Thursday, February 4, 2010

Sweet Pretenses

Forgot to post this here, too...

Dunno if it's going to be a Late Joys song yet, as it's rather delicate. But if I swing that gig in Southern California in March you can bet I'll give this a troubadour's best effort! Here are the lyrics:



Update: Got the gig in SoCal. E Street Cafe. 3/15/2010. More anon.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Robi's rehearsal notes from 1/6/2010

Funny how introspective we get after a gig. The Jovita's sweat had hardly dried before the e-mails started flying with commentary, notes, suggested fixes and all manner of Maoist Cultural Revolutionary zeal to Improve Ourselves.

Don't get me wrong. None of us thinks we're the finished product, but to read some of the notes you might come to think we'd had a stinker. Far from it. As ever, the thing that hangs me up is e-mail tone. There isn't any. I have to keep reminding myself that nothing anyone writes by way of post-performance commentary is intended negatively. No finger pointing here. Sort of like the American homeland security system of post-Christmas 2009 ("25/09" anyone? "25 or 6 to four?" Anyone? Anyone?). No finger pointing there, either; just the collective guilt of a job badly done as pointed out by some president or other and his henchmen. Spokesmen. I meant "spokesmen." Except we didn't miss all the little signs of Impending Nigerian-Borne Scrotal-Bomb Doom. No. Not us. Not The Late Joys. We rock. And we rocked on the night, too. And in this new front on the war on terror, no one's gonna lose his job over such trivial matters as a missed chord change or missing all the hints that some freak kid is gonna try to blow up an airliner with a bomb strapped to his whotsits.

But I digress. The best part of a week or three-days' worth of e-mail song commentary is getting back to the rehearsal room to play all those ticklish little numbers that, pardon the running theme, we might have ballsed up if ever so slightly. A shift in tempos here, a minor adjustment to a drum riff there, a couple of measures of "E" thrown in for good, uh, measure. Plus some promising work on new tunes. It all makes for a satisfying night's work.

And what were those minor irritants, song-wise? I point fingers at you, Ghost Town (a little slow). Fixed! A Tilt of the Cap, a Handshake and a Beer: What happened in the transition to your bridge? Who cares, now that it forking rocks. Honestly, were you a little flat? No longer, what with that improved bridge-to-break shift and improved dynamic. Who else wants some? You Won't Talk To Her? You're so good maybe you will talk to her. Haymarket Rain a little wet behind the ears? One snap of the towel and it's back on track!

Of the newer material we jumped back into a new RP tune, PopMusicSuperRockStar, and reviewed Secret Agent Man to get Shane's horn in. As it were. And Scottie's got a new one, Summertime, and the living is easy. Our diabolical plan is to add a few songs each session, get ourselves up to three good sets worth of material in the coming six weeks, then unleash it all at a gig near you. Maybe we'll reveal ourselves at that March 6 Jovita's gig. We'll see.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Rockin' in the New Year at Jovita's, Jan. 2, 2010

Still getting used to writing "2010," but there it is. Or here it is, more like. And there we were, back at Jovita's on day two of the new decade. What a great way to give it a rousing kick-start.



Big crowd on hand for a sort of homecoming with Brad Martin adding his trumpet to our lot (he's the grainy fellow in the white shirt in the photo; working your way to the right it's grainy Scottie then grainy Robi). Besides the massive collection of Brad and Shane friends, special hellos to Margaret Hoard, who says she has a request for us for a future gig, Lori Randall, who just happened to be there, and Irene White, who's back in Austin after years of lallygagging in Los Angeles! And big thanks to everyone who turned out, ate and drank, listened and danced, and shared in our early-evening knees-up.

For those of you who missed it, we played a 90-minute set (see song list below) and, if we learned anything, it's that we need to take a break at some point in the middle of a set that long! I suppose I could regale you with some details, and devils certainly took up residence in many of the details on Saturday night. But, honestly, the band gave its all and then some. And we were, as Andy put it, "knackered" by the end of it.

I think we're caught between wanting to please our audience by keeping things moving-moving-moving, go-go-go all the time and finding a way to build dramatic sets that fulfill the audience's -- and our -- expectations for a good, fun performance without losing our edge (or, in my case, my mind). The last thing any of us wants is to see our fans' attentions drift (Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!). On the other hand, who wants to look at a bunch of sweaty, fatigued Late Joys battling to maintain 90-minutes of high-octane rock-n-roll? (Don't answer that!) I'd love to ascend to Springsteen levels of fitness and play three-hour gigs and leave it all on the stage, and I plan to. But that's something to work toward -- what are New Year's resolutions for, anyway? In the near-term, next time we have 90 minutes under the PAR cans, look for a brief "half time" respite by the boys in the band. We'll come chat with you!

Set List

Weight Of The World
Windsor Road
The Long, The Short And The Tall
Waterloo Sunset (The Kinks)
Wigan Pier
Like Big Girls Do
Town Called Malice (The Jam)
Twisty System
Fascinated
Everybody's Going Away
That's Entertainment (The Jam)
Place: Away
A Pretty Little Dress
Honestly
(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding (Mr. Lowe, of course!)
You Won't Talk To Her
All-Night Pillow Fight
A Tilt of the Cap, A Handshake And A Beer
She's Got a New Spell (Mr. Bragg)
Dresden
Haymarket Rain (Express)
Ghost Town
Ever Fallen In Love With Someone (The Buzzcocks)

Friday, December 18, 2009

The Carousel Lounge: December 17, 2009

The Carousel Lounge stunned us as we loaded in. Pleasantly. The stage area was clutter-free, neat and all the power outlets worked the way you think power outlets are supposed to work, without having to hunt along yards and yards of cable to discover: no outlet. Yes, it's still dark and murky at the back of the club (in deference to the plastic elephant, I suppose), but the ceiling-height Christmas tree worked fine as a source of illumination.




Usually there's a happy hour act, or at least there's been one in the past, but not last night. So in went Andy's drums, and the rest of the stuff, and we set up at our leisure. The regulars at the bar (big, old pick-up truck = barfly mode-of-transportation of choice) are the nicest in town, nodding hellos and politely holding doors open as we lugged in the gear.

The set went well, too. Nothing like playing a tight, 45 minutes worth of music to a rather large and appreciative crowd (special hellos to Andrew S., my parents, Katie L. and Shawn P. (go, Street Team!), Shane's friends and Scottie's entourage). Patrick did the set list (see below) and it worked really well, not least when I broke a string on the Rickenbacker and, thankfully, only had two songs left, both of which are acoustic guitar-friendly. (Thank you, String Gods.) The snappage occurred at the end of Everybody's Going Away, but I'd planned on swapping to the Gibson for the following Jam tune, anyway, lucky me. Sorta.

Oh, that tune: That's Entertainment. I think this is the second time in three gigs where I've completely lost touch with the words of the song. It's like having an out of body experience during an out of body experience. I praised "the smartest band in Austin" afterward, as the other four managed to keep going through what turned out to be an extra, lyric-less verse and several verses of word/synapse misfires and some sung gobbledegook as cover for my blanking on what I was supposed to be singing! I know why I went up, too. Mea culpa...Hank Schwemmer, a long-time fan of the band wandered in during the song, and I am always happy to see him in the audience. Not so brilliantly, I thought about looking for a way to incorporate his name into the song and, of course, as soon as I thought that, I forgot where I was (the first time) and gargled my way through a line or two before I recovered. The song's not hard, it just has a lot of words and it's imperative that I think about the first line of each subsequent verse in order to stay on track. Sure enough, as we entered the final verses, I reminded myself to pay attention and not lose focus as I'd done when Hank walked in and, bam! I went up again. This time it lasted for that extra verse...good thing the song only has verses and choruses. Its lack of complexity (easy for me to say) means we can survive an empty round (uh, or two!). At least I got the outro right and we finished nice and tight.

I dug Place:Away, too. We've set it up now to cut Scottie loose on lead guitar and, seeing as he had friends in the crowd, he really cut it up even better than usual. Makes for a grand finale, that song. Andy put in a stop in the final verse that we'd rehearsed and rejected, but Patrick kept playing bass through it. Shane, Andy and I were talking about it afterward. Total silence hadn't worked in rehearsal the night before because it killed the song's momentum. But with Patrick carrying on as the only accompaniment to my singing, the song's climax felt really punchy. We'll have to recreate that in the rehearsal room to see if it's worth keeping or if our satisfaction last night was just "performance-enhanced."

Kudos, too, to Shane on Windsor Road and Big Girls, where he's adding riffs and runs and more and more color. Now we'll take a couple weeks off and then back at it. New songs to learn and some more to clean up. Feels good.

Oh, and my mom snapped some shots from her front seat cabaret table. You can review the evidence here.

Robi


Set List
Weight of the World
Windsor Road
The Long, The Short And The Tall
Waterloo Sunset (Kinks)
Wigan Pier
Like Big Girls Do
Town Called Malice (The Jam)
Twisty System
Fascinated
Everybody's Going Away
That's Entertainment (The Jam)
Place:Away

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Robi's rehearsal notes from 12/10/2009*

Rocked through tonight's 45-minute set for the Carousel, and it went rather smoothly. Uh, too smoothly? This, of course, disturbs if only because you want there to be some kinks in the works so you go into the gig feeling as if you still have work to do. No coasting! As they say in the theatre, "Bad dress rehearsal, good opening." On the other hand, it feels good to crank out a dozen or more tunes as fluidly as we did.

Of course two things diminish my concerns. 1. Patrick suggested that we probably didn't sound as good as thought we did. Oh, thanks, man! 2. He's right. Or rather, I think everyone knows he can do better (I speak grammatically; I'm not pointing out any flaws in Patrick's playing!). We all can always do better. That's what I love about making the music. Especially in the (dim) crucible of a live show. Speaking for myself, I know I'm not going into tonight's gig hugely overconfident. Uh, or overconfident at all. There are always way too many variables for that! Makes it exciting. Keeps ya young. But given the sounds last night, I'm looking forward to a good night of music. Let's say I'm confident and leave it at that.

After tweaks to a couple of songs in the set, we picked up Haymarket Rain and started some reworking. I swapped to rhythm guitar (acoustic) and Scottie picked up the lead. We slowed it down a little. I don't know. It's not done, so it's too soon to tell if it's any better than the "express" version of old (it's not the "local" version we've done when sans drums, that's for sure). Patrick suggested it was somewhere in between. Which is where I get uncomfortable. The last thing I want to do is smooth it out so much it's just all soft underbelly and no spiky dangerous bits. It needs teeth. Spines. It is, as my wife Michelle pointed out, a song about teen angst, after all.

Plus I realized in my insomnia last night that one of the things I like about the higher-energy version is that it recalls the sound and energy of a train clackety-clacking down the tracks; the fast train to heartache. Or it should! Maybe that's a clue to the rhythm shift we're searching for: Something driving, energetic (I like to say, "crisp") but not as out of control as before. It's early days on this one: That train's only just leaving the station!

Robi

*A note about these rehearsal notes. In an effort to expand my writing for this blog, I'm going to post about rehearsals, recording sessions, gigs and anything else in the quotidian life of the band. Those interested in the deep dive, dive on in!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Long, The Short And The Tall

Robi: I wrote this one back in the days of Lower Wacker Drive, my Boston band, so it's one of the first songs I ever wrote. Date? eh...probably 1986. The Reagan years, when everyone wanted to look good in fatigues. We're all going on a summer holiday: in Grenada! If you're a Brit: oh, those summers in paradise, Las Malvinas!

In my little tune (a waltz; gentlemen, grab your ladies), the too easily tarnished shine of soldierdom provides the grist for this gritty tale of a young man who enlists, finds the perfect girl over a cheap drink, then gets shipped off to foreign climes and an untimely end, leaving her bereft at home. A sadly familiar story in these days of perpetual conflict.

The title came from a play I read in high school, a cliche-ridden yet intensely moving piece about a motley collection of British soldiers under siege in the steaming Burmese jungle. It didn't end well for them, either.

This recording is from our Saxon Pub gig, 7/12/2009.

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The Long, The Short And The Tall


Down on your luck or down and out
It gets so easy to say:
"I'll take the benefit of the doubt,"
And sign myself away

The uniform looks good on me
I walk to watch hips sway
And a dollar a drink and some mighty cheap talk
Is enough to make her stay

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
The animals moan or hide in the shadows
And everyone's afraid of the moonlight

Making a life out of making men dead
It impressed her so much she'd make me she said
But we lie to ourselves when we lie on the bed
Is that war game you play all in your head?

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
We're up with the sun to fly to the shadows
Where everyone's afraid of the moonlight

My face pressed to the glass of a greasy bus window
It runs on blood and gas and jokes about who'll go (first)

First off the bus, first in the ditch
We're pigs in the mud, a rifle's our bitch
And the sergeant's so cool but the heat makes me itch
And everything's too smooth, when it just takes a touch

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
I can't remember her face anymore
I can't find the letters she writes

A woman pressed to the glass watches the planes fly away
It's here and then it's past and I canĂ­t bear to see her wave

It's a "Come on, my boys!" to the top of the hill
We're rabbits with rifles we're pigs to the swill
And the first sign of life is the first sign to kill
And if you get dirty they'll send you the bill

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
The animals moan or hide in the shadows
And everyone's afraid of the moonlight

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
The animals moan or hide in the shadows
And everyone's afraid of the moonlight