Toasters

Just got an offer to open for The Toasters. First Mustard Plug, now this. Craziness.

It's a good niche!

Behringer Ultrabass

For the Halloween show we used MR's boyfriend's Behringer Ultrabass amp.  It was a two piece. The cabinet was heavy as hell. I'm not sure of the wattage.

The head looked just like this (ULTRABASS BX4500H...450 Watt) though:

On Musician's Friend the head runs $250, which surprises me as cheaper than I'd of expected. I'm going to guess that the cab was a UltrabassBB410, which seems to be discontinued (I wonder if the head is on the way out too and hence why it is so cheap).

It was a nice rig other than the cabinet being a monster (listed as 100 lbs in specs)

CJ as The Devil's Insides at Dane101 Freakin' Halloweekend at HNS

Every year CJ says "never again" about Halloween, and every year we do it anyway. This year we had trouble assembling players (I think we asked at least 5 keyboard players)...but eventually ended up with 9 people...2 trumpets, trombone, sax, keys, guitar, bass, vocal, drums. We NEVER had all 9 people in one room together until the night of the show.

But things went really, really great.

I'm beginning to feel like CJ is really coming into our own. I used to feel like the bands that I played in were sort of "B team" bands in the local scene. Somewhere in the last few years I think we've surpassed that though. I don't mean that we are any more popular or that we get any bigger crowds or more media coverage. I mean that we have become professionals. We treat the thing seriously...and we are good. We forget this too often. We undersell ourselves. But really we're pretty great.

Setlist:
Kick
New Sensation
Listen Like Thieves
The One Thing
Never Tear Us Apart
One X One
Need You Tonight
Don't Change
What You Need
Devil Inside

SVFD 10/24/2013 Lakeland College

We played for a music appreciation class. We did a little rap about ska history, which most of us didn't know anything about prior to last night. Did not realize until 30 minutes before performance that there was no PA. I ran home and got mine, which sucked a little (only a little) cause we only played a couple of songs.  Someone at the gig said they wanted us to play at a campground for 1,000 people. This seems unlikely to pan out.

I couldn't hear myself, so made weird mistakes associated with that. Also, I have not practiced in weeks or months or I don't know how long. Probably should get back to it...after Halloween.

Setlist:
Freedom
Rudy
I Will Survive
Hope I Never Lose My Wallet
Red Rubber Ball

Followup, TD on Wisconscene

A while ago I posted about this gig. I never followed up with the goods tho.


Our segments in the above show are at 5:52 (Better N Better; Gun in Your Grave) and at 25:26 (Gotta Tell U)


This one is all us. It features Haven't Seen U Lately and an interview about crazy gig stories. It is kind of epic.

Getting Off Book

So I've got this Halloween tribute gig on Saturday. It is the 4th year that we've done a Halloween show and the 3rd year that we've learned a whole new set for it.  The last two years I had a really hard time memorizing my parts. When we did Flaming Lips the parts were just harder than I was used to...but last year was Love and Rockets and the parts were dirt easy. I just found them hard to commit to memory. This year it is INXS and, again, the parts are dirt easy. But I've been traveling a lot lately and also now play in 5 bands and I was beginning to wonder if I'd be able to get off book at all for this.  I tried to not use my notes at Saturday's rehearsal and failed.  On Sunday, I did not open the book at all for my private practice session. I thought "let's just see how bad it is". To my surprise, I had 99% committed to memory. The other bit was just a matter of a quick look up and reinforcement a few times. Monday night I played the whole set perfectly.  On Wednesday I'll be ready to play dress rehearsal off book...and I'm actually not nervous about the gig and don't think I'll need to make any notes for myself at all, which is rare.  I plan to try to play the entire set every night this week to keep it fresh.

How did it happen that I memorized it all? I really can't say.  I have not been putting in the time until last week and this. But somehow, when I buckled down, it came.

I'm always afraid that my capacity to memorize tunes will vanish. It was a surprise to me that I was even capable of memorizing.  That first Pixies gig was probably the first rock show I ever played off book on bass. Muscle memory is like a miracle.

I haven't made a very strong effort to get off book for ska. I admit this is in part because my bandmates haven't bothered to get off book, so I've been indignant about putting in the time. But I probably ought to give it a shot. It IS nice to put away the music stand...both cause it is a pain to haul around but also because it feels like a bigger accomplishment.

SVFD at Adult Swim 10/18/2013

Played two sets (of exactly 45 minutes each!) at Children's Museum Adult Swim night. In full costume:

Show went darn well and we even managed an impromptu marriage proposal sort of thing for a fan.

set one:

rascal king

came out

freedom

sergio

spiderwebs

somewhere

dandelions

i don't love u

about a girl

i will survive

set two:

mr smily

rudy ("A Message to You Halle...vamped for proposal)

superman

wallet

thigh high

grazing

metro

point counter

lost again

red rubber