Just a quick one...
Dale turned round and said to me last time I was at Katie's that the Jam Sessions that run on Wednesday needs some more bass players, so I decided to take my bass down tonight and have a go. What tends to happen is that a band is booked to play a 'featured set' and whoever else is there jams around the slot; not quite the concept of a Jam Night you'd pick up from the Maverick but that's how LC is making it work so there you go.
I got up with LC on guitar and Rob on the drums, and started off with some disco-funk, and it worked once we'd found a key we were happy with (the guitar-friendly E.) Moved on to some classic rock style, er, rock, which worked really well as well. I've jammed with these guys a couple of times before and sometimes in can feel like we're a band already because of the ease at which we communicate! I tried some ill-advised riffs on the bass that didn't work too well, plus some slow jamming which worked but wasn't very exciting, before LC turned up the metal, drop-tuned his guitar and played some really heavy riffs to jam along too. I didn't follow this one so well as this sort of thing tends to break away from the trends of where I would expect to have to go with a bass guitar, then again I don't play this style of music very much so perhaps this isn't surprising. But, I kept up, and the guys waiting to go on seemed to like it!
Whew, that's all my blogging done for the day. It'll be a while before my next one as I'm not sure when my next gig will be, though I do need to get down the Yardbird again before too long. See you soon!
Showing posts with label Katy Fitzgeralds Jam Sessions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katy Fitzgeralds Jam Sessions. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 July 2011
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Katies Jam Sessions, 2/3/2011
Tonight, this was more of a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that I hadn't done a gig so far this week, and with Sam not doing the open nights this week, Katies was all I had left. Still, that doesn't mean that I didn't get anything out of it...
I ended up jamming with LC and Rob, always a pleasure. LC kicked the first one off with a funky bass line, which I followed with some choppy-choppy barre chords. Holding the chords together with LC's bass line was simple enough, but I think it's a testament to how long it's been since I've jammed properly on guitar that I kept losing my notes every time I tried to put a bit of lead work in there. I can do it on bass but for some reason not on guitar, it's something I think I should work at but then again I usually end up playing bass at this sort of thing anyway.
Next, inspired by Matt from The Fakes at band practice tonight, we had a go at She Hates Me by Puddle of Mudd. Considering I've never really played it in Eflat tuning before, and LC and Rob had never played it before at all as far as I know, we actually did quite well. I clocked a few reactions from some of the younger guys in the room tonight; it's the same with anybody over the age of 25, play them a song they grew up with and they will love it no matter how good or bad you play.
I led the next jam, this time with a funky but heavy riff. LC followed it well but what made this one interesting was the fact that I kept modulating it up a key. The riff usually remained the same so it wasn't too hard to follow but it keeps you on your toes. I enjoyed the breakdown part at the end of it!
I guess what I need to keep in mind about nights like this is that I'm always going to be playing with people who are better - or at least, do things differently - to me. I'll never be wasting my time playing with LC and Rob, and it's going to improve my playing a lot playing with some different people to the usual crowd (which, in the general context of guitar, is exclusively the Fakes these days.)
So thanks to LC for putting that on, I might be down there with Perception at the end of the month, you never know...
I ended up jamming with LC and Rob, always a pleasure. LC kicked the first one off with a funky bass line, which I followed with some choppy-choppy barre chords. Holding the chords together with LC's bass line was simple enough, but I think it's a testament to how long it's been since I've jammed properly on guitar that I kept losing my notes every time I tried to put a bit of lead work in there. I can do it on bass but for some reason not on guitar, it's something I think I should work at but then again I usually end up playing bass at this sort of thing anyway.
Next, inspired by Matt from The Fakes at band practice tonight, we had a go at She Hates Me by Puddle of Mudd. Considering I've never really played it in Eflat tuning before, and LC and Rob had never played it before at all as far as I know, we actually did quite well. I clocked a few reactions from some of the younger guys in the room tonight; it's the same with anybody over the age of 25, play them a song they grew up with and they will love it no matter how good or bad you play.
I led the next jam, this time with a funky but heavy riff. LC followed it well but what made this one interesting was the fact that I kept modulating it up a key. The riff usually remained the same so it wasn't too hard to follow but it keeps you on your toes. I enjoyed the breakdown part at the end of it!
I guess what I need to keep in mind about nights like this is that I'm always going to be playing with people who are better - or at least, do things differently - to me. I'll never be wasting my time playing with LC and Rob, and it's going to improve my playing a lot playing with some different people to the usual crowd (which, in the general context of guitar, is exclusively the Fakes these days.)
So thanks to LC for putting that on, I might be down there with Perception at the end of the month, you never know...
Monday, 7 February 2011
Katy Fitzgeralds Open Night, 7/2/2011
Here we are again. Actually to be fair this one was because of what else I've got going on this week (band practice with the Fakes on Tuesday, helping out at a Rock Gig for DPA on Wednesday, maybe band practice with Perception on Thursday, and then doing the Pioneer weekend for DPA on, well, the weekend) making doing a gig at any other time quite difficult. But hey, I need no excuse to go to an open night. That being said, with another gig at the Wharf coming up, maybe I should be concentrating more on hitting Walsall... still, here's what happened tonight:
Even though I've tried to do some new material over the past few gigs, I've not really done it very well. And I was conscious of the fact that I haven't done much (or indeed, any) practice since last time I played Katies. With that in mind, I decided to play songs that I actually knew tonight. With hindsight, maybe kicking off a night with Prisoner of my Mind was not a brilliant idea, it's pretty much the most desolate wrist-slasher I play at the moment (speaking figuratively, of course,) and opening what for many people will be a night out with a Radiohead-style shoe-gazer hardly does much to set the tone. Still, I played it OK, which is good because it's been a LONG time since I last played it...
I then went in to Get Out Of My Head. I played it quite well, though I wasn't really feeling much energy from it. It was quite amusing, actually, when I sang the line 'And then a car goes past and I can't believe what I saw,' at precisely the same moment some unidentified emergency vehicle zoomed past the pub with it's sirens on full blast. Unfortunately this was one of those occasions where this song didn't go down too well, as I finished the song and absolutely nothing happened for about four or five seconds, then LC started off the clapping which didn't last too long. I don't know what it is about this song that has that effect on people but it seems to be a bit hit and miss and I really can't work out why.
I finished it with Bitterness, and again even though I was playing it OK I wasn't feeling much energy. I guess that's the problem with going on first; there were quite a few people in the pub but as most of them were either waiting to play themselves, in which case their focus would have been on their own sets, or had just come in and getting the drinks in, there wasn't much attention on what was going on. Still, I came across an old friend Shaw who does Zaneus promotions on and off, who told me he liked it so I can't argue with that.
So, not a highlight of my gigs so far this year. What made it significant for me was making some new friends and most of all running into another old friend Emma, who used to be in Crashpoint. She was there playing a set with some other people as a kind of band set-up, fair play to her. Hearing her sing took me right back to the Crashpoint days back in 09... it saddens me, actually, to see people who've been in bands in the past, and now go around doing acoustic sets because they can't hold the band together. Not to be presumptuous about Emma - she originally left Crashpoint because she literally couldn't sing that style of music any more, and from what I remember of her musical tastes this new set-up probably suits her better in any case - but it's quite a common thing to see, myself included. This one hit me quite hard because it was my band she was in... anyway, this made the night significant for me because it became the inspiration for a new set of lyrics that hopefully I'll have time to work through tomorrow. Seriously, I'm going to need about a week to work on all my new songs and get them ready to play.
Even though I've tried to do some new material over the past few gigs, I've not really done it very well. And I was conscious of the fact that I haven't done much (or indeed, any) practice since last time I played Katies. With that in mind, I decided to play songs that I actually knew tonight. With hindsight, maybe kicking off a night with Prisoner of my Mind was not a brilliant idea, it's pretty much the most desolate wrist-slasher I play at the moment (speaking figuratively, of course,) and opening what for many people will be a night out with a Radiohead-style shoe-gazer hardly does much to set the tone. Still, I played it OK, which is good because it's been a LONG time since I last played it...
I then went in to Get Out Of My Head. I played it quite well, though I wasn't really feeling much energy from it. It was quite amusing, actually, when I sang the line 'And then a car goes past and I can't believe what I saw,' at precisely the same moment some unidentified emergency vehicle zoomed past the pub with it's sirens on full blast. Unfortunately this was one of those occasions where this song didn't go down too well, as I finished the song and absolutely nothing happened for about four or five seconds, then LC started off the clapping which didn't last too long. I don't know what it is about this song that has that effect on people but it seems to be a bit hit and miss and I really can't work out why.
I finished it with Bitterness, and again even though I was playing it OK I wasn't feeling much energy. I guess that's the problem with going on first; there were quite a few people in the pub but as most of them were either waiting to play themselves, in which case their focus would have been on their own sets, or had just come in and getting the drinks in, there wasn't much attention on what was going on. Still, I came across an old friend Shaw who does Zaneus promotions on and off, who told me he liked it so I can't argue with that.
So, not a highlight of my gigs so far this year. What made it significant for me was making some new friends and most of all running into another old friend Emma, who used to be in Crashpoint. She was there playing a set with some other people as a kind of band set-up, fair play to her. Hearing her sing took me right back to the Crashpoint days back in 09... it saddens me, actually, to see people who've been in bands in the past, and now go around doing acoustic sets because they can't hold the band together. Not to be presumptuous about Emma - she originally left Crashpoint because she literally couldn't sing that style of music any more, and from what I remember of her musical tastes this new set-up probably suits her better in any case - but it's quite a common thing to see, myself included. This one hit me quite hard because it was my band she was in... anyway, this made the night significant for me because it became the inspiration for a new set of lyrics that hopefully I'll have time to work through tomorrow. Seriously, I'm going to need about a week to work on all my new songs and get them ready to play.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Katies Jam Sessions, 2/2/2011
I've just been in a curious situation where I couldn't remember what website I actually wanted and kept pressing random keys until I found it...
Didn't have time to write this last night; Dante asked me to come to the Jam session at Katies so I packed both my guitars and went there after band practice with The Fakes (they tend to tune to E flat so it makes sense to bring my Les Paul which is also tuned to E flat!) I had no preconceived idea of what I was going to do when I got there though.
Most of the time I was on stage I actually ended up playing bass, as it happens. We began with an improvised version of Through Glass with Dante singing, LC on guitar and Rob on the drums. I guess it went OK, if you don't set much store by how much it sounded like the original! We managed to leave out half the song...
That done, we hadn't got a clue what to play next (In a way I'm actually quite glad that my suggestion of This Is War by 30 Seconds To Mars didn't happen in the end, because almost certainly we'd have not done it very well!) and we decided to have a bit of a jam. LC started playing a hard rock style guitar riff in A, me and Rob joined in and Dante freestyled some vocals to it, and it was one of those moments of magic where we're literally just making it up as we're going along and yet it sounds like we'd been playing it for ages! Awesome stuff, I ended up shaking hands with the entire 'band' after that.
We tried another one, this time without Dante, and this went from LC's funky E choppy-choppy chords to a Jane's Addiction-style freakout, and ended up with Rob going mad and finishing with a Metallica mosh riff. Funnily enough it still sounded like we were playing the same song all the way through. It's amazing when it works!
After that I got my guitar out and tuned it down to Drop C sharp (far easier to do that with mine than LC's Ibanez, as I haven't got a locking nut,) and had of all things a blues jam! Dante's figured out how to do the rock'n'roll shuffle in drop tuning so that was the reason for it. It was a new and not entirely comfortable experience for me trying to play blues on a bass in drop tuning, and not one I have any particular desire to repeat, however the fact that I was still reaching for the familiar positions in the blues scale came up with some very interesting notes...
I was going to freestyle some slower stuff with Dante after that because we really enjoyed it last time, sadly it was not to be but there's always next time, I guess. And there will be a next time; I'm really enjoying that at the moment and it's a refreshing change from all the acoustic stuff I've been doing over the last few weeks.
Off to Swindon tomorrow. See you next week!
Didn't have time to write this last night; Dante asked me to come to the Jam session at Katies so I packed both my guitars and went there after band practice with The Fakes (they tend to tune to E flat so it makes sense to bring my Les Paul which is also tuned to E flat!) I had no preconceived idea of what I was going to do when I got there though.
Most of the time I was on stage I actually ended up playing bass, as it happens. We began with an improvised version of Through Glass with Dante singing, LC on guitar and Rob on the drums. I guess it went OK, if you don't set much store by how much it sounded like the original! We managed to leave out half the song...
That done, we hadn't got a clue what to play next (In a way I'm actually quite glad that my suggestion of This Is War by 30 Seconds To Mars didn't happen in the end, because almost certainly we'd have not done it very well!) and we decided to have a bit of a jam. LC started playing a hard rock style guitar riff in A, me and Rob joined in and Dante freestyled some vocals to it, and it was one of those moments of magic where we're literally just making it up as we're going along and yet it sounds like we'd been playing it for ages! Awesome stuff, I ended up shaking hands with the entire 'band' after that.
We tried another one, this time without Dante, and this went from LC's funky E choppy-choppy chords to a Jane's Addiction-style freakout, and ended up with Rob going mad and finishing with a Metallica mosh riff. Funnily enough it still sounded like we were playing the same song all the way through. It's amazing when it works!
After that I got my guitar out and tuned it down to Drop C sharp (far easier to do that with mine than LC's Ibanez, as I haven't got a locking nut,) and had of all things a blues jam! Dante's figured out how to do the rock'n'roll shuffle in drop tuning so that was the reason for it. It was a new and not entirely comfortable experience for me trying to play blues on a bass in drop tuning, and not one I have any particular desire to repeat, however the fact that I was still reaching for the familiar positions in the blues scale came up with some very interesting notes...
I was going to freestyle some slower stuff with Dante after that because we really enjoyed it last time, sadly it was not to be but there's always next time, I guess. And there will be a next time; I'm really enjoying that at the moment and it's a refreshing change from all the acoustic stuff I've been doing over the last few weeks.
Off to Swindon tomorrow. See you next week!
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