December 29th, 2008

Holiday Rehearsals….

Just got back from an extended trip in NYC where I got to spend some quality time rehearsing with the guys. John and Dave are both coming out to Chicago for 4 days of recording in January, so we spent the first two days of my visit sequestered in the rehearsal rooms working out the new songs and creating some initial arrangements.

Day 1 – Smash Studios, Room I

We spent the first hour or so just dusting off the cobwebs…. me more than them:)  This was the first time I’d played electric with the guys in the 10 years we’ve played together… it took a little adjusting but I think I eventually found my feel. I’d sent them both some rough recordings of the songs a few weeks before the trip and they both came prepared with some strong arrangement ideas of their own. We worked on “Spinning On”, “Wedding Song”, “I Can’t Do Nothing”, “Knowledge Tree”, “Flora”, and “Mystified and Bruised”.  “Flora” evolved especially well with John and Dave really taking the song to the next place.

I’d never played at Smash before, but the room was great… comfortable, good vibe.

Probably goes without saying, but It’s always great to get together with them.  As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve played SO much together over the years that we generally lock back in very quickly.  Great first day.  Here’s some pics:

Day 2 – Dave’s unheated rehearsal room in the middle of nowhere.

So, the next day I trekked out to meet the guys at a space that Dave rents in Brooklyn.  Now, I know Brooklyn pretty well, but I never been to this neck of the woods.  Sketch-o-rama….

Reminded me of the good ol days:) We used to rehearse in some seriously sketchy, dank joints to keep our costs down…. but each space always had some incredibly cool charm to it.  Its one of the things I always loved about NYC… for all its grandeur there’s also an endless number of weird, dingy, decrepit little rooms that artists have used for so many years to hone their craft.

Anyway, add another one to the list.

The room was filled floor to ceiling with guitar amps, drum cases and other studio accoutrements, with the obligatory carpet of oriental/persian design in the middle of the floor. The room is heated by a tiny little electric heater that had clearly seen better days.  Now here’s the really charming part… this happened to be the coldest day of the year so far (like 14 degrees) and the building’s electric was having trouble keeping up.  After about 15 minutes of playing, the power went out.  After some experimenting, we learned that we could either keep the lights on or the heater on, but not both. So early in the day, we had heat.  Later in the day, lights. Ah yes, the good ol days:)

All in all, we really had a great time, with the room’s quirks keeping thing interesting.  The guys locked in some solid arrangements of the tunes, and we made some rough reference recordings for the January sessions.  Here’s some pics (notice, we’re wearing hats and coats while we play in a few of these):

Great couple days… Here some samples of our rough reference recordings.  They probably sound like a mushy mess, but totally valuable for us in recording the tunes:

“Spinning On”, rehearsal

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“Wedding Song” work through, rehearsal

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“Flora”, rehearsal

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Lots of recording scheduled for January…

Happy New Year!

PJ