Rehearsal with Dieter last Friday. Went over the sketches we’ve been working once again, and thinks are looking better. The songs are beginning to have their own lives, sounding more and more ‘organic’ as we go along. To write, play and record just the two of us is a slow and painstaking process, as we become more focused on every single detail and want to craft every song as perfectly as possible. But when ideas flow easily as they have been doing, it is extremely rewarding.
During a pause I showed Dieter some highlights of the Bukowski poems I’ve been reading. He encouraged me to take over the mike and read some of them as he played. I felt awkward at first, but after a few verses, there I went, mike on one hand, beer on another – almost felt like Buk on some Beat reading… We went over some random poems, and the feel was great. The combination of Buk’s words with the acoustic guitar was hauntingly beautiful. This unexpected session got us filled with new ideas. We’ve decided to pick up 4 or 5 of his poems and go over them in this fashion. I’d like to have Morgan Freeman reciting the poems, but he seems busy at the moment, so I’ll try my best…
Back to work with Bad Sign again this Sunday. Hadn’t played as a band for some 2 months now. As expected, we were a bit rusty, but it’s always thrilling to play together. We have now 5 or 6 sketches of songs in our hands, all of them appealing (to us, anyway). Two years and 60 gigs after getting together for this bluesy adventure, we still have a great time together and ideas keep flowing easily and leading us into often unexpected, sometimes great new turns.
But this is the easiest part. Taking the ‘next step’, that is, gathering motivation, consistency and commitment enough to aspire to higher goals, is what seems to be lingering still a bit too far. There is not a clearly defined direction in our sound at the moment, too many open ends. Which may be good up to a point, but I feel that we sometimes, in a way, lack personality as a band.
These are our first real song-writing steps, after 2 years as a blues cover band and a giant turn taking us towards original rock-blues-soul. So maybe this is normal, maybe it’s just a question of time, hard work and patience before things come together. That is what I try to keep in mind every day. Despite all the impatience and doubt, I try to remember that in music, as in life in general, it is often the unexpected that makes things real. The hard part is learning to accept it, especially in troubled times.
That is, maybe, the hardest part for all musicians.
To have this in mind, while feeling the hunger and the urge to do better, to go as farther and as fast as they can.
To walk the thin line between this urge for things to happen, and the patience necessary to make them happen…
Into starlight.
During a pause I showed Dieter some highlights of the Bukowski poems I’ve been reading. He encouraged me to take over the mike and read some of them as he played. I felt awkward at first, but after a few verses, there I went, mike on one hand, beer on another – almost felt like Buk on some Beat reading… We went over some random poems, and the feel was great. The combination of Buk’s words with the acoustic guitar was hauntingly beautiful. This unexpected session got us filled with new ideas. We’ve decided to pick up 4 or 5 of his poems and go over them in this fashion. I’d like to have Morgan Freeman reciting the poems, but he seems busy at the moment, so I’ll try my best…
Back to work with Bad Sign again this Sunday. Hadn’t played as a band for some 2 months now. As expected, we were a bit rusty, but it’s always thrilling to play together. We have now 5 or 6 sketches of songs in our hands, all of them appealing (to us, anyway). Two years and 60 gigs after getting together for this bluesy adventure, we still have a great time together and ideas keep flowing easily and leading us into often unexpected, sometimes great new turns.
But this is the easiest part. Taking the ‘next step’, that is, gathering motivation, consistency and commitment enough to aspire to higher goals, is what seems to be lingering still a bit too far. There is not a clearly defined direction in our sound at the moment, too many open ends. Which may be good up to a point, but I feel that we sometimes, in a way, lack personality as a band.
These are our first real song-writing steps, after 2 years as a blues cover band and a giant turn taking us towards original rock-blues-soul. So maybe this is normal, maybe it’s just a question of time, hard work and patience before things come together. That is what I try to keep in mind every day. Despite all the impatience and doubt, I try to remember that in music, as in life in general, it is often the unexpected that makes things real. The hard part is learning to accept it, especially in troubled times.
That is, maybe, the hardest part for all musicians.
To have this in mind, while feeling the hunger and the urge to do better, to go as farther and as fast as they can.
To walk the thin line between this urge for things to happen, and the patience necessary to make them happen…
Into starlight.
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