Thursday, April 20, 2006
Bracket practice for 29 April 2006
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
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Stop breakin Down Katy and Coming together with the Crawling Queen Snake
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!
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Friday on my mind - From 6 'til midnight... somewhere in March
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.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
I GOT EVERYTHING YOU NEED - The Tuesday file - part 2
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
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!
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
New material - Coming together at the St James Infirmary with a Crawlin Queensnake - who RULES her den!
- Come Together
- St. James Infirmary
- 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
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:
- Gimme Some Lovin'
- Got My Mojo Workin'
- Voodoo Chile
- Midnight Hour
- Mustang Sally
- Messin' With The Kid
- Killing Floor
- Come On In My Kitchen
- Sweet Home Chicago
- 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 -
- Scuttlebuttin
- Flip Flop Fly
- Gaia
- Mungo Blues
- Baby Lee
- Shake Your Moneymaker
- Highway 31
- Help Me
- 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!