Poppin' our cherry

Last night was our first live performance and, since nobody's even watched us practice, our first time playing in front of anyone but ourselves. The stage was very narrow, so Dan (singer/guitarist) ended up being all the way at the end of the stage. I really couldn't hear anything he was playing, but I really don't take any cues from him, so it wasn't that bad. Overall we had a tough time hearing each other and as a result of that there were a couple slip-ups in "Are You Gonna Go My Way?", but afterwards that seemed to be everyone's favorite and nobody caught any mistakes. Just imagine when people are wasted! We played "American Woman" by The Guess Who, "AYGGMW?" by Kravitz, "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain, and "Cold Hard Bitch" by Jet. That's probably about 15-20 minutes of playing and it felt like about 2.

I really wasn't as nervous as I thought I'd be. I started getting that sinking feeling around 4pm, but once we were in the bar and ready to play, it wasn't that bad. I read an article with Jimmy Page when I was in high school and he said, in reference to soloing but it can be generally applied to playing overall, "You either gotta shit or get off the pot." Being that Jimmy Page was one of my biggest influences, I took that to heart and applied that to how I approach playing live. I wasn't in a band, but I played saxophone in symphonic and jazz band and I had to do much more difficult things and was exposed to a lot more people than we probably ever will be. You either give it your all or get off the fucking stage. No half-assing it. I think we all got our nervous jitters out and rocked our friggin' nuts off. I think the adrenaline helped too.

The two guys that ran the open jam were very impressed with us and gave us a lot of compliments. They said that we have a great sound and we're extremely tight. Receiving compliments like that from other musicians is huge. Having some random person say, "Yeah, you guys are good," really doesn't mean as much as when another guitar player says he likes your sound. Last night was a huge confidence booster.

Last night, the Penalty Box. Tomorrow night, the WORLD!

First Gig & MySpace

We booked our first gig for Friday, June 23rd at the Token Lounge in Westland. We go on at 10:15 and play until 11. All information about us can now be found on our MySpace Music page: MySpace.com/40Helmet.

We're also playing an open jam night this coming Monday at the Penalty Box. We'll probably do 4 or 5 songs so that the owners of the bar can see us and decide if they would wanna book us for a gig. We'll probably go on around 10.

Last night's practice was pretty good. All of the new songs went really well. Low is a friggin' jam and I think people will like it a lot. We really didn't prepare all that much for Peaches, but it still sounded awesome. I started to hate What I Like About You, but I have a newfound respect for that song. It actually rocks pretty hard when we do it and it's an obvious crowd pleaser. We're all pretty pumped to get playing out and doing our best to get gigs lined up. We just need to keep chuggin' along with practicing and improving.

Next week:
Elton John - Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting
Metallica - Fuel

This Week in Rock

Practice on Monday was great. Going into practice, most of us weren't prepared for No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn, but we still gave it a shot and it came off sounding pretty damn good. My dad got a kick out of seeing all of us rap and we were all laughing pretty much the entire song. We're all pretty pumped to continue practicing that one because it'll always be a blast. Hopefully the bar crowds will agree.

We're starting to look into booking gigs as most places are booked for the next couple months, so we need to get on the ball with that. I think we pretty much settled on the name 40 Helmet too. The name came about when Dan, our singer, would get really parched during "You" by Candlebox because it's pretty dry in our practice space (my basement) and would sorta lose his voice. Nick, the bassist, said he should get one of those beer helmets so he could drink water/beer throughout a song without having to take a break. Dan asked what those things are called and Nick said, "I don't know. 40 helmets?" Now, a helmet that holds 40 oz. beers does't necessarily exist, but that didn't stop us from giving our band that name.

Next week:
The Romantics - What I Like About You
Presidents of the United States of America - Peaches
Cracker - Low

Right in the nuts

Good things that happened last night:

• Our bassist got a new amp. Sweet.

Bad things that happened last night:

• We didn't have practice because my dad forgot that we moved it to Monday.
• After talking to him and finding out his availability for the summer, we found out that he's available maybe two or three Fridays or Saturdays from now until September.

That's the whole Goddamn summer. So, we decided that we're not going to let that stop us from getting out and playing. We'll just have to play a lot of Thursday night gigs. Thursday's still a good bar night, though going into work on Fridays will suck. We could also do Sundays, but that would be even worse. It's hard to stay positive when you get dealt a couple of hard blows like that. Oh well, gotta stay positive I guess.

On the bill for next week: Beastie Boys - No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn

Ups and Downs

We've yet to have two stellar practices in a row. The success of last week's practice was circumvented, yet again, by alcohol. Apparently keeping all the members of the band in a playable and productive state of mind will prove to be a challenge. Needless to say, this is discouraging. We had to reschedule practice from Wednesday to tonight, so hopefully a productive practice is on the bill. I'll cross my fingers but I won't hold my breath.

Dan and I scheduled a gig for June 17th at the Token Lounge, but we're going to have to cancel it because our drummer has a gig that night and every weekend night in June. We were pretty pumped, but now we're a little disappointed, but that's the way it goes when you have a drummer in 3 other bands. Oh well, time to move forward.

This hasn't been much of an update, but I feel like semi-weekly updates are in order.

Reflection

It's hard to not be as excited as I am after having such an awesome practice last week. Things are coming together nicely and I think we're starting to gel and have some real chemistry. Dan and I have different approaches to playing guitar, but we seem to compliment each other well. I think he took more of the "classical approach" to learning guitar that most kids take when he was growing up - finding guitar heroes and doing everything you can to mimic them. You learn to play their riffs, licks, and solos and you go from there. While I had my guitar heroes, Slash and Jimmy Page are the reason I even picked up a guitar, I immediately fell into the rhythm guitar player role instead of the playing the leads. I never found soloing to be all that important to me on guitar; it was never a natural thing for me to do. Playing saxophone, however, I felt more comfortable with soloing and it was really a great form of expression. I think you give more of yourself when playing saxophone. With the guitar you just use your hands and, indirectly, your arms but with the saxophone you use your hands, lips, tongue, cheeks, teeth, lungs, and diaphragm. You use your entire upper body to play the saxophone. With the guitar I just use my hands, so I think I take a more primitive approach and I enjoy banging on the strings more so than trying to produce a pretty solo. Given the context of certain songs, however, I've been forced to learn some solos and I've even asked Dan if I could play solos on certain songs because I particularly like them. So because of this, I've had to practice playing these solos and licks and whatnot. At first it was very frustrating, but I've become more comfortable with it and I definitely feel it has improved my playing overall. I still consider Dan the "lead guitar player" but when you look at the songs we do and how we have them arranged, the lead work is pretty much split up 50/50 I'd say.

Anyway, back to chemistry, there really aren't any ego issues, which I thought might be a problem early on. Given that Dan was both the lead singer and the lead guitar player, I was a little leery that there may be some conflict in that he'll want to do all the lead work all the time. That hasn't been the case at all. Pretty much the overall credo between the two of us has been whatever needs to be done to make it sound the best it can sound, needs to be done. If it's a tough solo that Dan could probably learn in a couple days that might take me a couple weeks and there aren't any real demands for the vocals at that part, then Dan plays the solo. If it makes more sense for me to play the solo in a particular song, then I play the solo. We do what we need to do to get the job done, and I really like that work ethic.

My dad's been playing drums for 30 years now so, needless to say, he's been around. He's been everywhere from playing in a basement to having his record playing on WRIF, so earning his respect and trust as a musician has been great. I think early on I earned his respect when I was playing saxophone in high school and he saw my accomplishments, but I feel like this is a different setting and it's a "that was then, this is now" situation. I'm constantly excited about this band, so to see him grow more and more excited week in and week out and to have him call me and tell me that he's excited is, well, exciting.

I've learned that early on in forming a cover band you've gotta make everyone that you're bringing in feel like it's worth their time and effort. It's not just showing up and sitting down and jammin'. People have to take time out of their week to make it to practice, lug heavy equipment, take time to learn songs, etc. A lot of it is trust too. A chemistry has to be built upon well enough to establish trust and confidence between the members. I have to trust that the other people I'm playing with know their parts and can recover if something unforeseen happens. Murphy's Law is real and it seems to have a prediliction to situations where everyone's watching you. Strings and sticks break, picks get dropped, monitors go out, batteries die, electronics fail, and everything else can happen besides someone just losing their place in the song. Right now I have confidence in each member of this band that things can move forward if something like that happens and I hope they have confidence that I can recover as well.

Being that Nick was the only "outsider" that came into this project, it's taken more time for me to feel him out although I've liked him since day one. He's solid and he's always up front about the parts he's shaky on and he'll want to work things out before diving into something he's unsure of. He also improvises nicely; if a song needs something that can be filled out by the bass, he'll play it. He has good instincts. I think he fits in really well.

I think the reason this is all so exciting is because we've only had four practices together and there's a pretty strong dynamic between us. I'm sure my friends, my roommate in particular, get tired of hearing about "the band" all the time, but I honestly don't care because I'm so geeked about it. It's really the only thing in my life that makes me happy right now and it's what I look forward to weekly. That being said, the majority of the work for next week's practice lies with me and I'm not that excited about it this time. People are depending on me though, so I've gotta do my job and get it done. I'll be really pumped once the practicing for these two songs is done and I can just play them with ease and move onto the next songs.

Wow, this was an incredibly long blog entry and I'm surprised you're still with me. Until next time...



P.S. I have a crush on Made Out of Babies' singer, Julie Christmas. I constantly write in my diary "GM+JC 4ever" and "Mr. Gino Christmas" all over the pages. She's so dreamy...

Practice #4?!

This week's practice was incredible. We nailed every single song except Animal by Pearl Jam. We especially needed this because our last practice was less-than-stellar. Everyone was groovin' and rockin'. There were a few mistakes here and there, but when they would happen we would correct them and play it again. It was out of control how good some of the songs sounded. I can't wait to play out. Right now we're at 16 songs.

Green Day - Geek Stink Breath
Pearl Jam - Animal
Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way?
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Mountain - Mississippi Queen
Jet - Cold Hard Bitch
Buckcherry - Lit Up
Toadies - Possum Kingdom
Candlebox - You
Pearl Jam - Alive
Velvet Revolver - Slither
Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion
Guess Who - American Woman
The Strokes - Last Night
Sublime - Wrong Way
Scissor Sisters - Take Your Mama

We don't have practice next week because Dan is on a cruise, so that kinda sucks because I wanna rock some more, but it's kinda good because it gives me time to practice our next two songs - Mr. Brightside by the Killers and All Right Now by Free. Everything pretty much rests on my shoulders on those two songs. The main riff of Mr. Brightside is really high on the fretboard and an uncomfortable fingering, so I'm gonna have to get used to that and the I'm all alone on the solo to All Right Now. I'm out there in front of everyone and if I hit a sour note it'll be noticed. So now I have to endure the laborious task of practicing through repetition - the worst kind of practicing there is. You play the same riff over and over again until you know it so well that your eyes begin to bleed. That's really the only way with those songs.

My dad's been kinda bummed because he was just kicked out of one of his other bands: Mr. Blonde. He wasn't kicked out because he sucked; oh no, he was kicked out because he didn't want to stay in the basement and actually wanted to play gigs. He was that band for almost two years and they played only six shows. They're so amazing too. My dad loved being in that band because he got to play some of the most technically demanding songs he's ever played in his life, but he hated the band because they never wanted to get out and play. So on Sunday the guitar player called him up and told him he was out because they didn't care if they never left the basement. Dicks.

We haven't been able to decide on a name for this band. I think we need to get one within the next couple weeks because we could be ready to do a small gig soon. Dan and I have been brainstorming some names up without being able to decide on a single one. I opened up the floor for suggestions to my friends over at the Ginocide.com Forum to see if they could come up with anything good. There are some pretty funny ones, but really not too much we can work with. I'm kinda diggin' the Creeps right now.

Don't eat the worm

Last night's practice wasn't as stellar as that of the week prior, but it wasn't terrible. Some things sounded good, some things need some work, but I guess that's why it's called practice, right? Maybe I expect too much too early. I mean, this is only our second full practice in a row. Alcohol was introduced for the first time in a major way last night and I'd have to say that had more negative effects than positive. Jose Cuervo also plays louder than everyone else, and he's never in tune. My dad (our drummer) has really expressed excitement about this band as of late and that, in turn, gets me excited. We're really close to being able to play a set somewhere, possibly opening for someone or being a part of a multi-band gig like at the Token or something.

I'm getting pretty bored with this blog, so I may start diverging from purely band related issues and start writing about other things. I'm not quite sure what yet, but it's gotta be music related. Blogs need to have a point or a niche so that they have an audience that can relate to or be interested in it. We'll just have to see I guess.

The power of the riff compels me

Last night's practice was AWESOME. I was really looking forward to practice because I had a feeling some things were going to come together, and they really did. All of the new songs (Take Me Out, Take Your Mama, Geek Stink Breath, Lit Up) totally rocked and went off practically without a hitch. I was completely surprised that we nailed all of them pretty much on the first run. It was really exciting, especially considering that I haven't been blown away by much of anything we've done until now. Other songs pretty much considered "standards" now (Cold Hard Bitch, Are You Gonna Go My Way?) really came together and rock harder than ever. A truly great practice and I'm more excited than ever to actually get out and start playing.



*EDIT*
I'd like to believe that at least one person reads this blog. If you happen to stop by and read my boring dribble, drop a line to let me know you're out there. Feedback is a great motivator.

What we "know"

After three practices with Nick, our new bass player, and only one of them being with drums, here is where we stand with our song list so far.

Songs we can get through, but most of them still need work
Jet - Cold Hard Bitch
Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way?
Mountain - Mississippi Queen
The Strokes - Last Night
Sublime – Wrong Way
311 - Down
Toadies - Possum Kingdom
Pearl Jam – Alive
Candlebox - You
Velvet Revolver - Slither

Songs we're working on for the first time as a band tonight
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Buckcherry - Lit Up
Green Day – Geek Stink Breath
Scissor Sisters – Take Your Mama

I'm pretty excited about tonight's practice. We normally keep a routine of learning 2-3 new songs a week, but I think we need to slow that down and work on what we've got. I'd say I would be comfortable playing maybe only two songs on the above list in front of people. Once we solidify that list, we'll have 14 songs that we can play out, which is plenty to open for a band. Then once we've got 14 solid songs, we can start learning new ones in order to be ready to play out solo. Assuming we get at least two opening band gigs, I'd say we'll be ready for solo gigs by the summer. As my fellow blogger, Khalid, would say...

BAM!