Lat night the Fat Disciples had a rehearsal. It was not a full band effort - Holly was at her granddad's funeral and Chris is holidaying with the future in-laws, but Dal, the Bear and I were there.
I get a bit of grief from the band about my insistence that we drill our songs. I refer to this practice as "UGC" or Under Gig Conditions. Yeah, it's a bit geeky, but we need to practice the songs we will actually play if we are going to do anything approaching a decent gig.
The Bear doesn't like UGC. The Bear is a creative soul who flourishes when we come up with new ideas.
The UGC run-through was OK. The songs definitely need Holly singing. My flat efforts were dreadful. To think that at one point we thought I would have to sing if we gigged. That would not have been good.
After running through the set The Bear got his way and we started to play around with a couple of bits-of-songs that we have messed with in the past. No real progress made, but fun to make a loud noise.
The most creative moments were when Dal and I swapped instruments. Dal played lead in Shamoogatron - the band he, The Bear and Chris used to be in. He took the Les Paul Studio, whacked on the Wah and started rocking. The Bear wanted a repitive bassline that we could work around, I provided that. We jammed a bit and recorded the efforts.
I then started playing a simple but catchy Bass Riff - around D and F#. Dal and I swapped back - he carried on the bassline and very quickly we had the makings of a good bluesy song. It came from nowhere, but made sense - with The Bear's frantic beat and Dal's bouncy bass and me playing a fuzzy 2-chord riff. We recorded this as well and I'll try to work it up into a full song before our next rehearsal.
I am still a firm believer of UGC, but sometimes The Bear's insistence on trying new stuff pays off.
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