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.