Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Pope Dead, but the Band Riseth...
Easter Sunday .. I've worked my ass off to get this to happen, now we're all set for..
Monday afternoon and the new 4 piece band has it's first rehearsal. After two years of being flexible, warm, friendly, and fitting in with other peoples ideas/needs/total bullshit I finally decided to get my ass moving and do things my way. My band, my energy, my f'kin music. (and apparently my spelling).
I advertised on all the local websites. I auditioned singers - I picked two 20 year olds (Megan & Vanessa) so we'd have a spare when one couldn't follow through. Then Megan rang to say sorry, but she's just landed a role in a local production of Les Miserables. I emailed Grant (the drummer) saying "Am I fucking psychic or what?". He replied that 'Yes I was fucking psychic'. To which I replied "I knew you were gonna say that."
Then I put a list of 159 sings together to choose a setlist from, then culled it down to suit the singers voice (..our next contestant, Tony is Vanessa, 20, from BrisVegas), Then pared it down to the first 10 tracks:
Pat Benatar - Love is a Battlefield
Pat Benatar - Hit me with your best shot
Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me
Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
Blondie - Maria
Bryan Adams - Only Thing Looks Good On Me
Pat Benatar - All Fired Up
Divinyls - Make Out Alright
Divinyls - Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart
Divinyls - Pleasure & Pain
Too much Pat Benetar??? Nah, No such thing..
Next we needed a lead guitarist - more adverts, more auditions:
- Sami the Torana driving, smelling of Brutt 33, Italiano didn't make the cut.
- Josiah, 21 of 'No Fixed Uni Course' didn't make the cut.
- Daniel, 17, of Gold-Coast alt-Punk-Band - you guessed it - didn't make the cut.
- Nor did Geoff "I wanna make peoples ears bleed"Capalaba -I shot him before the cut had even started.
I learnt all the songs on guitar while the hunt for a guitarist went on. But I'll be playing bass at least until we're gigging and making money. Make that 'gigging regularly.' - I can't look at music and the phrase 'making money' in the same sentence and have it make sense.
On Drums we have my mate Grant, who's a good bloke and a good drummer. He had a PA system for the singer to sing through (the Holy Grail of new bands) so we'd be up and running in no time. Then he sold it. As a forward thinker he's ...a good drummer.
Luckily he still had a couple of powered foldback speakers with his electronic drum kit, so the singer could sing through that while we got going. This week he sold the electronic drum kit - with the speakers. Did I mention he's a good
drummer?
... and we're ready to rock and/or roll. Or we will be on Monday.
