Doing Favours

A couple of years ago, a good friend of ours asked us to play at a playground opening.  For that good freind, we decided to give it a go.  Yvon wasn't around, so my son played drums for us.  It turned out to be a less than desirable venue to play.  First off, it was mostly young parents and a whole lot of kids under 10.  Most were probably under 7.    Because we aren't a cover band, they really couldn't have cared less about our music. 

To top it off, they provided a stage trailer that was really just a big tin box on wheels.  On the stage, it sounded just like the tin box that it was.   They also put the stage right beside the playground basketball court, so while we were playing, a bunch of kids were playing basketball.  So there were basket balls flying around in front of us, and we were worried our stuff getting damaged.   In fact, Don's mandolin did fall over a piece of the head stock broke off. 

When we took a break (around noon), we went out behind the stage and sat at a picnic table away from the crowd.   Don had a flask of scotch, so what the hell. 

Now, for todays story.   Yvon's community league asked us if we'd play at their community league for community league day.  Details were sketchy, but to do Yvon a favour, we said OK.  We had that feeling of dejavu because as details came out, we were told we'd be playing by the basketball court.  As it turned out, we actually played on the basketball court.  

We decided that we needed to do some cover songs mixed with our originals.   We've done the cover songs before, but we hadn't played them for over a year.  In fact, we hadn't played with Yvon for the same length of time, so we knew we'd be rusty on that stuff, and we knew that Yvon probably didn't know our newer songs.  So we practiced.  On Friday night before the event, we went to Yvon's garage and went through our set list.  We did have a lot of fun that night, but we still had some reservations about the actual event. 

When we got there with all our stuff,  5 guitars, banjo, keyboard, drums, bass guitar, bouzouki, sound equipment, mikes, amps, monitors, we got to survey the scene.  The audience was scattered about the park and some chairs were set up in front of where we were going to play.  Yvon set his drums up right in front of the basketball hoop.   We had lots of room to spread out, and we did.    

So when we were ready, we played.  The set went quite well.  No basket balls.  some people were dancing at bit, and Wanda took lots of pictures.   We made a few mistakes, but we are getting so much better at covering those little errors up.   I must say, our vocal arrangements are improving all the time, and other than my vocal limitations, I think it sounded OK.  We ain't going to ever win a singing contest, but at least there's improvement.  

Set list:

• Six Days on the road  (Dave Dudley Cover Song)
• Sitting Here ( a Magpies Original)
• Take another Road (Jimmy Buffett Cover Song)
• Stand by Me (Ben King Cover Song)
• Johnson Browne (a Magpies Original)
• The Letter (Box Tops Cover Song)
• Black Room (a Magpies Original)
• Clouds of Alberta (a Magpies Original)
• Pirate over 40 (Jimmy Buffett Cover Song)
• My Dream Automoblile (A Magpies Original)
• Dead Flowers (a Rolling Stones Cover)
• Ain't Going Nowhere (a Bob Dylan Cover)
• Lonely Train (a Magpies Original)

So we finished playing.  No disasters.  No broken instruments.  People had fun.  We had fun.  It was a good day.  

A Good Place to Be

My song writing has stalled.  I think I hit a wall (maybe that's a line for a song).  See how desperate I've become.  Actually, the problem I'm having is that musically, I'm looking for something different and as for lyrics, I'm just not having any productive ideas.   But then, part of  the reason for writers block is that rather than thinking about song writing, we've been focusing more on playing and preparing for upcoming music events.  Right now, that's a good place to put our focus.

Last night we were having a debate about what songs to include in a 30 minute showpiece set of all original songs.  Two years ago, that was a fairly easy task and there wasn't much debate.  Last year, it was a bit of a task to pick the songs we liked, but there wasn't a lot of debate.   This year, it is a debate.  I'm not even sure the debate is over.   You see, the problem is that we have about 50 songs to choose from.    Not only is the debate about what songs, but what order should they be played.  All through this debate, we thought about the paying customers, the audience, the fans.

What's the intent? How do we build emotion in the set? What image do we want to present?   Where do the best songs fit?  Where do the soft songs fit, or the uptempo, or the 'rockin' songs.    These are very tough things to figure out.  

Why are we having a debate this year that we haven't had before?   As of late our music has taken on a whole new direction and ranges across several different genre's.    We use a mix of instruments that is presenting a whole new and sometimes unique sound.   AND:  We have somewhere around 50 finished original songs to choose from, and who knows how many unfinished songs.   This is not an bad debate - it is a good debate.   It is a sign that our music is maturing.  

This is really a good place to be.