Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Tracks cause me tears...

Roman Holiday is becoming a robo-band, at least partially.

Yes, we're acknowledging our shortcomings on certain songs and fortifying our performance with some backing tracks.

I'm not sure if I'm happy with the concept, because I feel like tracks are better as an all-or-nothing proposition. But I'm not sure what it's going to mean or how it's going to work for this band.

I think (sub?)consciously I'm really frustrated with my current situation, because almost everything we do engenders some sort of negative reaction in my brain, usually leading me to shooting off a semi-pissy e-mail. I'm just now recognizing this, although it's been going on for a long time. I don't know why, because I do like these guys, and I like the songs we play, and I like playing bass and singing lead. I just have this weird chip on my shoulder about all of it. Maybe my previous blogs about being burned out were manifestations of these same feelings.

I feel like a psycho, because it's almost like I'm denying something just to deny it, but I like it, but when I think of doing anything else I hate those ideas even though they seem appealing, too.

I think it's just facing what change would mean: a lot more work.

Which brings it back to the tracks - I think the fact that now I'm not allowed to mess up and come back around on the tracked tunes makes me realize I have homework to do so that doesn't happen, and I guess I hate the fact I have homework.

I've always thought I really had something to say as a songwriter or an artist, and as I get older, I just feel like I don't, mostly because I don't allow myself the luxury of concentrating on writing songs and creating stories or messages through music. Recently I've been more satisfied just parroting other crap and noodling around.

I'm such a whiny titty baby.
TMS

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Thank you, Butch Walker...

for reminding me that music should be about fun and passion. The show at Stubb's last night was loose in composition, but really tight in performance. I love it when a band is really loose with the stage show and song selection, but super tight when they're playing together...and that's how his band was last night.

Special kudos to Ponderosa for taking the blues and rocking it HARD.

And shame on American pop culture for not recognizing how great Butch is. You are truly missing out.

Monday, May 18, 2009

So, things have gotten a little bit better...

The band has played a few decent gigs since the debacle that was Pappacito's. We're still figuring out how to move ourselves in a more fun direction, since the stuff we've been playing is getting kind of stale for all of us.

I've actually grown tired of making the set lists, so I'm going to ask the other fellas if they'll make them for a while.

I finally tweaked my Variax so that it's not too loud and sounds more authentic as a 12-string. It really helps on the two acoustic songs we do, since both were originally played with 12-string acoustics.

I definitely need to find an outlet for playing guitar soon, though. It might mean that the Acoustical Schizo (www.myspace.com/acousticalschizo) comes to life. We're so absurdly booked for the summer that I think I'd get it together just in time to book some dates in August and September. I might see if Dave can hook me up to play a few solo acoustic shows at Latitude 30, just to warm up the material in front of an audience. I'm having a hard time finding regular acoustic venues.

We'll see what happens. This coming weekend we're doing a sonic overhaul to Roman Holiday's PA - organizing it, getting really good monitor mixes without feedback, and basically putting together a system to make load-in and load-out easier (including labeling everything). I find that stuff fun, so that's cool.

We have received regular bookings for the summer at a few places, including Hayashi Sushi Grille in Cedar Park and The Tilted Kilt in Round Rock, so we have some public shows - yay!

I do dig the private parties a little more, though, most of the time, because the load-ins are usually easier and the pay is pretty much double on average.

No gig this weekend, but we're at a new venue (for us) in Pflugerville called "Hanover's" - they have their own house PA and pay a sound dude (I think) so we should be in good shape playing there. I don't anticipate a return gig there, because I don't trust all our peeps to show up, but we're going to have as much fun with it as possible.

Until the next time...