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