Completely unmusical

I'm writing a blog on writing over at writer-guitarist-coder.blogspot.com. Just so you know. I'll try not to mention it again. ;)

Post practice

A tiring practice tonight. Warm up with three or four songs, add The Ramones 'Sheena is a Punk Rocker', practice Motörhead's 'Dance', Arctic Monkeys 'Bet that you look good on the dancefloor', and Green Day's 'American Idiot', then work out a set for next Friday. It goes something like:

Blitzkrieg Bop
Pretty Vacant
Song 2
Dance
Bet that... Dancefloor
Live Wire
Too Drunk To Fuck
Anarchy In The U.K
Sheena is a punk Rocker
American Idiot

We tear through it in rehearsal, and it all works well. 'Live Wire' I either get of fluff up badly enough to consider dropping it. But it's a great song, be a shame to lose it. By the end of the set I look as though I've run a half marathon. Having to bring a towel to practices (and a change of shirt to gigs). Supposed to go to a housewarming, but it's gone 11pm and I just wanna crash.

Scuzzbuckets next gig

We return to the "Inn on the Green" in Ladbroke Grove next Friday. We wanted to play first, but I think we're second in the line up. Hoping to have Chris bring some cameras and film it.

www.iotg.co.uk

Practice practice practice...

A practice tonight without the bass player (who is in Spain). I've tried that in the past, and it's been a bit crap. I tend to play off the bass a lot more than the drums, and a practice with just a drummer can be too freeform to be useful. But we play 'Bet that you look good on the dancefloor', 'American Idiot' and 'Dance', and every song sounds a lot tighter than before. The singer has obviousy learnt the lyrics, the drummer and I have the song structures down, and playing without a bass gives me a chance to focus on how the guitar sounds (you can't hide when you are on your own). Very useful, and great fun.

We have a practice on Friday which might be our last before the gig on June 1st. Hopefully we can add another couple of songs then.

Current set list

As a reminder to myself - I always forget 'Song 2' and don't get the chance to tune down the E string, which kills my fingers.

Currently performing:

• Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
• Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant
• Kaiser Chiefs - Everyday (weak, may drop)
• Blur - Song 2
• AC/DC - Live Wire (weak, but goes down well)
• Dead Kennedys - Too Drunk Too Fuck
• Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The UK
• Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen (makes for too many Pistols numbers, so never performed)

Currently practicing:

• Motörhead - Dance (working well after changing the structure - one less guitar solo)
• Green Day - American Idiot
• Arctic Monkeys - Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor

For the near future:

• AC/DC - Riff Raff (love this)
• Supergrass - Richard III (don't know this one)
• Elvis Costello - Pump It Up (love bass on this)
• AC/DC - Can I Sit Next To You Girl
• Ramones - Sheila Is A Punk Rocker

Don't work:

• Clash - Should I Stay...

(the list layout above - meh. will play with the CSS at some point)

Solo songs

Gary emails over an mp3 of Elvis Costello's 'Pump It Up' as a possible song to cover, and so I hit the web to get the tab, lyrics and video and discover it's about masturbation. Which gets me thinking: it'd be amusing to do an entire set of songs at a gig that were dedicated to self pleasure. But I can only think of two others (The Vapors classic 'Turning Japanese' and Ivor Biggun's 'The Winking song (misprint)'), so I send out a request to the 'ilovedark' google group*, and here's some of the songs they've come up with. If you know of more, let me know!

Just to clarify: not songs you wank to (or have wanked to), or songs that sound like they're about wanking but obviously aren't. I'm after songs that artists have penned about the act itself.

Orgasm Addict - Buzzcocks
Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun
Ivor Biggun - Wanking Your Blues Away
Ivor Biggun - Winking Song
Green day - Longview
Undertones - Teenage kicks
Billy Idol - Dancing with myself
Prince - Jack u off
Britney Spears - Touch of my hand

*a closed group for a place I used to work at. I suspect every company has a dodgy email list.

Oooops...

We're playing in three weeks at the Inn On The Green on June 1st, not May 25th as I mentioned in a previous post.

You lucky, lucky bastards

Hammersmith College, 1986
Originally uploaded by wetwebwork.

I've created a label on the wonder that is Last.fm* and uploaded a song I recorded with my first band, which was known as 'Pubic Dandruff', 'Diarrhoea', 'The Course You Can Brothers', and finally 'Dibbles Dimpled Nibbled Nipple' (you want to try saying that on stage to a crowd. 'Hello, I'm Johnny Cash' it's not).

The Course You Can Brothers – Emma

Anyways, in a fit of generosity it's free for download. Play it, love it, hug it, share it, and cringe at the second guitar solo; yes, I should have stopped and thought about cutting it down to a couple of minutes, but what the hell. I was young and couldn't play.

Also, a thank you to Scarlet Rose for licensing her "I'm not a gothic girl !!!" photo under a creative commons license, which allowed me to use it to create the album cover. The dodgy result is down to me, not her. =)

*although last.fm won't let me combine my old school 2003 account with my more recent 2005 one that contains all my stats, so they're "minor wonderful with corporate greed rising" at the moment :(

Gig details!

After a flood of emails*, here's some rough details of our next gig. We've been asked back to the 'Inn On The Green' despite me being so wired last time that the only recollection I have is of me playing our tightest song** wrong, and playing another at a different tempo to the rest of the band, who were obviously wrong and just getting me back. =/

So... Friday May 25th June 1st, 'Inn On The Green'. We're one of three bands, and we're pushing to go on first (before playing: less time for me to drink, after playing: more time for me too drink = win win).

The other two bands are a couple of girls on keyboards (alriiiiight) and The Dead; which is impossible to find on MySpace, so I've no idea what they're like. Probably freakin' awesome, though.

Expect flyers soon, as I've offered to knock some up.

*a comment to my last post
**Dead Kennedys - 'Too Drunk Too Fuck'

Post practice

I love rehearsing. If you're playing live, you can hardly smile at the end of a song and say "That was fucking awesome - let's play it again a few more times!" The crowd (I use that term loosely...) expects you to play a set. Go figure. But in rehearsal, you can do a song till you nail it, or just play one you love. And it's better than any cd/mp3. It's all down to you. Either play a safe solo and enjoy the rest of the band, or shred the hell out of it (again, I use that term loosely in my case!).

So tonight was a blast. We added "American Idiot" and "Bet you look good on the dancefloor" to our set, with an eye (ear?) to adding Motörhead's "Dance" next time around. And possibly another Ramones song.

Three weeks til our next gig. Hopefully we'll have more than a handful of songs to play.

Marvin video

Here is a video I shot (while dancing) of Marvin playing at Pile On.

Re-appraising the Gibson Les Paul

Another Gibson
Originally uploaded by wetwebwork.

My first guitar was a Les Paul copy by Hohner, which I subsequently did a Pete Townsend on playing at a party. I played Strats (no-name copies and Tokais) from that point on. Recently, when I finally had some cash, I bought a Fender Strat and then, after a long search, a Gibson Les Paul.

I took the Les Paul to Chandlers to be set up, and was gutted when they pointed out that not only was the neck no good, but that it had more twists than a series of Lost. I took it back to the shop, and after faffing around, they swopped it for another. The new one didn't have the beautiful tiger stripe finish of the first, a tone knob was loose, and I wished I'd bought a Tokia Love Rock instead. I wrote a scathing review of it on Harmony Central, and it sat unloved on a guitar stand.

Then the band came together, and hearing that there were Marshall stacks in the studio, I took the Les Paul down to try it loud. And I haven't played another guitar with the band since.

The sound through the Marshall amps is something to behold. Power chords crunch, the sustain is a long sexy scream that descends to a sexy sigh, and when you palm mute with your right hand you are a one man rythmn section waiting to rip loose. Would I buy another if it was lost? Tough decision. I'd look long and hard at the Tokia's. But I'll never finish a cover of 'My Generation' with it as Townsend does.

The Wildhearts, Koko, Camden

Wildhearts, Koko, Camden
Originally uploaded by wetwebwork.

Caught The Wildhearts at Camden with Sam last Sunday. One of those bands that I wish I could go back in time and discover earliar (even though I heard them for the first time a couple of years ago, they already dominate my last.fm played list).

Scuzzbuckets, Evershot, Dorset

Scuzzbuckets play Evershot, Dorset
Originally uploaded by wetwebwork.

Evershot was great. Gary (bassist) and I caught a train down on Friday morning. This is after practicing Thursday night, and then me rushing off to catch a French band called 'Marvin' playing on a barge on the Thames near Vauxhall, who were amazing. They were a drummer, guitarist and the cutest French girl on Keyboards playing at a venue organized by a friend from work who put me on the guest list to see them play. And they rocked. A combination of heavy metal and jazz.

Then a few hours sleep and down to the studio/ex doctors surgery to pack all the gear in the van, see Simon (drums) off in a van, and then a lift from Gary's Mum to the station. Quick pint before we board the train. Two hours later we check in to a hotel in Yeovil (the closest we could afford to stay in near Evershot), when Simon and Jamie (singer) arrive, we head off to Evershot to set up.

The hall was something else. Old school play sets on stage, a bar out back, and if someone had set up a bake sale in the back of the hall it wouldn't have been out of place. Jamie and I head off to the nearest pub (an old local with a ten pin bowling lane and Polish staff, natch) because the singer and lead guitarist really shouldn't be worrying about the sound and lights and plugging stuff in. And we happen to be totally imcompetant and get in the way. But we'll learn. Who knows? One day there might be someone in a pub who can clue us in.


Fame!

Having learnt the hard way a week back playing the Inn On the Green in Ladbroke Grove, I know I can't play if I'm too wired, so I take it easy. Doesn't help the nerves, though. Especially as 'Something Blue' are playing great. The hall is fairly full, a strange mix off Mum's and daughters - including one in a prom dress - and local kids out for the night, as well as some old Jazz heads.

We're on for the middle set, and our meagre six song set is going to whip by. But we're on form, the kids are dancing and cheering, and the only song that trips me up slightly is AC/DC's 'Live Wire'. I just haven't got the timing on the opening nailed. And my finger's give out before the solo (we're playing the whole set at a faster tempo that normal). But when the set's over the kids are begging us too stay on; they've had their fill of blue's, I suspect. They even want to have a vote as to whether we stay on or 'Something Blue' come back. But I convince them that the next half will be great, and we get off.

And now I can drink!