St. Marks Is Dead at the Carousel Lounge 11/4/15

Here is the running order for +Ada Calhoun's book party for her killer book St. Marks Is Dead at the @carousel_lounge this Wednesday:

7pm - 9pm: The Study Session makes its return to the Austin stage in this pre-show for you early-birds/happy hourettes (or, check out +Graham Reynolds The Dionysium Autumn Show at the Alamo Drafthouse Village and then head to the Carousel!)

9pm*: Wayne Alan Brenner reads from Ada's book

9:15pm*: Ethan Azarian (Orange Mothers) strums some St. Marks related tunes

9:30pm*: Allyson Lipkin reads more from Ada's book

9:45pm*: Adam Sultan plays more songs with a St. Marks sensibility (regretfully, Stephanie Stephens won't be able to perform Wednesday night with Mr. Sultan)

10:00pm*: Ada reads a little and maybe we do a Q&A, too!

11:00pm*: The Late Joys play a psycho killer set of NYC numbers (and some other related Songs From Cities dredged from the LJ repertoire)

Midnight: Adjourn to...

*Start times approximate

NO COVER! BYOB (if you want the hard stuff, that is . . .)

Don't have a copy of St. Marks Is Dead? Books will be available for purchase at the Carousel and Ada will be on hand to sign yours!!!

I'm Happy Now: Lyrics From A New Song

I had this little bit of music in my head that had evolved around the rhythm of singing aloud a lyric: "I'm happy now." Oh, a "happy" song? Okay: uh...then what? Well, I came up with a chord progression, and a song's gotta have verses (and a bridge). Well, for me, presently, that's how I think so that's how I built the song. I went for alliterative, imagistic stretch-narrative and came up with this. The Late Joys will debut it at The Carousel Lounge on Thursday. Come out and give it a hearing!

I'm Happy Now

When sour dour super-power furies ground me down
Uncertain closed the curtain chose a furtive path unfound
A fledgling how I floundered now I hurdle yonder cloud
I’m happy now
I’m happy now
I’m happy now
I’m happy now

They’re flying drones and throwing sticks and stones in the glass house
Those whining dopes no hopers pricks and moaning gadabouts
But I have poured cold water on their smoking bad-ass row
I’m happy now
I’m happy now
I’m happy now
I’m happy now

Oh how I’d weep
The nights I couldn’t sleep
And how I’d cry
The days it went awry
But it all came good
In every way it should
And my long list of all the things I thought had passed me by
I tore it out and balled it up and threw it on the fire

Formerly confused my features furrowed frowning brow
I callously flogged horse and ass and unicorn and plow
Aye, I was volatile seldom smiled madding crowd
I’m happy now
I’m happy now
I’m happy now
I’m happy now

So: Did The Late Joys Survive Their Gig At The Baker Street Pub?

Spoilers: Okay, if I’m writing this then obviously one of us made it through the night!*

Patrick warms up.

About three-quarters of the way into last night’s performance at The Baker Street Pub & Grill (this would be around 1:00 in the morning) Shane turned to me and asked, “Have you ever run a marathon?” Which was his way of comparing last night’s four-hour gig with what, in comparison, might not seem so daunting a run now. Shane has run marathons, so he should know.

Mr. P and, uh, Mr. P perform.

Our well intentioned plan to play four 40-minute sets with generous recuperative breaks quickly came a cropper as, after our first two sets, we had played much more than we thought we had. It was getting on for midnight, so we had a decision to make: either play two mini-sets in order to give ourselves a break or just go for it and play from 12:15 until the kitchen shut down at 1:45. Being the gung-ho lot we are, we went for it and charged headlong into a most blistering extended set of uptempo covers and originals until the bitter end...and beyond.

Scottie shreds.

As we came to the last of the songs on the list, the Buzzcock’s “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have Fallen In Love With”), I turned to Matt to get this punchy little number rolling. He, like the rest of us, had put in a valiant physical effort and was breathing perhaps a little harder than when we’d begun way back on Thursday night. “Guys, I don’t have any Buzzcocks in me,” he said. Given it was almost time for the pub to shut down, we agreed to call it a night and closed with the much more sedate “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away,” to bring the high-octane gig in for a gentle landing. Matt took out his brushes, I turned down my guitar, Shane leaned against the wall until the song’s horn-inspired end. As we played I saw Scottie just standing there, guitar in hand, staring at the rest of us. He played not a single note of the Beatles’ tune.

The black stuff
becomes you, Shane.

I asked him afterwards what happened: Had he forgotten the song (it’s new to our repertoire; we played it for the first time a couple of nights ago)? No, it turned out that four hours of guitar-hero shredding had left him with a cramp in his hand, a cramp so intense it had immobilized his entire being. That’s what a marathon will do you.

Cheering crowds, folks dancing, appreciative whistles (and occasional shrieks) for Scottie and Shane’s solo forays and an overall good vibe throughout the night left us feeling tired but really pleased with ourselves. We did it. I think we knew we would.

We can’t wait to play our next marathon!

(Just some of last night's moving van's worth of) gear.

*Yes, we all made it through the night!

The Late Joys Troll For New Songs

For Our (Impending) Baker Street Pub Gig: What More Is On The List?

I wrote recently about three of the songs we are (hastily? hmmmm…efficiently: yes, that’s better...) adding to our set list so we can fill up the whopping four sets worth of stage time at our gig at The Baker Street Pub & Grill next Thursday (April 5). Here's some guff about another trio of tunes we're adding to the mix.

"Middle Of The Road," by the Pretenders
We've been kicking this song around rehearsals for quite a while. Or we had been and then it slipped off the radar about a year or so ago. It's another big sonic number, with Scottie getting to unleash his inner Pretender on a pair of wicked solos. For me it's another wordy number, but I love it: the rhythmic cascade of lyrics; and "baby" and "yeah" never sounded as good in a song. I've had a soft spot for the Pretenders ever since "Brass In Pocket," and I fell in love with Chrissie Hynde's voice in "Talk Of The Town." (the way she purrs, "...I want you..."; oh, baby! The teenage mind explodes!) It's a song I would urge us to play but I'm not sure I could do it sensual justice. Okay: Here is a link to the original video of "Talk of the Town" just because because because because. (You can skip past the annoying ad "in five seconds." It is so worth it...including that final frame glamour shot, featuring leather-clad Ms. Hynde sporting a 1980 come-hither look.)

Whew! Where was I? Oh, yes: Of course, "Middle Of The Road" came later in the Pretenders discography; it's political, it's parenting, it's in your face. It's a rocker. And I can't wait to give it a run out.

"You Don't Know Me," by Mr. P
So this one is not, strictly speaking, a new song. If you were present at the 7th Street Working Men's Club* for The Road To Wigan Pier back in 2004 you'll have heard this song I composed as one of the evening's musical diversions. For those of you unaware of "Wigan" (pronounced WIG-un), it was a play wot I wrote based on a book of the same name by a certain George Orwell, with which I...uh...took a lovin' spoonful of liberties. Among the liberties was the onstage musical combo, The Late Joys, introduced to the world via this very drama.

But let's go back even further. Two years before those halcyon performance-tinged evenings, the LJs sputtered to life and featured me sitting in David Jones' kitchen during the fall of 2002 teaching him the handful of songs I'd written; the man has the patience of a saint; Cyndi must be a double-saint for allowing me to infiltrate her abode with song. My memory grows hazy but when I first got the idea for the play I recall that it was the songs that came almost immediately; they practically leapt out of my imagination, demanding to be written, learned and performed. So it was that Mr. Jones and I came to grips with them and then unleashed a few at someone else's gig at Ego's on S. Congress back in the days before karaoke swallowed the room. By summer the band personnel had swelled to twice its original size, with the addition of the young Gordon Gunn on bass and grizzled Matt Patterson on drums. At a fundraiser for the play (Orwell's 100th Birthday Party) we performed a set that included most of the songs from the upcoming production and a few choice extras penned by Mr. Jones and yours truly. I have a couple of recordings of rehearsals we did pre- and post-fundraiser and you can hear Matt singing harmonies. I shared the recordings with the current LJ lineup and Matt asked me if that was indeed him singing. Oh, yes. Indeed.

Of course, Matt then left the band to pursue his real life (the bastard), first at graduate school in NC and then in New York, and then he got married and all that adult stuff. But he's back and we're delighted and the whole LJ experience has come something of full circle and half Nelson and hence I dredged up "You Won’t Know Me" from the vault because at least two of us (should) know how to play it.

The song refers to the dismal turn for the worse for British communities founded on the coal mining industry once Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (spit!) began her wholesale eradication of that particular way of life. All those folks who’d known only coal mining for generation after generation were left with nowt. A year-long miners' strike failed to do more than antagonize the Conservative government, which ratcheted up its anti-union, anti-miner stance; the industry fairly collapsed and disappeared from Britain's shores in the years that followed. Despite this grim précis, I gotta say, "You Don't Know Me" is a sweet pop tune that starts all introspective then takes off at the bridge, only to settle down for a gentle landing. Au revoir, les mineurs.

Extra credit: Can you name all the "mineurs" in the photo from the Chronicle review?

*The Off Center, natch!

"Song Number Three," by the...Hmmmm...
Strangely, I've had a hard time deciding on which other song to make note of here, to whet your appetite for our (cough) extended gig. There are a couple that are so new we're still poring over the charts. One is "Catherine Marshall," penned by Scottie with his typical flair for a great hook. It's sort of Housemartins-esque with a dollop of Billy Bragg in there and features a California-bound law schooler. Speaking of the Bard of Barking, we're bringing back "She's Got A New Spell," a song we play from time to time then set free only for it to squeeze back under the crack in the door, the little Dickens. We've resuscitated some old LJ rockers ("Weight of the World," "Fascinated" and Shane's fave, "PopMusicSuperRockStar"), great to perform, and remote enough in our collective consciousness to keep us humble. There's another Kink's cover, some Motown madness ("Heatwave," sadly sans all-girl backup singers...any volunteers?) and a bright, Sex Pistols' sounding song by Big Drag (from San Antonio): "Uneven." And we're padding it all out with a couple of Beatles tunes we have yet to perform live in our current lineup. And much, much more!

I reckon there's something for everyone here. We're on from about 9:45pm Thursday night until 1:45am on what promises to be a really Good Friday morning. Baker Street has food and more taps of draught beer than we have songs on our set list. And we have a lot of songs. Hope you can make it!

Faster, Late Joys! Learn! Learn!

How (and What) The Late Joys Are Adding to Our List of Songs for our Baker St. Pub Gig

I reckon we’ve got a good two hours of songs under our belts. And that’s great, because when we divide all that into sets it makes for a nice trio of 45-minute blasts — if you include banter, sips of “favorite beverage” and Scottie’s occasional 64-bar foray into solo-land, anyway.

The thing is, when we play the Baker Street Pub & Grill on April 5 we’re going to need a fourth 45-minute set, as the gig goes from around 9:30 p.m. until 1:45 a.m. That’s four hours of entertainment with breaks. So we have been in song-acquisition mode.

Here, then, are a few of the songs we’re working on to augment our current lot, with a little bit on why we chose them.

“Love Her Madly” by The Doors
I heard this one on a Jody Denberg-hosted Eklektikos on KUT a few weeks ago and the jaunty guitars and the blast of horns and the sweet melody had me thinking how Beatles-y this particular number is. Plus the workload is nicely divided with parts for Scottie on lead guitar, Shane on lead trumpet and there’s that nice thrashy rhythm guitar kicking things off (uh, that’d be me). It’s got a nifty dynamic that shifts from almost reggae to a Byrds/Beatles sounding transition that culminates in a typical Doors-y “under the big top” kaleidoscope of happy-sounding keys. With lyrics that make no sense but are fun to sing (thank you, Jim Morrison).

When I brought it into rehearsal later that evening Matt knew the lyrics already, so he sings the lead on this one; I try to pipe up with occasional harmonies cos it sounds nice.

“All My Loving” by The Beatles
When Patrick and I first started playing music together (cough) in 2006 (cough) one of the songs on that initial list was “All My Loving” and I cannot for the life of me remember why, except I think I had recently learned it and was (and still am) in love with that A to F#m to D to B7 bit (F, Dm, Bb, G7 if you capo it up 4, oh, ye guitarists out there); it’s like a juicy secret just sitting out in the open.

This song disappeared from the Late Joys songbook years ago, and through all our personnel changes we never returned it — or any other Beatles number — to our list of songs. Considering our Brit-Pop/British Invasion upbringing, this was scandalous. I’ve managed to squeeze it in among songs played by my acoustic-duet alter-ego outfit, The Study Session, and it works quite nicely, thank you very much. But there was never an overwhelming interest among erstwhile Late Joys to give it a whirl. At least until recently.

So I was pleased as punch when Patrick suggested we bring it back. Shane’s taken on the solo for this under-two-minute gem, which, I’m grateful to say, is not the only Fab Four number we play nowadays.

“Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)” by Squeeze
If there’s a band, and a song, that takes me back to high school, this is it. I remember buying Squeeze’s third album, Argybargy (“AR - jee BAR - jee”) because that particular single and “Another Nail For My Heart” were on it. My god, those are two amazing songs. I can almost smell the Marks and Spencer’s grey school-uniform v-neck sweater pulled over my starched white shirt and school tie when I think about either number. I can’t believe “Pulling Mussels” only placed as high as 44 on the UK charts; I remember that Top of the Pops took a shine to the song and played it a lot while it charted. Or maybe that’s wishful remembering.

I once saw Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford play a show in Boston as an acoustic duet and they played “Pulling Mussels.” Tilbrook took off on the solo and his fingers were just flying up and down the fret board. Amazing.

Scottie proposed this one, largely because he’d figured out Tilbrook’s tricks; and I didn’t have to go too deep into my subconscious to dredge up the lyrics — writing songs with high word counts apparently has an upside. We’re saddling Shane with the Jools Holland keyboard part, cos as we all know, trumpet and keys sound like long-lost brethren.

* * *

I’ll weigh in next week with some more about our progress as we gear up for our Baker Street Pub shindig, to which, of course, you are most cordially invited!

The (Debut) Ultimate Thursday Open Mic at Cafe Caffeine

Read all about it. Or about a lot of it, anyway. http://bit.ly/a59d6O

Open Mics and Me

Robbledegook post.

I Don't Want To See You Around

I mentioned in an earlier post that there were two songs that emerged from my primordial creative ooze in late December/early January. Sweet Pretenses was one song. This post is about the other.

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.

New Tunes

From the shiny new, oft neglected Robi blog.

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.

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)

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

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!

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 canít 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

It Never Rains But It Pours

Trying to outwit Mother Nature through old architecture, an elk and a break in the weather

Whenever The Late Joys are asked to perform at a party, a function, a fete or some other gathering of a celebratory nature, we say, "Yes! We'll be there!" And we mean it.

Lately, however, a run of bad luck -- or bad weather -- has meant that large gatherings to which we've been booked have been canceled. To whit: Last May the Oak Hill Youth Sports Association asked if we'd play the spring BBQ "Yes!" we exulted, "We'll be there!" Alas, that day a front steamed through the region. And by "steamed" I mean the way a steamroller might steam: lethargic, leaden, chugging along with no inclination beyond its own inclemency. In short, it started raining in the wee hours and didn't let up until late in the afternoon. The sodden day meant our gig was a wash out. Sod it!

Roll the clouds jauntily forward to October. Having survived a blistering summer, suddenly the fall offered more sopping than sunshine. Sure enough, having been booked for the fall BBQ for our area soccer club (to which we said, "Yes! We'll be there!"), we awoke to another day of stagnant action in the heavens, which shed their tears on our endeavors and washed out yet another gig.

A pattern, tropical, was starting to emerge. Perhaps a change in name to accommodate the shifting weather patterns that kept us at bay? The Wet Joys? No, we persevered: Better "Late" than...well, you know...and we accepted an invitation to perform for a large party for friends in another as-yet-untried venue. The forecast? Rain. And lots of it.

But last night we had the better of our most savage, saturate critic, Mother Nature, who again rained her negative review all over Central Texas yet couldn't dampen our spirits. No, this time the party to which we celebratorily declared "Yes! We'll be there!" was held indoors. Don't say we can't learn from our mistakes! The event took place at the Elks Lodge (hence that animal head tacked to the top of this tale; it's the first (and last) thing you see coming (and going) from the lodge). It's a fine old spot, with a shallow stage and picture windows that look out over downtown Austin, featuring a precipitous drop to the shimmering pool below that induces vertigo until you realize it's the pool that's shimmering, not the floor.

And a rare old time we had. Oddly enough the Oak Hill Sports liaison who had booked us for what turned out to be that May day mayday was present at the fete. I hope he liked what he heard!

Below: Though you can't see it, it was one wet night out there. Those little lights out the window, behind Robi's Ric and rig? Though you can't see it, it's downtown Austin's high-falutin' new skyline.

Say Fear Is A Man's Best Friend

Robi welcomes the pre-performance butterflies

I remember when I'd get butterflies before playing soccer games as a kid. I also used to get them as an adult: Yup, I'd get nerves before kicking off with my local men's Sunday league club, Havoc. Usually the butters flew in as I wondered how I'd last the first five minutes of the game. But once those five minutes had passed, I'd feel stronger and stronger. Dispelling the butterflies helped me to focus and (hopefully) play better. Now, sadly, I don't get butterflies before games, a sign that I've caught up to the freight train of life as it chugs towards some terminus best left undetermined.

But the nerves: I think they came down to wanting to do well, to prove myself, to be there for my teammates. Face it, I didn't want to let down the side by playing badly! I looked forward to the butterflies. That extra energy, unnerving, unfocused, when finally harnessed, sharpened the senses and filled me with exuberance -- how fun to be alive!

The same thing goes for my music. I'm quite comfortable getting up in front of people who've come to listen to the band. It's a blast to perform. And I don't feel nervous about the possibility of messing up when I play with the band -- we're all there for each other and that big sound hides lots of little faults. It's a team effort and it works well. But up on stage alone, when there's nowhere to hide, no other musicians to lean on, I get butterflies. Mostly I think it's because I don't want to perform the songs badly, because I wrote them and I want people to like what I wrote (it's a short hop from liking what I wrote to liking me, isn't it? and we all want to be liked, if not loved, right?). It's a horrifying thought I could do some disservice to my own material and have people walk away unsatisfied! That makes me nervous. Which is a good thing.

So the last couple of weeks I have had the satisfying frightening pleasure of performing solo at Momo's. Driving to those gigs I've felt all those old soccer/soloist butterflies alight. This past Tuesday, I played to dark, cold empty room (yes, even when no one's there, ya still gotta perform as if your life depended on it). So I pulled a cafe chair to the microphone, sat down, tuned up and launched into a solo set. And, having confronted my nerves, I gotta say, it sounded pretty good! Felt good, too. When a pair of friends arrived for a drink and a listen, it was even better. Nothing beats interacting with folks you know while you share your music.

I love chasing a soccer ball and that is enough to keep me feeling spontaneous and alive when I play, even when I don't get the butterflies (though I still look for them as I drive to each Sunday's game). Musically, I reckon nerves help me to focus, to will myself to get it right. And then to dispel those butterflies, let myself go and have a good time.

The Late Joys (Nov.) Newsletter

Who ya gonna call?
October 29, 2009

Hi, everyone!

You may not be afraid of no ghosts, and, uh, neither are we...ahem...but seeing as we're about to pass from All Hallow's Eve through the Day of the Dead (a two-day affair -- what's with the dead getting to double...uh...down on their "day" anyway?), we're about as joyful as you can be that the days are shorter and nights longer and we're heading for November. And why not: four happy hour gigs at Momo's, some under-the-radar events, new tunes and, on the horizon, a first gig at Cedar Street: our joy meter is doin' the monster mash!

Peace,
The Late Joys
Andy, Patrick, Shane, Scottie and Robi

Check out the sound and the purple people eaters of The Late Joys.
http://www.latejoys.com/

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UPCOMING GIGS:

Tuesdays in November, 5pm-6:45pm
Momo's Happy Hour
618 W. 6th Street, 78701
http://momosclub.com/
No cover
All-ages show
Catch us in a variety of lineups -- from full-bore band to acoustic bandlet -- as we return for the happiest of hours at Momo's all month long! Read more below.

Friday, November 20
Private party!

Monday, January 11
Cedar Street Courtyard
208 W. 4th Street, 78701
http://www.cedarstreetaustin.com/
Lookin' forward to a big gig in the heart of the warehouse district! (Happy Birthday, Denise O!)

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MORE ON MOMO'S

With four Tuesdays to play with we're showing a little flexibility with our lineups (seeing as not all of us are available for all four gigs!). Please peruse the following menu and choose as many dishes as you like:

Tuesday, November 3: Songs You Ain't Never Heard Before*
Robi plays acoustic tunes that the band either hasn't performed in years or has never done, including the Wigan Pier Suite (or, in this case, maybe "suet" is the more apt word). *Disclaimer: You may have heard some of these songs before.

Tuesday, November 10: The Late Joys play all-out rock AND roll in our full lineup. Might even debut a new song or two...hint...

Tuesday, November 17: Songs You Ain't Never Heard Before II*
Robi's back for more acoustic strumming and warbling, swapping out some of those old tunes for still older ones. *Disclaimer: If you dropped in on 11/3, you may be disappointed at the novelty aspect of the proceedings. On the other hand, Scottie should be strumming along this time!

Tuesday, November 24: Another full lineup outing for the Late Joys. Technically our last gig of 2009, but you never know...

http://momosclub.com/

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FREE DOWNLOADS OF LATE JOYS MUSIC

Download our tunes via this way-cool site in all sorts of familiar and unfamiliar formats!

Get your free Late Joys music here.
http://thelatejoys.bandcamp.com/

A Late Joys Poll: Who's Your Favorite Team?

Do you follow the fall pigskin follies (pearls before swine)? Or are you an aficionado of o jogo bonito (not to be confused with a singer for U2)? Both games are enjoyed by 11 men (or women) and one ball. We're told the ball quite likes the attention. Who do you like?

We know, for instance that one Late Joy fancies himself a bit of Glasgow's blue team; another supports the Reds of Liverpool...

Let us know the name of your favorite team and we'll put in a good word for your gridiron egg tossers or Beckhamesque ball bashers at our next gig!

How can a new act stand out from the crowd?

From the Guardian Music blog. Not exactly encouraging reading. Except for the concept of focusing on your actual friends and fans. Not trolling for numbers, but connecting directly with people who truly like you/your work. Nurture those relationships. See what happens.