at all when it came to influences. For example, there are bands I like from before 2000 that aren't Metallica. Despite feeling a bit of a lazy cop-out going down the Metallica covers route, it couldn't be any worse than DTD, (bear in mind, Goats is more of a band than DTD was (more on the past tense later.)) I had much more correspondence from the new band, and only had to wait two weeks, as opposed to a month, for the first rehearsal. Plus, six songs, all covers (and thus, featuring full parts, lyrics, and actual song structures) were on the agenda to play.

The first rehearsal was a wonderful success, it was like the bit in Some Kind of Monster when they audition Robert Trujillo and play through Battery. I found out I was another in a long line of bassists, some of which sound like complete psychos.

Rehearsals followed on a weekly basis. I made a website for the band, I started recording rehearsals, we got a first gig at some bar in Bradford pencilled in for the fifteenth, i.e. this saturday. Everything is going very well.

I went to a band meeting

Just before my birthday in March the new band, Sins of the Unforgiven that is, cancelled the booking at the rehearsal room on Tuesday and went to a pub in Huddersfield to have a band meeting to discuss adding new songs to the repetoire, PA and sound gear and gigs etc. The band meeting lasted for about an hour before giving way to a free-for-all drinking session.

The band meeting concluded outside Dewsbury train station at about 2am. The drummer was rather worse for wear, and had been so for some time following a drink of absinthe. He later recounted falling off a wall after walking through the woods, throwing up all over the bath room and traipsing mud all over the house. The rhythm guitarist fell into his wardrobe.

The following day at school I enjoyed my first experience of battling through a hangover at work. It was quietly terrifying, I was convinced that the smell of liquor brought on by several-too-many SoCo-Lemonades was lingering on my breath and that I was going to be fired. I had to devote practically all my concentration to walking in a straight line and maintaining a thoughtful expression as opposed to bleary-eyed squint. I have a rather stupid habit of getting nowhere near enough sleep, this was compounded by drunkeness. It was not a great day for education. Strangely, the hangover only really kicked in after lunchtime, I fortunately managed not to stumble into the swimming pool (Wednesday is Y4/5 boys swimming, which is the most awful thing ever.)

I had a hand in destroying a band

It soon became apparent to DTD (when I told the lead guitarist) that I was in another band. It seemed to come as a surprise that I had chosen to find a band that rehearsed on a more regular basis than once a month (if you're lucky) and that had more than two songs in a state ready to actually practice. The lead guitarist complained that (presumably aside from me finishing a song and trying to drum up momentum with long emails) he was the only one who put any effort in. I recomended he join another band as well.

The band seemed to rumble on few a few weeks more, with new vocalists (i.e. the same one who had turned up at the first rehearsal but who come back) and bassists (none) lined up for auditions. There were a few cheery 'awesome practice last night, guys' posts on the Facebook page, 'Hang on, do you guys have a bassist or a vocalist?'. Things seemed to finally collapse in the second half of March. The lead guitarist has now joined a death metal band.

I found myself in an important networking session, extremely drunk

In the run-up to the gig, the band have been rehearsing twice a week. Last friday, the lead guitarist and drummer couldn't make the rehearsal so I went with the rhythm guitarist to scout out the venue we'll be playing at, Zuu Bar in Bradford... Yes, the Zuu Bar... you know? yeah?

It was some kind of 16-18 night or something, there were lots of young girls, apparently, I honestly couldn't tell. There was a light-weight indie band playing, the female lead singer had no shoes/socks, she at one point started playing some bongos, there were two fanboys/groupies with tambourines, that is all you need to know. It was before nine when we were stood outside talking to the bouncer (who was friends with the rhythm guitarist and who had got us the gig to begin with) and already there was sick all over the cobbles, girls being turned away at the door and repeatedly thrown out for sneaking in. Feeling like old men we descended to the pub below.

The pub was called The New Empress and was a full-on rock bar, complete with bandana-wearing losers and middle-aged goths. At the bar was a tall trenchcoat mafioso weaing, I kid ye not, silvery-blue Kiss make-up. I found out from the barman (who reminded me of Hossman from Quake 3) will be playing in the band that's going on before us, I was getting worried about my amplification situation, he said I could use his some-hundred Watt 'rig', my roadie skill levelled up. I switched off the stuff on tap and hit the bottles of fancy Polish/Czech lager. We proceeded to get drunk; managed to get the DJ (who was apparently called 'Jesus') to play Slayer - Hell Awaits; and ended up talking to two smelly metalheads (imagine Jay and Silent Bob with Slayer t-shirts.) There was a Polish barwoman 'who seemed to get better-looking as the night progressed.' Reaching a state of immense inebriation, we somehow ended up with shots of Jaegermeister before returning upstairs having being informed that the children had all fucked off.

I must have been extremely drunk once back upstairs. This was the point at which the self-appointed movers and shakers of the 'Bradford Music Collective'--i.e. the guys who own the club--descended on the bar. The rhythm guitarist remembers talking to a man dressed in a cream suit who claimed he could set the band up with all kinds of gigs. 'Here is our bassist/vocalist!' 'Hurrrr.... Hii.' Colonel Sanders hopefully didn't pay too much attention to me. At some point a taxi was called and the impromptu networking session ended. Despite having a tenner thrust into my hand when the rhythm guitarist was dropped off, I found myself rooting through my pockets for any old shrapnel I could give the taxi driver who wanted £17. Then I dropped my wallet and spent five minutes fumbling around in the back for it. Somehow, the driver was satisfied with my drunken apologies and loose change and I was sent on my way. To quote Lost Highway, smooth as shit from a duck's ass. Ahem, yeah.

That's enough for now.


Extar, over, out.

"You be good. I love you." - Alex, the African Grey Parrot.