In an effort to be the most Web 2.0 band around, I have added Twitter to our arsenal of ways to annoy you. You can check out our feed here. I also added a widget on our sidebar. So stop on by and catch up on the minutia that makes up our lives. I think that we are off to a rollicking start with “Adam is going to the gym because he is tubby.”
So for the last couple of weeks the band has been bickering. I don’t want to get into it too much because it’s a little raw still, but that’s been the deal for the last few weeks. But last nights show was really good for a few reasons.
We decided to re-work the stuff that we played last night for a series of reasons. Primarily, the room is crazy small compared to what we normally play (not that we’ve been playing huge halls, but 48 person capacity is pretty crazy). Also, we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could set out on a project and complete it. It helps us work on actually being musicians to think about how we can change the style of a song. Our solution was to slow everything down, which was actually sort of effective. I heard a lot of people say they liked the new version of “Sixteen Buzzing” better than the way we normally play it. And that’s great, because we’ll have opportunities to play both versions of the song, so we came out of the process with something valuable. I think when you value creativity, taking a small risk and re-thinking the way you approach your songs can help you build a more solid foundation for the future. Furthermore, in re-working the songs it forces us to listen to what everyone else is playing. At least in my case, I’ve become pretty lazy over the last few shows and haven’t really taken the time to play off of Spencer, Charles, and Adam. That’s partially a function of trying to generate energy on-stage, which sometimes causes you to ignore what’s going on around you. However, ther best musicians use the inter-play between the parts to generate energy; I should listen to what Spencer plays, build on that and in this way build some energy. Our stuff tends to be a little more scripted than most bands, but there are opportunities ad-lib your part. But last nights show was very open, with a lot of room for each of us to change our parts on the spot. I think we did a good job playing together under these intentionally altered circumstances.
The “hearing” thing cannot possibly be over-stated. While everyone had more space to do their own thing, it seemed that we chose to listen to each other and mesh the parts in new and interesting ways. Even in songs that weren’t totally re-worked there were opportunities to change the feel because Spencer was playing with rods instead of sticks, which automatically changed the feel of the songs.
All of this leads me to believe we’ll be better as a band for having played at the Galaxy Hut, and that it would be a good place to gig about once every 4-6 months. Referring back to the earlier point, there was something therapeutic about playing a show that forced us to listen to one another and musically communicate. Without sounding like a total sap, I think that should do something for our ability to communicate when we’re not playing as well.
Christ that’s a boring post. I’ll do better next time.
One, of the many things, that has changed in the few years I spent between bands is that D.C. has a much more developed music scene. While my last band was playing, the District had Dischord, and little else. And while, I love grew up around here, and I love Dischord, I think their legacy became a little stifling after a while. I think the problem was that there were a lot fewer places to play in D.C. back then. You had the Grog, The Metro Cafe, Black Cat, and 9:30 club. There really wasn’t much else.
Now, D.C. bands are getting signed to some nice independent labels, Washington Social Club got a song played on Entourage, and there just generally seems to be a higher quality of music coming out of this town. For example, check out this post from Instrumental Analysis, two “CDs” worth of songs from local bands, all for free. The advent of blogs has also helped the scene a lot, the Post and the City Paper were never the best resources for what was happening in D.C. anyway. Also, let me suggest Wale’s mixtape, 100 Miles and Running. It is really good. So those are some quick music suggestions, and let me reiterate my suggestion to go see live music.