It's Official

The South Carolina trip now has official dates, as I've actually purchased my airfare. I'll be heading down on Monday, July 23rd and returning on Monday July 30th. I had to go with the slight change of date from what I had originally hoped for so to accomodate the better ticket prices. And despite the fact that the flight down there leaves at the ungodly hour of 5am, it still works out pretty well, because I get there at 10:30 and, in effect, have another full day there because of it.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to a full week of activities consisting of:

Relaxing
Eating
Drinking
Sleeping late
Visiting my nana in the old-folks home
Visiting my cousin, her husband, their son (my godson), and my aunt
(Hopefully) visiting my friend Danielle in Savannah
Additional partying in Savannah
(Hopefully) a day trip up to Charleston.
And did I mention relaxing, eating, and drinking?

Now it just remains to be seen who else is going to be able to make it down, and for how long. Hopefully everyone that expressed an interest will be able to come down to join me in some refreshing summery drinks and BBQ and (mostly) nothing I plan to do.
...
Typically, I prefer my Sundays to be devoid of activity. Like the lord, I prefer to rest, throw on my Sunday jeans, and relax. However, sometimes the opposite is also good. Case in point, yesterday. I wake up, shower and eat breakfast. Then head over to my uncle's house for a Father's Day cookout. That takes up much of the afternoon. I then head home for about an hour before heading back out again. This time to another cookout at my drummer's house. Where more food and beers were had, followed by starting a fire in the fire pit to keep us warm on that hot June evening, and to sit around while roasting marshmallows and playing drunken Madlibs. However, I had to bounce from this party to meet up with some other peeps over at the West Side Lounge for a few more drinks. After which I finally got to go home and go to bed.

Full day, and a good use of a Sunday, especially since it actually made it feel like an actual day off rather than the day before the day I have to return to work.

No more teachers, no more books...

It must be the end of the school year, because I heard "School's Out" by Alice Cooper twice this morning on my way to work. And this was on the soft rock stations that usually wouldn't be playing Alice Cooper.

Boy, that brings me back.

Those last few hours of a school year before that final bell rang? That was the definition of tension. Even moreso than Christmas Eve, I'd wager, for a child of that age. Sure Christmas was great, what with presents and all, but it was one day. Summer vacation was 2 and 1/2 months. Had the movie been out at that time, I'm sure we kids would have been yelling "FREEEEDOMMMMM!!!" like Mel Gibson and leading a charge of grammar school kids through the halls like a rampage of angry Scotsmen when that final bell rang.

As I recall, the teachers did their level best to keep us orderly up to and after that final bell rang. But that containment lasted exactly as long as it took us to get out the door. Upon that first step into the school parking lot, it was a free-for-all. I imagine that's what a prison break must look like.

And although, looking back at it objectively, a childhood summer, though largely magical, also had its fair share of slow times, of, dare I say it?, boredom. But back then, that never crossed your thoughts, because the beginning of every summer was pregnant with possibility. Looking back, it's history; looking forward it was mystery.

There's nothing in a grown up life (that I've found, anyway) that compares. Sure we get our few weeks vacation from our jobs, but nothing like the feeling of that summer vacation. With a child's concept of time those two and half months might as well have been eternity. It's a sad fact that taking a vacation nowadays, even before it begins, is often beset with thoughts of "Damn, I'm going to have 200 emails to sort through when I get back," or "I have to remember to pay the rent before I go."

It's not quite the same.

I've got a bad feeling about this...

As I was driving to rehearsal last night, I had the deep-seated feeling that it would not be a good one. This was based on nothing; in fact, all signs would have pointed to a rehearsal that I would typically like. We had just finished recording, taken a week off, and were about to get back to working on some new tunes. So we should have been refreshed from the week off, and personally I like working on new tunes, especially since a few more originals is all we need to be ready to play out.

As planned, we get there and start working the newbies. New tune #1 goes OK. We all get re-acclimated with it and overall it goes pretty well. New tune #2 goes somewhat more slowly, which was frustrating (to me, at least) because that tune Matt had demoed fully and given everyone CDs....which apparently I was the only one that listened to and learned. Although we had started working on it previous, that one came along a lot more slowly, especially considering that everyone should have been able to work on it and learn the progressions on their own, instead of having to be reminded of them on the spot. But, whatever, we got it on track, mostly.

Then, the bombshell, and the now-apparent reason for my initial disquiet: our other guitar player announces that he's going to Ireland for four months for a co-op at the end of June. Of course, I don't begrudge him that excellent opportunity, but the timing is pretty bad, as we are on the cusp of starting to book some shows.

The question is now what? The options are: 1) Play as a 4-piece with one guitar for those months, 2) Play as a 4-piece with Matt on second guitar for a those months, or 3) Pick up someone on a temporary basis for those 4 months. I don't think replacing Kevin will be realistically discussed as an option, as we all like him and he's a good fit for the band. Listening to the songs, I do not prefer option 1. Some of the songs might not be that bad in a one guitar format, but I think most of them would be a little lacking without a second guitar. Out of the remaining options, I prefer number 2, as it has the smallest learning curve involved (except for Matt, who would have to learn to play the parts while singing; but at least he already knows the songs.) But I'm not sure he wants to do it. Option 3 means we need to start asking around for a part-timer, and then we have to acclimate them with the songs. A few names have already been tossed out there, but this is my least favorite option as it is the most work all around. Anyway, we'll need to figure this out, and soon.

The other problem from last night was that we got the rough mixes from our recording session last week. And, to my ear, they were....well, rough. I think, overall, we got some decent takes and sounds, but I'm not particularly digging the direction the engineer is mixing them in. I don't know if what I want to hear is doable based on what we recorded, but currently, we're not even close. I'd actually be OK using the recording as is for gig getting purposes, but in it's current form I would not want to put it on a Myspace site. This wouldn't be so much an issue, except the engineer is leaving town for two weeks this weekend. So I don't know what' s up there.

So overall, I'm feeling pretty much devoid of all band momentum right now. Great.

Slow news life

Nothing new to report.