I’m full of chili and jambalaya awaits us once we’re home from the show. It’s not an inspirational combination. Heather and Kristen and I are riding the Weaselmobile south to meet with Lea for a show in Falls Church and all I want to do is curl up and watch movies and fall asleep.
The morning was spent with my guitar and words and my voice. I forget how much I Love my voice sometimes. It’s a recalcitrant, difficult to control organ that as often as not does what it wants – but over the years I’ve learned what to do within its confines, and even if I can’t fine tune it, I can at least shunt it in the desired direction and let it romp in an intelligent direction.
I worked on a couple of covers and on something new. Something new and angry. I think maybe that’s one of my mental blocks right now – I’m really, really, really angry and that seems like… not folky. I can’t imagine doing some of the things I’m writing without accompaniment and would feel silly bringing them out at NERFA or Falcon Ridge. My rar is up and rar can sound kind of funny if people don’t buy into it.
Vinnie Valerio at the Teavolve open mic. DeJohn in the house! Heather Aubrey Lloyd. IO Chris Hamilton.
Last night we had a great band practice. I’ve introduced the Zoom into practices and now we record a little more carefully. Instant playback and mixing has allowed us a bit more in the way of flexibility when it comes to talking about brainstorming. It is interesting to operate without an effective written language. I wonder what Kristen and Sharif think about that sometimes. They seem to be just fine with just jamming our way through complex passages, expressing ourselves with sentences like “why not something like THIS *beats on couch* or *la la laa bom de doo*” rather than “don’t you think a counterpoint percussive roll would work better? Or climbing down the F# scale? Skip the fourth.”
Did that even sound convincing? Shit. All these years and I still can’t even speak the language.
