Cheevyjames’ Musical Roundhouse

I’m attempting a suggestion from Don. The other day he said that he’s listening through his iTunes in alphabetical order. Of course, he meant *bands* A-Z. I think of it as *songs*. So I’m giving it a shot…every song, A-Z *. I have no idea how long I can keep it going (since I have nearly 10,000 songs in my iPod) but I’m at least trying. Naturally I’m not going to listen to EVERY version of EVERY song because, as much as I love it, I’m not going to listen to 11 versions of 21st Century Schizoid Man all in a row. So each song gets one version, I suppose my favorite version of each. For Schizoid Man it’s the USA version. I’m currently at “117 Valley Drive” by the Bears.

If you want to follow along, go to my last.fm profile.

Before the Bears tune, I listened through Protean Mean’s 10K. I hadn’t heard our “studio” version in a while so that was kind of interesting. VERY tame compared to how we’re doing it now. Still, it’s decent. I decided to skip the Mastermonk version of 10K (as it’s on my iPod) because I really just don’t need to hear it. I mean, we did a decent enough version of it, but (1) the recording sucks and (2) it’s just hard to listen to, even if it was our best song.

Speaking of PM and 10K, we had a good practice last night. I think it was the first time I’ve picked up my instruments since the gig. I’m so busy with the house these days (and my music room is still in the painting process) that I just spend all my time at home working on some project. Usually painting. Not terribly fun while it’s going on, but once a room is finished it’s a wonderful sense of completion. So yeah, it’s a good thing. ANYWAY, band practice. We missed last week since Jenn had a serious attack of poison ivy and she still has the scars to prove it. She’s getting some much needed vacation time next week in Colorado, so it’ll be another 2 weeks until the next one. That’s fine since the house is taking up so much of my time. I’ll just be happy to be able to get back to regular practicing and booking gigs and all that. Oh, and recording too! For last night, after catching up and all that, we ran through all of the songs. Some things felt pretty strong (10K, Hanging - with me on bass instead of guitar, Lady Pilot, She Waits…and some others) and some like Matte Kudasai still sound like ass, but that’s my fault. Like I told her last night, that one chord change going into the “chorus” is the most difficult thing I’ve EVER played in my life as a musician. Seriously. Getting that chord right is nearly impossible. Thus far for me it has been. Stupid Fripp for writing stuff that difficult! I was pretty pleased with the way practice went in general and it was nice to play again.

Oh, I forgot! The only time I did play since the gig was at Jenn’s Low Country Boil last weekend. After the feast of a thousand crawfish, a lot of us musicians got together for a jam. Trading off songs from our respective bands Jenn and I jammed with 3 of the guys from Puritan Rodeo (Sean, Vern & Tom), Jay from Eyes to Space and later on JJ took Jay’s place on keys. It was nice to not only play some PM material and traditional songs that the PR guys threw out, but also Shades of Winter’s Anthem and Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. After I left the circle I heard them play a ragtime version of Anarchy in the UK. I had a lot of fun playing with them and those guys are some seriously good players. Hopefully we’ll find time to get together again. Great to get to know everyone better also.

I’m now up to Keneally’s 1988 Was A Million Years Ago. I wonder how far through the A’s I can make it today?

* of course, I have been skipping some things that I absolutely can’t stand to listen to. For the most part, I’ve been doing it right and I’ll say I’ve been listening through 95% of the tunes

Current Location: in a chair

Current Mood: cheerful

Current Music: Mike Keneally - 1988 Was a Million Years Ago

I finished the final Harry Potter book last night.

Wow.

I totally LOVED it. Great book. I’m not going to give any spoilers or anything, but I think it’s my favorite of the 7 books. There were some things that I expected to happen, but mostly I was surprised in everything that happened. Just…floored with how good it is.

Awright, just had to report. I’m sure I’ll talk about it more later. So yeah, great job, JKR!

Current Location: the earth

Current Mood: metallic

Current Music: Heavy Metal Lunch, episode 5

Jenn and I watched the tape of Saturday’s PM show last night. You know, we were a LOT better than I remember. It was actually a really good gig and definitely our best one yet. All of the places I thought were huge messups were barely audible and I had a hard time finding them. I really enjoyed it, so that makes me feel a lot better about it all.

And dernit, I don’t have time to do more of an update. Maybe later. I do feel a lot better, so that’s cool.

Current Location: lala land

Current Mood: good

Current Music: Den Fule - Skagget

Exhausted.

That’s pretty much it! Oh, OK….this will be quick though, since I work to do. The house closing went just fine, I moved a lot that day and have done so every other day except Saturday, which was spent painting before the gig. The house is wonderful though, and I’m really enjoying it. We’re still Surrounded By Boxes, but they’ll be emptied soon enough. We’re focusing on painting before we get all unpacked. We have the living room completely done, and we’ll finish up the master bedroom tonight. And hopefully work on another one.

The gig Saturday night was a bit strange for me. I don’t have near the time I’d like to go into everything, but it was another one of those “I’m nervous as hell, tired as hell, worried about my vocals, unable to hear myself, totally just unsure if it was good or if it was crap” kind of shows. The response was very good. I did notice that Jenn sounded great…so at least I know one of us did! We’re going to review the tape tonight, so maybe I’ll get better perspective after that. That’s what happened last time. We did debut 2 songs, Snow and Lady Pilot. Snow is an old tune of mine I wrote back in highschool/early college and LP is a Neko Case tune that we just rip up. That was fun to play. Once I get the house in order and get my life calmed down I’ll work on getting more gigs. We opened for Don and he kicked ass. I thought his voice sounded great; the best I’ve ever heard him sing. He was having a great time and the audience definitely was too.

So, yesterday Julie and I met up with Greta, Jenn & Eric to see the new Harry Potter movie. I was really disappointed. For all of the great qualities (sets, CG, cinematography, acting) there were more bad things (music, plot, pacing, too many montages, changing of characters from the books, having a dementor freaking CHOKE Harry…ugh). I do want to see it again, because I’m sure i missed a lot, but I certainly didn’t have that great of a time. However, the book comes out Friday night and I know JKR won’t screw up the last one.

Woot!

OK, back to work.

Current Location: behind the boxes

Current Mood: exhausted

Current Music: the air conditioner