Respectful dedication

While there are a number of people to thank for helping me get this far with this project - there are two in particular.

Cracker! You ARE the man cobber! I thank you for the band's name and for your friendship over the past couple of years!

Algy... mate - what can I say. At a particularly bad moment you came into my life and totally turned me around. I hope I can reciprocate in some small manner some day! What's mine is yours Pops! There just aren't words!

Bracket practice for 29 April 2006

Here's the set list we'll be running on the 29th April - and on into gigs as they emerge:

Set the first - VOODOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Crawlin Kingsnake
Who Do You Love
Help Me
Killing Floor
Gaia
Highway 31
Midnight Hour
Got My Mojo Workin
Mungo
Voodoo Chile
Samigitian Sunrise (mebbe)

Set the Second - The Blues Brothers and Sister

Scuttlebuttin
Messin With The Kid
Flip Flop Fly
She Caught the Katy
Mustang Sally
Come On In My Kitchen
Sweet Home Chicago
Shake Your Moneymaker
Nothin Shakin
Stop Breakin Down
Baby Lee
Chain of Fools
Come Together
Gimme Some Lovin

Stop breakin Down Katy and Coming together with the Crawling Queen Snake

Tuesday night - and a great time was had by all.

Ran through and developed -

Stop Breaking Down Ben's harp sounds great
Come Together ran it in Bb - Lucinda singing - it sounds fantastic
She Caught The Katy
Crawlin King Snake or Crawlin Queen Snake. This one will be KILLER - a lazy John Lee Hooker piece with the band chugging away underneath.

We tightened up Messin With the Kid - adding the Blues Brothers verse - "Tell me you love me - tell me a lie" and worked through Gimme Some Lervin for the harmonies again... sounding much tighter. Also added an extra chorus into Got My Mojo Working and formulated an ending beyond"GROOVE OUT". Should be much tighter.

Looking forward to Sunday when the plan is to tighten the whole set - listen to references then play them... and add the four new ones.

Should be a blast - see you there!

Friday on my mind - From 6 'til midnight... somewhere in March

We road tested the first few tunes first... tightening endings - and stretching for new parts. In the INTRO to Sweet Home Chicago I busted ANOTHER string on Cherry. A "D". Finished the song but this is getting to be a habit!

A long "discussion" on how we're to proceed. Whether we go straight to three forty-five minute sets - or consolidate the first two. No real decision on that - bracket practice is off for at least another week.

Flip Flop Fly came up really well tonight. I had a rabid confrontation with my memory when I get through the intro to Help Me and realise I've got the wrong guitar - sounded okay - but bloody hard to keep the Green Onions sounding good across 12 bars in E tuning.

Tuesday with the singers we're going to run:

Messin With the Kid to add the Blues brothers verse

Mungo Blues to get Ben up with the lyrics

Who Do You Love to get a longer version going - combining the Thorogood and Feelgood versions

And learning and developing arrangements for:

She Caught the Katy
Come Together
Stop Breaking Down
Crawling Kingsnake

and I want to do a little work with Lucinda on:

All I Need

Got home and spent a few hours sorting the charts and organising myself. The BOOK is looking good. There's a lot of satisfaction in finally seeing them come together after two years.

See you Tuesday - or shortly after.

I GOT EVERYTHING YOU NEED - The Tuesday file - part 2

A great night with Lucinda , Ben and Al poking his head around the corner to keep ME on track.

We ran through:

Come Together
Gimme Some Lovin
Mustang Sally
Chain of Fools
Al stepped in for a run through of Mungo

I got the guys to run COME TOGETHER in C - I MEANT Bb - gives me a nice low capo tune... I wonder how low these singers can go....

Great fun guys! Friday will be a gas! We're running the set as a set - going for good takes of the tunes on tape.

I got home and ran Scuttlebuttin - to try and get the bass line - and I Got All You Need - Bb 16 bar - GREAT FUN! - Will see if B wants the guitar on it - a good fun bass line.

Also played the guys - Stop breakin' Down, Shake Em On Down and Preachin Blues. Going for some "A tuning" songs to complement Who Do You Love and Nothin Shakin...

Saturday Jam - Hold the toast

Another killer day at the Jam Hut in Preston... there's a plug Nipper - do I get a T Shirt NOW!?!

We ran through:

Help Me
Who Do You Love
Baby Lee
Shake Your Moneymaker
Highway 31
Gaia
Flip Flop Fly

missed out on Mungo and Scuttlebuttin (I HAVE BLOODY HOMEWORK - I had a memory once - these days I have scraps of paper!). Hit these two on Friday night!

It was a great night all told - I had a lot of fun - the CATS are cool to jam with!

Once Chezza gets the AUTOCUE running things will be a lot smoother I think!

New material - Coming together at the St James Infirmary with a Crawlin Queensnake - who RULES her den!

Sat down with Ben and Lucinda tonight and nutted out:

1. Come Together
2. St. James Infirmary
3. Crawlin Kingsnake

Was scheduled to do a Koko Taylor - but the big fellas usual procratination set in - we listened to some Rosie Ledet, RL Burnside, Rod Piazza, Mitch Woods and Big Joe and the Dynaflows... a possible set of directions after we get this first gigging set nailed...

My thanks to the Doc and my new mentor - once removed - Zen Amore - for turning me onto these people. GREAT Music and the singers love them!

A LONG time between drinks

Wow! nearly 18 months since I've been in here and added anything - and a LOT has happened in that time.

Our singer, Louey, has departed Australia for sunny Greece and a stint in the Greek Army... there'll be some blues in that tale when he gets back no doubt.

He's been ably replaced by Ben Wintle who is doing a great job of nailing the tunes. Great fun to work with- so say we all... and I'm really looking forward to gigging with him!

We've had a great drummer, Justin (Joddy) who recently had appendicitis and has retired down the Valley to take care of himself and the family. Miss you a lot mate!

He's been replaced by Chezza - who is doing a great job picking up the tunes and injecting a BLUE vibe into the rehearsal room. Again - a joy to play with... and the gigs will be FUN!

Welcome guys! If the first rehearsal was anything to go by - this is going to be a GREAT year! And so say we all!

At the first session with the new Cats we nailed:

1. Gimme Some Lovin'
2. Got My Mojo Workin'
3. Voodoo Chile
4. Midnight Hour
5. Mustang Sally
6. Messin' With The Kid
7. Killing Floor
8. Come On In My Kitchen
9. Sweet Home Chicago
10. Chain Of Fools

Not a bad days work -

It was GREAT guys - I had a blast - now I gotta start playing catch up - back to the woodshed.

Next weekend we hit a few new tunes as well as revisit these ten -

1. Scuttlebuttin
2. Flip Flop Fly
3. Gaia
4. Mungo Blues
5. Baby Lee
6. Shake Your Moneymaker
7. Highway 31
8. Help Me
9. Who Do You Love

So - looking good and looking forward to it!!!!!

Tomorrow night I knuckle down with the two singers - Lucinda and Ben - to nut out a few new things - Crawling Kingsnake and whatever else takes our fancy...

Watch this space - I won't be so slack in the future!

Set List - Set 3

Midnight Hour - Wilson Pickett
Got My Mojo Workin - Muddy Waters
Evil - Howlin' Wolf
Preachin' Blues - Robert Johnson
Who Do You Love - Bo Diddley
Hoodoo Man - Buddy Guy and Junior Welles
Seventh Son - Willy Mabon
Season of The Witch - Donovan

Set List - Set 2

You Upset Me - BB King
Killing Floor - Howlin Wolf
Hidden Charms - Howlin Wolf
Baby Lee - John Lee Hooker
I Just Want To Make Love To You - Muddy Waters
Checkin On My Baby - Buddy Guy and Junior Welles
She Caught The Katy - Taj Mahal
Sweet Home Chicago - Robert Johnson
It Hurts Me Too - Elmore James
29 Ways - Willie Dixon
Highway 49 - Howlin Wolf

NMIT

Out in the rain and the cold. 9:00 AM start! I mean - REALLY - we're BLUESMEN! :))

Thought I was running late - but made it exactly on time.

Nice studio - students producing and engineering. Byron had a ball tweaking the kit set up. he did a lot of the work. Ty (spelling) was great - the course supervisor. Did us proud.

We set the amp up in the main room to get some live presence... my request.

After a couple of hours setting up the drums - and five minutes setting up the amp, Byron and I jammed out on Pony Blues. It was okay... a cool warm up.

We took a break and a young woman sat at the keyboards and started playing some killer blues piano. I asked her if she wanted to sit in and do a track.

We did a C blues I'm calling Sassy - which I overdubbed some guitar on - and a G blues I'm thinking of calling Any Time's Cool.

It was SO MUCH FUN! I played bass on the original takes. And then dubbed guitar onto Sassy. The rust is slowly working it's way out of my fingers! Too long away from the guitars!

Sarah was great! A really talented pianist. Fun to work with. I hope we can get together again sometime soon. mebbe try some B3 type things on the keyboard at Byron's.

The takes are a little rough.Mainly due to my stumbling to refind jazz voicings and phrasings - but there's a basis for a couple of tracks there... and a nice direction to complement the Jump and Chicago Style stuff.

Day 2

Byron picked me up - we loaded the car with my cast-off equipment. I've armed him up with a killer mic - mic pre amp - and compressor. He should have some fun with them!

What is it about Tuesdays? Monday nights? Sleepless again, so... exhausted through the practice, and hitting that edge of manic over-enthusiasm I'm so notorious for.

We took my Tech 21 amp down too, as well as the whitr Epiphone. I haven't used the amp for YEARS!

Fired up the kit... listened to Last Fair Deal a few times... then laid down a take - it sounds GREAT! A few little glitches and fumbles - but it's down! And a very easy one to record so - I'll just keep plugging away til I get it in one! The MP3's of Deal and Future Blues will be available as soon as I can work out how to give people web access to them.

Byron's a real joy to work with! I've been screwed over by engineers and producers so many times... but he's such a no nonsense cat!

Anyhooo... we got seven of the eight projected pieces down. I faded completely so left Come On In My Kitchen until next time.

We got:

Killing Floor
Baby Lee
Last Fair Deal Gone Down
Future Blues
Same Old Blues
Killing Floor
Dust My Broom

A great start!

Okay - from here...

Off to Byron's tomorrow to run up a couple of the originals... then into a studio on friday (free time) to record them. just the two of us.

Getting the General on the horn shortly to start laying vocals down. Probably Monday I think.

SET LIST - Set 1

Dust My Broom - Elmore James
Shake Your Money Maker - " "
The Last Fair Deal Gone Down - Robert Johnson
Come On In My Kitchen - " "
Future Blues - Willie Brown
I Got The Same Old Blues - Freddie King (JJCale)
I'm Ready - Muddy Waters
This Is Hip - John Lee hooker
I Ain't Got You - Jimmy Reed
Messin' With The Kid - Buddy Guy & Junior Welles

Great googly woogly!

Tackling the learning curve is a killer!

So is doing everything on th e cheap - well FREE!

Spent the night working through Geocities sites... downloading all the stuff I need to work with them and build the start of Soma and the Cats site.

The link should be >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

THE CATS SITE:

will get you there too

And Day 1 Departs

Had an excellent afternoon and evening over at Byron Beh's. For a "first" run through things went really well. He's gonna keep me on my toes, that's for sure!

We ran about eight tunes - the covers - and made progress with all of them. Byron had the same idea for one of them as I did. No drums or bass - just Graham and I sitting and playing through "The Last Fair Deal Gone Down" (Robert Johnson). I suggested Byron put a solo in in the middle though - a guitar solo. That'll give folks a chance to see just how talented the bloke is. I'm thinking about doing the same thing with Red House (Hendrix) in the second set, with Byron playing the main guitar and me just comping along and mebbe putting in a slide solo or something. We'll probably keep the bass in on this one though. Should break the set up nicely in both cases.

We also started work on a few originals: Mr H - which will be a tribute to Jimi (Byron and Phill), Slow Pony (Phill)- an old jazzy twelve in the style of "Nobody Knows You"; Siren's Call (Hethers) - a bit of Bo Diddley with some excellent twists; Small World (Hethers) - a Stonesy song with some great changes; Turn To Rain (Hethers) - a bluesy ballad featuring Gm tuned slide; and Mungo Blues (Pops) - a twisting blues with excellent changes.

Pops has also foisted a country tune on us which I really like but can't remember the title of. I figure it'll work if I can lay up some Lowell George slide under it. It'll be a bit of comic relief in the middle of the set too - possibly opening the way for a short diversion into rockabilly - something like Come On Every Body by Eddie Cochrane - or the medley we used to do with Markout - Nervous Breakdown - Come On Every Body - Summertime Blues. Sheesh - I'm gonna have to rework the Stones Medley too - just for fun - Brown Sugar - Jumping Jack and Gimme Shelter... though I might swap Shelter into Hony Tonk. We are going to have bloody tunes an possibilities coming out of our ears.

Walked out of Byron's feeling fantastic... totally over the systems crash detailed in Soma's Blog. Cruised home with the tunes running through my head -

All in all an excellent day... and I look forward to many more of them.

We are back at work Tuesday... laying down the BED tracks for a demo.

Day 1 approaches

Byron and I go into the woodshed tomorrow - well - later today. Working up guitar and drums for a few tracks before we get Mr M down to sing.

I'm really looking forward to it.

I think this bunch of guys could be good enough - and professional enough - to push me to realise my potential. My "hand" is so "off". Gonna take a bit to get it back. But that's cool.

5:15 AM - 7 hours to go....