Doug

Pretty hard to find the energy after a long week of work and everything else. Dan just returned from Milwaukee after visiting his daughter and grandkid when I called to remind him. Joe lives in Chicago and snuck out of work a couple minutes early so he could hit the road and sit in traffic. Then drive all the way to Kalamazoo after a long day/week on his new job. John has been working all week and keeping things up at home where they have a horse farm and 40 acres to maintain. You get the point, we were all pretty spent. Somehow, though we always manage to summon up enough energy to run through a couple of sets of songs. We made a commitment to this upcoming gig and we have to make sure we are ready. A couple songs in and we are smiling and not lacking for energy anymore. At some point we all realize that we're running out of steam and call it a day. Its only after we finish that we realize just how exhausted we really are. Adrenalin works like that.

Practice? You are talking about practice? No way around it. You need to do it, both individually and as a group in order to improve. Our band gets together about once a week and tries to tweak our arrangements, learn new covers, write or define compositions we are working on and generally just play together. There's really no substitute for gathering and working on our craft. What is often more difficult for me is working on my playing individually. I have a busy life - or at least I use that excuse - when Its hard to find the time to play alone. My personal practicing often strays from the disciplined structure that would likely help me most. I tend to just noodle around and head back to the same familiar territory. Maybe it is because I have a regular job and play music mainly for the enjoyment and sheer joy that I experience when gathered with my bandmates, making music together. When its right we all know it and we all experience that "Deep Rich Happy" together... Ooh, this is starting to sound weird. It takes a lot of time and energy to dial in our sound and levels and get it just right. Working out arrangements and fitting the different parts together so they all work and allow for individual space is tricky. I have found that I just don't really have a knack for it - let alone the patience. I just want to plug in and play, not having to worry about the technical details that are vital to creating quality sound and tone. The playing is what I enjoy and when our former lead guitarist and musical mentor travels the long trip up from West Virginia to join us we'll practice once then hit the stage for a gig. We haven't played together in probably seven or eight years, but he has the chops to be able to jump right back into it and not miss a beat. He's more of an instinctive, improvisational player than we are used to playing with and he'll take us places we don't normally go. More of a jazz player, he tends to really listen and play off what each of us are doing rather than adhere to a predetermined structure. We'll have to be ready to go there with him and that will take practice, both personally and as a "team". Can't wait.

Gotta keep on keeping on. I know how it is, sometimes it feels like another job... except this job ends up costing money instead of making it. The relationships forged with other band members can be like no other. Thanks for sharing, something exciting will come around again eventually.