First and last

Well, here it is. The first band camp diary post on our new blog. And the last post of 2009.

We skipped last week's rehearsal due to the Xmas holiday—so, some rust needed to be blown-off.

I called "Honey Don't" as my FIRE DRILL song.

For those of you new to our diary, the FIRE DRILL is the name the Mittys have given to a batch of songs we use for "warm-up." FIRE DRILL gets it name from the format of "no stopping" a song—regardless of the mistakes being made—it's suppose to simulate a LIVE performance, much like,... a fire drill.

So, my pick was "Honey Don't." OK. But I totally forgot the second verse. And it's the verse our version repeats twice. So, I repeated the third verse.

Paul picked "Unforgiven." This came off well.

Jim's choice was "Sea of Heartbreak." It had been awhile, I came out the gate like a stumble-drunk on the bass, but by the chorus had found my stride.

Sonia's song was her own, "Rip Tide." This song has not been rehearsed in quite some time and surprisingly, we pulled it off quite well—if you excuse the "jazz-fishing" I rendered at the end of my bass solo.

With the FIRE DRILL out of the way, we got down to songs-in-progress.

First, was "Evangeline," our first country-waltz. I never heard the song before, so, I'm going completely by our take. I think it's coming along great.

Then we spent some time with another Sonia original, "Drink That Whiskey Quickly." This is very cool "classic country" styled song and Sonia's lead vocals are perfect. We're at that point with this song where it's "all about getting the arrangement." That can be a lot of hit-and-miss but I think we're really making great progress with it. In fact, I feel our second recorded take on this tune will be the one we will use as the basis for it's final version.

I mean, I think so. This could change.

We hit a couple of takes of "Get Rhythm." Jim, Sonia and myself use to do a more bayou-version of this song in the band, the elements. This one is more straight-ahead rock n' roll. Like "Drink That Whiskey Quickly," this song is just waiting for "that" arrangement.

We only had enough time to do one-take versions of a few tunes before calling it a night.

We started with "All Along the Watchtower." This song is "finished, done, ready for set list." We just blasted through it flawlessly. One new addition, however, was my decision to run the bass with chorus effect I use on the solo of "Rip Tide" (and a couple of other songs). It gives the bass a really big full bottom with the slight wavering that speed dial gives it. On the low end, it's really not that noticeable. But when I go up the neck during Jim's keyboard solos (which btw, are absolutely awesome!), the effect on my bass's counter-melody is more obvious.

We sailed through "Jericho" quite easily.

We wrapped it up with "Dirty Old Town." Not the best version we've done but a good closing tune and mood-setter for a productive rehearsal.

Our first official post

This is first official posting to our new home for our "band camp' diaries.