28th January 2007: Band Rehearsal
Good rehearsal last night. Went through songs previously rehearsed and they’re sounding pretty sweet. I even played two of them without any music! Have now also learned “She Sells Sanctuary”.
Last week Adam broke a drum stick during “the final countdown” and this week managed to break another drum stick on same song, now to be referred to as “the final drumstick”. He also complained that the song was a bit painful on his legs because of all the bass drum work. I said it would be good for him to develop his thigh muscles, to which he responded “but only one of my thighs would get developed…” He then did a silly walk around the room and said “look at my massive leg”. The boys all laughed at this but I failed to see the humour. Must be rude.
Most bizarrely, the guy on the door at the studio last night was none other than Dick, drummer from Wrestling Jacob, another band I used to play in. He is still playing drums with Shatner and doing a bit of part time work at the studio. Didn’t let us get away without paying though… what are friends for if not to get free studio time and other perks?
Still no agreement on a name. Band meeting scheduled for Thursday. Must make a decision soon…
Names
Everyone I speak to seems to love ‘Roquiem’! But I can’t help feeling that I might just be too embarrassed to tell my friends I’m in a band called Roquiem, let alone stand up on stage and shout ‘Good evening! We’re Roquiem!’ Is it just too cheesy? Wish I could phone up some of the famous rock acts and ask them if they felt awkward telling their loved ones that they had named their band after a hearing-impaired feline, an electrical supply, an american football position , an albino reptile or the unusual combination of warfare and floristry. I can just imagine the call…
Me: “Hi there [famous person]. Do you feel embarrassed about the name of your band?”
Them: -click-
Or maybe…
Me: “Hi there [famous person]. How did you choose the name for your band?”
Them: “Well, we were taking a lot of drugs at the time…”
Surely someone out there can help????
Band Rehearsal, 21st January 2008
Another rehearsal at Jam Studios. Adam brought a fancy new snare and a couple of name suggestions from some friends:
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The Maitre D’s of Rock
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Rocket Dogs
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Forn Dogs
Apparently ‘forn’ is short for ‘California’ but I thought he meant fawn, like bambi or a brownish colour, neither of which seemed particularly ‘rocking’. I also pointed out that we’re from West Yorkshire, not California, so that might be a bit misleading, and ‘Leeds Dogs’ just didn’t sound right – Mike added that this probably refers to some of the less attractive ladies hanging around Leeds city centre at night-time…
Songs went well, played The Final Countdown when I was particularly impressed by Robb’s guitar solo – to me it sounds incredibly difficult but then I am a bass player… We had noticed at the beginning of the evening how much we could hear the other bands in the place and occasionallky could even hear what they were playing. When we walked out of the room at the end of the evening everyone else had left and we realised that 4 other bands, most of whom were teenagers from what I could tell, would have heard us playing The Final Countdown… Still, we’ll have to overcome the embarrassment now if we’re ever going to play it live.
Almost had a disaster when Mike’s keyboard stand collapsed but fortunately he caught it and the keyboards were saved. Phew!
The other highlight of the evening was that our official photographer (aka Robb) brought his fancy new camera and took some pics of the rehearsal:
Adam
Mike’s Keys
Me
Learning from the Pro’s
Great news! Adam has got us all tickets to see Whitesnake and Def Leppard in June – so we can see how the professionals do it. Very excited…
Discovered today that “Coverdale” is a type of cheese. Coincidence?
16th January 2008: Second Band Meeting.
Pizza at Mike’s then the pub. Started talking about names again. It is so hard to find something good that hasn’t already been done. Started looking in all sorts of places for inspiration – books, poems, computer games… Came up with
- Restitution
- Silverthorn
- Populous
- Manic Minor
- Jet Set Willy
- Kind Acts of Randomness
- Intangible
- Obscure Rules
- Feist
amongst countless other suggestions. It got very very silly. At one point Adam went to the loo and came back and said
“You know, for me, music isn’t just a job. It’s a Rockupation”.
So this started all sorts of silliness regarding words beginning with “Oc”
- Rocktopus
- Rocktogon
- Rocktopedal
- Rockupy
And so on…
Anyway, after some time and still no agreement, we moved onto genre and possible songs to learn. We agreed that balance was important:
1. Covers and original material:
Appropriate ratio of song types
Leading to ‘Pie Chart’ being suggested as a name…
2. Appropriate Level of Cheesiness:
We agreed that our choices should follow a normal distribution:
That is, a small number of not cheesy songs and a small number of exceedingly cheesy songs, and mostly songs around the moderately cheesy area. The band name should probably fall somewhere around the mean too. I knew that module in statistics would be useful one day…
3. Possible songs to learn:
- Welcome to the jungle
- Why can’t this be love?
- Put your hands on
- Living on a prayer or You give love a bad name
- You oughta know
- God gave rock and roll to you
- Paint it black
- She sells sanctuary
- I am the one and only
- We built this city
- Alone
- Everything about you
- Total eclipse of the heart
- Eye of the Tiger
- Hero (theme from Spiderman)
- Bring me to life
- Rockstar (Nickelback)
- Something by Aerosmith
- Something by ACDC
- Something by Deep Purple and/or Rainbow
Anyway at this point Adam had to leave to play football (?) but cheered us all up by striking his ‘Guitar Hero’ pose. Lots to do and to think about here. And still no agreement on a name!!!
Lunchtime, 15th January 2008
Googled ‘Perpetua’.
“Perpetua is a 5-piece band from Richmond in North Yorkshire, playing a modern blend of alternative rock. Influences are wide and varied between band members but clear influences include Rage Against the Machine, Incubus, Radiohead, Soundgarden, Foo Fighters, Velvet Revolver and Pink Floyd. The band has been together since September 2005 and is a well-established act in Richmondshire.”
If only it had been anywhere but Yorkshire. This was looking like our favourite choice too. Ah well.
Googled ‘Roquiem’. Despite being incredibly silly we all quite like it. It got quite a few hits but these were mostly misspellings of Mozart’s requiem. It’s also apparently the name of a song by “The Swallowtail Catastrophe”, a band from Oregon, USA. So this is still a possibility.
Googled “I need a band name” and found some websites that randomly generate band names…
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the Band-O-Matic
These sites randomly put words together and mostly produce either very silly or very rude suggestions, such as “The ecstatic vegetables”, “fecal manoeuvre”, “Giant Space Ball”, “Vortex of Ass”, “priceless willy mango” and “favourite vein”…
14th January 2007: Second Rehearsal, Jam Studios, Leeds.
Fed back karaoke experience to the guys. Surprised but pleased! Went through songs from last week again (minus Teenage Kicks) and they’re sounding pretty good already. Robb’s got the tough job really. This stuff is full of complicated guitar solos. Rock bass is pretty straightforward, tending towards the ‘hammering-on-one-note’ style of playing. Although I suppose I also have to learn all the words and sing.
Managed to do feel like making love this week thanks to Robb’s impressive computer set-up. As well as his Gibson Les Paul (his pride and joy) he also owns a Line 6 Variax® 700 guitar and Line 6 Box of Wizardry (also known as the Vetta 2). Together, this essentially means he can play any guitar through any amplifier with endless effects. It also includes other stringed instruments such as the sitar and banjo (though I’m not sure we’ll use those…). It also means you can download pretty much any major artist’s sound off the internet. So you want to sound like Eddie van Halen – you’ve got it! Although actually playing like Eddie van Halen might take a bit more work… The reason I mention all this here is because it has the added benefit of auto-tuning without the need for a capo. So instead of having to learn feel like makin love in a different key, he can play it in the original key but it sounds like the new key. Some call it science. Others call it black magic. I don’t pretend to understand any of it. I’m just the bass player and like to think of myself as a bit of a purist (without being completely up my own jacksy). Don’t use any effects. Just like to stick to my Warwick Thumb 5-string and Trace Elliot stack. Who needs more?
Also had a go at The Final Countdown. Harder than you’d think. Despite the cheesiness, these guys in the 80’s wrote some pretty complex songs and ridiculously fast solos. Still, will persevere. The crowds will love it.
Had a brief discussion about names again, as I had brought the list from xmas day to show Adam. He liked a couple of them, so we’ll think about it some more. Meeting again on Wednesday to talk more about names, songs, etc. Studio time too expensive to waste on talking!
11th January 2008, the local pub.
Karaoke night. Thought I’d try some of our material to see how it went down with an audience. Well, as soon as the title “Here I Go Again” appeared on the big screen the people went wild, cheering and shouting “good choice!” and “haven’t heard this in ages”. Sang it, not too badly I think (really have to develop a stronger Lead Singer Syndrome), and got a huge applause. Apparently the locals love a good cheesy 80’s rock number. It certainly makes a change from endless versions of Mack the Knife, Suspicious Minds and Black Velvet. So did the Final Countdown next. Again, brilliant reaction, everyone singing along. I think we’re onto a winner here. Whilst cheesy rock doesn’t have a lot of street cred amongst musicians, and nobody ever admits that they like it, when they hear it they just can’t help themselves. They love it! I love it!
2am, 9th January 2008.
Still awake – buzzing from the rehearsal! Also, we realised when we got home at midnight that we had no food and had to go to Asda. Good time to go, as it turns out, nice and quiet although a bit of a lack of fresh vegetables (I am so rock and roll…). Must sleep…
8th January 2008: First Rehearsal, Jam Studios, Leeds.
Fantastic! I have had so much fun tonight. Played four of the songs agreed but didn’t get round to feel like makin love – it’s in completely the wrong key for me and we hadn’t all got round to working it out in the new key (transposing from D to G isn’t the easiest change to make on the spot). But the others went really well. In fact, it went so well that in a completely oversized ego manner (befitting of a lead singer) I announced we were already better than some rock covers bands I’ve seen… We did agree though that the punk style didn’t really suit us so have ditched Teenage Kicks already. Shame in a way cos it’s so easy… Mike has requested that we learn The Final Countdown for next week (typical keyboard player).
Silverthorn 
