mark555

OK, the gig was played, the autopsy was performed and we have hunted high and low for would be singers. We have put ads on internet sites, in music shops, and asked around. We are auditioning for a singer! One guy called us up, and wanted to come for an audition, but when we said that we would expect a singer to bring a pa with him to the band, he said he was going to buy his own mic and stand, Well, I suggested to him that when the rest of us have spent a lot of money on guitars, amps and drums, it was not fair that we should subsidise a singer and let him take an equal cut of the money. A couple of days later he e mailed me and thanked me for the offer of an audition but said that he wasn't prepared to buy a PA. Well, lets see how many people will take him on those terms, good luck to them if they will. However, one guy did very much want to audition with us and he said that he has his own 1200 watt PA, which is a good start, so we asked him what experience he has had, does he sing, has he been in bands, all of which brought positive answers, so the audition was set up for seven pm tonight. The band members made a special effort to get there and set up ready for when he came, and to give him his due he was ten minutes early, always a good sign. We had given him six songs we wanted him to sing and provided the PA so he didn't have to bring everything with him. Now our PA isn't the best, but there is worse, and what we have is very adequate for a rehearsal. Well, it turns out that the guy has dome lots of singing, as a karaoke singer in local pubs, has never actually done a live gig and just rehearsed with bands that never got anywhere, and hasn't any experience as a front man at all, which we specifically asked for. I don't think this guy was a liar, I just think that in his mind, he met all the criteria. Anyway, he wasn't up to the job and did in fact struggle. We didn't say yes or no tonight, because we wanted to discuss it thoroughly, as was the plan from the start, but the poor guy left somewhat dejected and I think he knew that he wasn't going to get the gig. However, we treated him well, did not criticize him in any way and made him very welcome and gave him an hour and a half to show us what he could do, even encouraging him to sing other songs he knew. But there was no escaping it, we need to look elsewhere. So we have made further plans to expand our search and we will be visiting music shops further afield and contacting stores where we buy our gear from. Also, making a strong effort to contact music stores that specialise in PA where singers tend to go. On a personal level, I was so thrilled just to play guitar tonight and concentrate on the playing, I felt so free and able to play mush better without having to stand behind a microphone stand. Now, lets see if we can't get a half way decent singer... Thanks for reading, Mark.

I really enjoyed this blog entry Pete, write some more when you can.

Another piece of music history Pete, enjoyed reading this very much.

Thank you all for your kind words, and for taking the trouble to read my blog. I will be writing more in about a week.

Hoping to get to Hull for the first gig Pete, another nicely written entry, keep them coming.

Nicely put Pete, another piece of Yorkshire's musical history.

Thanks for your post D'Blues, Respect is what it is all about. If there is no respect for each other, there is no band. I am very lucky, our bass player is one of my very best friends ever, my true friend and brother, we have been close friends since we were about fourteen.

Thanks for the kind words Smurph, sorry I don't know your real name. The picture of the pub wouldn't upload, so I put it in my post on the family tree.

Our first gig was played, and we were not 100% happy with it, gremlins in the works the week before for me. As I said, I really went for it, but as I have reflected on it over the past week, I know I was way below the standard I should have been at on the night. I had too much stuff going on in my head - unemployment, a lousy job interview the day before, and other stuff. In truth, I did not feel personally ready to play live. But as I said before, we were well received by a welcoming audience. But something was still not right and we decided to meet up together and see what plans we could make to go forward. So, we decided that this week, instead of having a practice, we would all get together at a pub for a drink and a chat, and chose a nice pub in a nearby village to us called The Foxglove (see picture) and see what direction to go in. There was no way we were going to waste the investment in time we had all made in the band, so a way round the mountain had to be found. The mountain, so to speak, is the fact that I am the lead guitar player and singer, and to be honest, it is too much to deal with, unless you are Mark Knopfler or some one else with such a high level of ability. I never wanted to be a singer, although it is true to say that I do enjoy singing and always have done. When I was six years old I got out of bed early one morning, got on my bike and woke the street up by singing Manfred Man's Doo wa Diddy diddy at the top of my voice. But mainly, I just want to play guitar. When I was about five years old I say a sparkle red electric guitar, I can't tell you what make it was, but I just knew at that point I was going to have an electric guitar one day, it was what I wanted. I knew one of our neighbours had an electric guitar in his downstairs bedroom, I used to sneak round the back of his house to look at it through the window, it was probably a cheap one, but I didn't know, or care - it was a real like electric guitar, I can see it now propped up against the wall, some sort of sunburst finish if I am right. Anyway, to get back on track. I can sing (not the worlds best, I grant you) and I can play. I can do both on many songs, but in fairness, not too brilliantly. Any other guitarist worth his salt would pick up on this. So, we all met up at seven in the evening and had the autopsy and see what we could do to improve. Pete, our Yellow telecaster owning guitar player and general nice guy, was taking the attitude that as so much was on my shoulders, what could the rest of them do to help and contribute more? I told them that I never really wanted to be a singer and if that part of the job could go to some one else, I would be able to contribute much more by way of guitar playing, and that I would play much better with just the odd song to sing and the opportunity to concentrate on lead playing. As there are no real vocalists in the band in the other three members, we have decided to look for a singer to take care of vocal work, leaving each of us to concentrate on our own field of playing, be it bass, lead, rhythm or drums. There will be three of us capable of singing some good backing vocals to help a singer. We formulated a plan to recruit a singer as soon as possible, each of us taking some area of responsibility, mine is to contact some of the music stores and see if there are any singers in the area looking for a band. Pete is going to get some ads out on websites, Shaun and Allen are also doing various things such as putting ad's in music stores near their homes. What has been great is that there was never one suggestion of my singing and playing not being good enough, it was totally supportive of the fact that I have had most of the work to shoulder and they all wanted to make things easier for me, and the first question they asked last night was what did I want to do? The answer was just play guitar, and they are all now doing everything they can to help me do that. For me to just play guitar in a band is my life's ambition! I have attached a picture of the pub we met at, we sat round a table just to the right inside the door way, the pub is about 150 years old - it's great just to sit down with the guys and just sort things out. I am really fortunate because each one of the guys in the band is a really decent person, not one of them has an ego and we just help each other try to succeed. As far as people go, I could not be with a better bunch of guys, they are all good friends. Watch this space, and thanks for reading, Mark.

Thanks Randy, Because of the nature of the gig, I was able to use four guitars. The main one for the night was my Tokai Les Paul, also the 555 and two strats. One of the strats was tuned to open G as was the 555, and I used the 555 for playing Brown Suger and the strat in open G for slide on Little Red Rooster. I used my Fender Hot Rod DeVille, only needed to set it low as it is quite a loud amp. Go for it with the Blog, I will be the first to sign up for it, I would love to know how others are doing things, and thank you for your kind words.

This entry tells of the week leading up to our first live gig and the gig itself. Did you ever have one of those weeks where after you have practised, practised and practised till you got your parts right, had some great rehearsals, then for some reason, you seem to just not be able to get things right. Well, that is what exactly happened the final week before our first gig. The catalyst was that we started to practise as a band line up would be on stage, with some borrowed monitors which weren't too much more above useless. It had been one of those weeks I could just have done without. I just could not get it together musically at rehearsal, and I put that down to too many external factors. Friday morning I had a 220 mile round trip down to Birmingham for a second interview with a guy who along with the company HR manager just picked holes in everything I said. In fact, after the weekend, on monday this week I just called the recruiter who got me the interview, and having met this guy at interview twice, I told her that I just felt the whole thing was not good for me. It turned out they felt the same - ha ha, I just wish I had made the decision on the friday and not stressed about it all weekend. We met for an afternoon set up at the venue and a run through of the songs we just weren't tight on, in fairness, it was me who needed it. But the other guys were very supportive and could see I was having a rough time of it. Shaun, our bass player, is like a brother. We have known each other since we were thirteen or so and Pete, our other guitarist says it's plain that Shaun and I are "an item" - but thankfully only in a musical sense - get one of us in a band, you get the other. But he is my true brother and is always the calm one, he spent some time with me and helped me get my head right for the gig. Showtime came and I just went for it, we opened with one of our best numbers "down at the doctors" by Britsh band Doctor Feelgood, followed by Bad Company's "I can't get enough". We just went for it. The audience loved it and we even got a standing ovation when we played Thin Lizzy's hit Whiskey in the Jar. What made that nice was that it was led by some guys in their early twenties who are guitar players. Other songs we played included This flight tonight, I hear you knocking, Alright now, and stuff of that Genre, and it went down well. Yes, I his a fair few bum notes, but I played some really good guitar as well. In the end, every one who came had a really great time and we will be getting another booking as a result. One of our strong points was our ability to build a rapport with our audience, and they enjoyed that very much. For myself, one of the best things of the night was the pleasure the gig gave to one particular individual, Sheldon. Sheldon is 35, the son of two dear friends of mine, he was born with a mental handicap. Despite being 35, he is always going to be a kid. But he loves the guitar, and when I let him hold the strat he was just in his element, he thought it was the greatest thing he has ever seen in his life, and he had a great time. He loves music but because of his handicap, unlike the rest of us he can't go out and find a band to watch. I am not one to push my beliefs on any one, but I believe whole heartedly that one day, in the next life, I shall meet Sheldon without his handicap and he will be a great guy. So all in all, I needn't have stressed so much. But it's somewhere in my nature to get wound up at times, I try really hard to fight it and most of the time I win. The gig was my first full gig on stage in several years and it was a great learning curve. It showed what went down well and where we should go with some of the songs and to go down certain paths and back off from others. I'm glad we did it. So, for now, it's a case of choosing ten more songs to learn and really getting sharp, we have another gig coming up in mid April, I'd like that to be really sharp. Thanks for reading, Mark.

Thank you very much Randy, go for it, I will read it with great interest.

Since my last entry on my blog, the band, Route 62, has had two practices. Last week we added the final two songs to our set list for our forthcoming gig, and now we have the luxury of just polishing them up and bringing them to an acceptable level for public performance. As this is going to be our first gig, I am sure that we will be ok, but not as sharp as we are going to get through playing a few more live situations. The one pain in the neck though is almost having to re learn the earlier songs we put into the set list. Looking back a few months, it is now totally obvious to me that getting a new drummer was the best move we made to progress the band forward. Since Allen, (the old man of the band) joined us, we have had weekly rehearsals and this has been the thing that has made the difference. The band has moved forward much faster for it. And in fairness to Allen, he did bring with him an expectation that we were serious and it made us raise our game. We now have twenty four numbers which are more or less ready to play, and there is enough experience in the band to overcome any live hiccups. One thing that is bothering me is that our PA is not fully up to the job of gigs, although it is loud enough, what we do not have is a monitor system. Normally that would not be a problem, we would just go out and buy what we want. However, right now only one of the band is working, one of us being retired and the other two being out of work. So, today's task is to beg a second pa to use as a foldback system. WE have speakers we can use, but not a power amp. It will have to be the next thing on the shopping list when we get some gig money in. Other events which are band related have been a trip to our very own Peter Green's home, which I have made an entry about on the Family Tree. Peter and I have been friends a few years now, and he has a good working knowledge of wiring pick ups and also setting guitars up. Peter has some beautiful guitars of various brands, all if which are great player's. Anyway, Shaun, our bass player, has a new Precision, which is really a "bitsa" - bits a this and bits of that... It's a lovely white body with rosewood neck, and he needed everything wired in, with the Seymour Duncan bassline pick up it sounds excellent, Peter did a great job. I also changed the strings on the 555 because I wanted a lighter gauge for the style I am playing in the band. It did have 12's on it, but I have gone down to 10's for the string bends. I didn't know how to correctly adjust the truss rod, and Peter taught me how to do it, so now I am ok with that, which is a big help. Next wednesday is our final rehearsal before the gig, and we are going to do an afternoon and evening to polish everything up. We are almost there now, perhaps those less that perfect songs will just give us that raw edge - as the songs says, "it's only rock and roll, but I like it."

I am so pleased you are enjoying my blog, when I started writing it it was for my own pleasure and if any one read it that would be a bonus for me. the church has been very generous to us and we have saved a small fortune in fees we would have otherwise had to pay for hiring rehearsal facilities, so the least we can do is give something back to them by way of a show.

As I said in my last blog entry, our band, now officially known as Route 62, is getting close to our first gig, which although is being done for free as a thank you for some very excellent rehearsal facilities which we enjoy without cost, we are expecting some sort of spin off one way or another via a couple of paid gigs. However, on a personal basis, I have not played live for a few years, so it will be good to dip my toe in the water again. Also, it will give us a chance to see which songs work and which ones we are not going to use at other gigs. Talking of gigs, they local live venues, usually pubs, are closing at rather an alarming rate and there are less and less places to play at and actually get paid, but there is no way I will be playing at any venue where the operator gets money off my guitar playing yet will expect us to play for nothing. There are too many of those venues and too many musicians playing for nothing - which of course means that other bands are less likely to either get a paid gig or have to pay for free, on the promise that if they go down well they will get a paid gig next time. But the question I ask, is will next time ever come? If my gut feeling is right, those who run these none paying gigs will just wait for the next band willing to play for nothing and book them. Sadly there are too many bands willing to believe these people, and also younger kids who are just desperate to get out and play to an audience. Which, leads me on to something else. Because of the rise of shows like X Factor and American Idol etc, in many cases young people just see bands as four or five kids who dance about with their trousers round their backsides supposedly singing, with not a guitar or any musical instrument in sight. So, when they do get to hear a proper band, they don't know what is good and what is poor, so they accept a lower standard. Now that is not to say that there are not some really good young players out there, far from it. It's just that young people are being denied the opportunity to see and hear them because the likes of the afore mentioned shows have got such a grip on the music industry right now that in England anyway, real talent is being strangled and choked out as it can not get through the system and that was said by no less a luminary than Brian May. Anyway, I digress. As a band we are meticulous about trying to get the sings we do as good as we possibly can, and we will work on a number until we feel it is good enough to gig. We were not happy that we were progressing the set fast enough, so we planned a rehearsal that would start at 1.30 in the afternoon and go on until the evening, which in this case was 10pm yesterday. The plan was to learn four new songs and and rehearse at least half the set. The practice was a real success and four numbers duly added, including Before you Accuse Me and I hear you knocking. Easy ones, it is true, but none the less good live numbers. What we found with the other songs though, particularly some we had not rehearsed for a few weeks was that we had forgotten arrangements and had to re learn them, but they were done very quickly as we soon remembered them. I was really pleased that my slide playing, which although I am at the very beginning of, is coming along nicely. Having recently had a really bad cold which has left me with a nasty cough, at 5.30 I was ready for a break and something to eat. So, leaving Pete of the yellow telecaster fame to watch over the guitars and equipment, the rest of us set off for the local fish and chip shop. Very few American's have had really good English fish and chips, and you really are missing a treat here. On arriving at the fish and chip shop, we placed our order as they deep fried the fish fresh, and the lady asked us if we wanted fish and if so how many. Allen, our drummer asked if he had to catch the fish himself, and the lady asked if he wanted to borrow a rod. To which I could not resist replying that "Allen has his own rod, but please don't ask him to get it out." The two fifty something women behind the counter just burst into laughter and one said to the other that she had walked into that one! We all had a good laugh, went back to the practice hall and enjoyed our food. The rest of the evening was very productive, and for me there was a nice surprise in store. We actually rehearse in a church which is a nice modern building and away from the chapel part is the recreational hall where we rehearse. Around the building there are other rooms of varying sizes for teaching areas etc, and while we were rehearsing our set, the children of the congregation had come down to an activity of some sort. Among those attending the activity were my twin nephews who are eight years old and their little five year old sister, my niece. These are the children of one of my younger brother who died three years ago this coming April. So, as you can imagine, I take my responsiblities as their uncle very seriously and I love them very much. As they were looking through the door I asked them to come in and they give me huge hugs and kisses, and thought it was great to see uncle marks band! they had never seen a live band before and were enthralled - maybe they might want a guitar one day. By the time it was ten we were all tired but were very pleased with our long session, it had been all work and had paid off. We will do another one in a couple of weeks time with a normal three hour rehearsal next week. We know that when we start gigging, which will hopefully be soon now, that we will be ready. Thanks for taking the trouble to read.

Will definitely check out the Humble pie song, and thanks for the suggestion and good wishes for our gig, it will be told about in detail here!

The weekly practices are happening and things are moving forward nicely. However, we found that our success and work ethic of the past few weeks was the result of a really good plan - we had the first fourteen songs pre selected so we knew exactly what we were doing. As the main lead player in the band, I could work on solo parts weeks in advance and be ready when they were needed at rehearsal. It was an excellent method and was working really well. Anticipating the arrival of the day when we would need to have the second set of fourteen or how ever many songs ready to draw from was fast approaching, my calls for a meeting to select the songs fell on deaf ears - very busy band members. Not that no one cared, they just didn't get round to it. This led to the last two practices finishing and then us scratching our heads to think of what songs to practice during the week so we would be ready for the next rehearsal. The net result of not having a plan in place is that we have selected songs that we would really take as second choice just to fill in. Not that they are poor songs, but you end up with the songs that have been done time and time again by other bands, but in fairness we are going to keep these songs down to a minimum, maybe a total of six in the set. Johnny B Goode may well be one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever to be put onto vinyl, but it is some what over done, and in many cases very badly. in fact, one of the worst versions I have ever heard can be seen on youtube and is done by Chuck Berry himself along with John Lennon and it is truly dreadful. So the remedy is that I shall be going through my CD collection and looking at quality tracks the match the ability of the players in the band and the vocal range of the singer, who by coincidence is myself. I never wanted to be a singer, but having tried to get a line up of four organised and reliable, the last thing we want is another individual who might not prove as committed to turning up at rehearsal as we are. If we have a good quality just now, it is the fact that we had a good attitude to moving things forward. Democracy is a fine institution, but I am finding that in the context of a band you can have too much of a good thing, so Peter (other guitar player) and myself have realised that we need to take charge and plan, then give the band the direction it needs. When we have next selection of songs, we will work to plan. the impending first gig is free entry and we are not taking any money because it is a thank you to the church for letting us use the facilities free of charge for rehearsal, so there is not the pressure that there would be from a paid gig where people were paying money either for drinks or what ever. But I do think it is important to put a well thought out set together and set yourself apart in some way from the other bands playing the same circuit. One really good thing I have to tell you about is that I am now playing a little bit of slide. We have put the Rolling Stones version of Little Red Rooster in the set and even though I say it myself, it sounds excellent. Do something simple and well, and the end result is usually very effective. I am really pleased how well little red rooster has turned out for us because is gives us a blues song to play that not every one else is doing and is instantly recognisable by those of a certain age, and the slide adds something else into the mix. Another good triumph for us was getting down a good version of "This Flight Tonight". Written by Joni Mitchell and covered by Nazareth (Scottish rock band) in the 70's, it took us a lot of effort to find the right key for the vocals. Again, not a complicated song, but we have found that simple does not mean that it will be easy to put together, particularly to do properly - for us, "nearly" isn't good enough, it has to be right. I have started to get some posters out to publicise next months gig, if we get two hundred out on the night I will be pleased. The purpose of a free gig is for us to test the waters with the set list we have prepared and get us playing live again. Once I get plan B of the set list finalised, I will be much happier. Selecting the right songs is critical - no use choosing something that is brilliant on record but is not right for you as a musician.

Randy, sincere thanks for the kind words, a new entry in my blog coming in the next few days.

A new year starts and we are back to getting the show on the road. Our new drummer has settled in and is now a part of the band fully. For a couple of months I have been very dubious about his commitment to the band, that he was just testing the waters and seeing how it goes with us - if he liked it he would stay, if not he would clear off and get another gig elsewhere when it came up. So, we are now a permanent set up as a band and I feel that I won't be having to get a new drummer again and bring in a new band member, which can be a real pain. The key to getting the band up and running will be consistent rehearsal, every week, our plan is to get four new songs down every week until we have thirty. We are half way there now, having had weeks of cancelled practices last year for various reasons, the band had a meeting last night and we have set a date for our first gig, which is Saturday February 26th. We practice at the church the bas player and I belong to, and we get a very nice facility free of charge, so we feel that it would be nice to make our first gig a free concert for them. The venue of the concert will be the larger centre the church has which has a hall within the building which is seperate from the chapel area and seats about four hundred people, it has it's own very nice stage with lights etc, so hopefully, with the right publicity we should get a really good crowd. I have finally found a role for the 555 in the set list, I tune it to open g and play the Stones songs in the set, which is great. By the way, One of the Christmas gifts I got was a fantastic leather guitar strap - black at the front, red leather at the back, red leather piping down the sides and double red stitching. Really high quality, made in Australia. So, the new strap has been dedicated solely for use with the Heritage - I always believe a really good guitar deserves a really good strap. So, we are now just finalising the date, we should get the official approval for putting on the gig by the middle of next week, which means we now have to get a name for the band. We were going for 'The Alligators', but it turns out that it is a very common name for bands and there are already two bands that could well be playing the same circuit we intend to get on with the same name. So, we are in the process of trying to come up with something that suits us. One name we have come up with is 'The M62's'. The M62 is the motorway that runs just north of our town and runs all the way from the east coast in Hull to Liverpool on the west coast. As three of us played in the same band some years back and the gigs we played seemed to be in towns along the motorway. In fact we have played in both Hull and Liverpool at either end of the M62, so we thought 'The M62's' has a certain ring about it. The other name we thought of was "Route 62", being a parody of Route 66. We do not have any roads classed as Routes here in England, so it's a bit of humour - the only problem is that I don't think too many people will get the humour. So there we are, we are now well on our way to gigging. A date has been set and a plan put in place, we just need to go out and find some paying gigs now.

Many thanks for the kind words, all appreciated. We like the idea of a stable band that works in a particular way for us, but I know one or two guys in your situation who are excellent players, doing exactly what you do and that works very well for them.

Trevor looked a bit different in the seventies on tv...

This entry the story continues of our band trying to consolidate with a new drummer, Allen, an old hand enjoying retirement from work. You can see pictures on the thread I started entitled Band Practice. We very sadly had to let our last drummer go. We liked him very much as a person, who ticked the essential box as being a nice guy. He could play well and we all liked him. However, he was the weak link in the chain and was the reason we were not going forward. Alongside a lack of communication from him, Shaun, Pete and I had a three hour meeting at my house to decide what we were going to do and we came to the conclusion that as three nice guys, it was against our nature to want to throw some one out. But we came to the conclusion that if we kept our drummer, we would be no further down the line in six months time. So, off I went and did the rounds of the notice boards looking for drummers who wanted to play with a band. I phoned Allen, who had put an ad on one of the notice boards looking for a band. I invited him for an audition, and he duly accepted. The audition was not as we anticipated because we had not played together for a while and we did make the fatal mistake of letting the drummer audition us. We offered him the job of drummer in the band and he was a bit none committal, so we pushed him to give us a yes or no and he said he would turn up at the next practice, the rest of us thought he was going to see how it went and make his mind up after the rehearsal. So, we decided on four numbers to rehearse and went our way. Pete (our other guitarist of the yellow telecaster fame) and I felt very strongly that we would find out at the practice if Allen was in or out, and we said we would have none of this 'you practice and I'll turn up and drum' business. If we got any of that we decided that we would shake hands with him and wish him well, we want a band member with full commitment. At this rehearsal we really took charge and showed our new member what we expected of him and that we were not push overs desperate for a drummer. The practice went really well and we nailed four new numbers, one of them being one of my favourites, Whiskey in the jar. At the end of the evening we planned four more numbers for next week, one of which is Bad Compnay's 'I can't get enough' which is another one of those songs I just love to play. I really like Mick Ralphs guitar style and I can get into it without any problems. We always sit round the table for fifteen minutes at the end of rehearsal and plan our next practice so that there is no wasted time, we are very business like at rehearsal, although we have a good time and we enjoy one another's company very much, in this band there are no ego's and no arguments, just a good work ethic. So, for now we have a full line up and and we are gelling well and getting things together. We aim to learn four numbers each week and get on the road in the new year. One thing we have learned from this experience in changing drummers is that if we need to, from now on we will be ruthless in getting rid of the drummer if he does not give us the commitment he has promised us. Three us go back twenty years, and we are aware that it can be hard as an outsider to come into such an established trio of friends, but we do make a great effort to welcome the newcomer and it is up to them to make that commitment. But here's the question I want to finish this entry on: Why do drummers think that every one else should rehearse and they should just turn up occasionally and take the money, without putting in the rehearsal hours with every one else?

It's been a while since I last updated my blog here on the HOC, Been meaning to, but I have been waiting until some developments came along so I had something more to write about. Our band of four more was seeming to grind to a halt this year, Pete's daughter's brain tumour surgery took him out of action for two months, then he ended up in France picking grapes for three weeks, came back insect bitten but sun tanned and having a good time. He has a house of some description down in France and was getting it ready to shut down for the winter and decided to stay around a bit. Our drummer, Tony, works shifts and and has had all sorts of reasons why he can't practice, the main one lately being that he has hurt his shoulder. But, Shaun our bass player, Pete and I decided that something needed to happen to progress this along as we feel that we have a fair bit of potential for a half way decent band, so we sat down in my living room and had a three hour meeting and chat about what was holding us back. We knew already that it had been the lack of band practices and we knew why, but now were facing a more permanent situation because of our drummers lack of availability. The common consensus was that if we stayed with our present drummer we would be no further along in six months time than we are now. AS three very nice guys, we do not like the idea of kicking some one out, it seems to be against our nature, but what is in effect happening is that we can not achieve our goals because one of the four of us seems to take it or leave it. Coupled with a lack of communication because he doesn't like e mail, which makes getting messages to him somewhat awkward because he doesn't answer his phone much either. So, the inevitable decision was that we find a replacement drummer. Shaun and I had played in the past with a really good rock drummer called Jonathan and we thought we would invite him along as we felt that he would slot right in, however he never returned any messages so we have had to look elsewhere and we are not prepared to hang around. The next step was a trip to the local musical instrument stores where there were ads placed from people looking to connect with other musicians, I found three, one of which was a guy called Alan who seemed to be a good fit for us, and last night I called him up and had a chat for fifteen minutes with him and the upshot is that next wednesday night he is coming for a session with us and a chat to see if we all like each other. Hopefully things will work out, then if they do we shall have to find a nice way of letting our drummer go. I am not one for unpleasantness. On a different note, Shaun and I went to see Wishbone Ash last week, Which is Andy Powell and three other musicians, but Andy Powell has been the one member of the band that has evolved to it's present stage, which is an extremely competent band with excellent musicians forming the line up. The gig was excellent, the sound, everything was top notch. For those of you who are not aware of Wishbone Ash and their brand of music, it is very much twin lead guitar and it would be fair to say that they are more or less the originators of that style. They were incredibly tight and not a note out of place. Playing over 150 gigs a year they should be. But the venue was a 550 capacity building, no seats. What made me really sad was that here was a band with a tremendous pedigree, unsurpassed ability and a back catalogue of great music, playing to 500 people, while the dross on the X factor (UK talent show) America's got talent etc all end up touring the stadiums, and even those who appear on these shows with the audacity to call them selves a band, don't have a guitar between them, and very little talent. Yet bands such a Wishbone Ash (and others like them) not one only play to a very high standard, they write their own material. I can only say that mediocrity rises to the top and the mass markets are fed a musical diet of straw.