We had practice this past Sunday and I’ll be damned if we didn’t sound awesome. I think it’s just about the best we’ve ever sounded. This is usually a sign that we’re going to suck at the gig this Friday. Come and find out.
My wife decided to get into the blogging game over at My Space. So if you’re interested in following our biggest fan, check it out. Yes she’s hot.
I’ve been practicing my guitar a lot lately. I’m really trying to work on my picking technique…or lack thereof. My right hand has all the finesse of a wrecking ball when I play. I usually swing my arm pretty wildly and my playing gets really sloppy. When I do that I also end up doing most of my picking with the fingernail on my index finger which kills my tone. Whenever I’m at home I don’t play like that. Everything is very controlled and pretty accurate. I need to carry that over to when I play with the band. I usually break at least one string every practice and every gig. I’m starting to think that it’s because of my picking.
It seems like if I could get my right hand under control that my playing would improve drastically. For instance, I’d like to be able to pick the intro of The Cutout Bin. I think it would sound much better but I just don’t have the speed and control to pull it off. Instead I have to cycle through the pick, my middle finger, and then my ring finger. Some people think it’s cool when I do that but it’s really just a crutch that I’ve used for years. I do the same type of thing in Chumps American Style and To Mother from Her Son. So the goal is to do as much work as I possibly can to get my right hand up to speed before we hit the studio so hopefully I won’t fall back on those same old tricks. Then maybe I’ll sound like a real grown up guitar player.
Have you heard the new song by Jason Mraz called “Wordplay”? The lyrics remind me so much of how I used to write lyrics. I hate the way I used to write lyrics. They make me cringe. When I was a teenager (and into my early twenties) I used to think that I was just a little smarter than everyone else on the planet. Things are different now. Now I think I’m a lot smarter than everyone else…but whatever. I wanted to prove my smarts by writing these songs with oh so clever lyrics. I know now that those lyrics just made people think that I was a douche. Now I won’t go so far as to say that Jason Mraz is a douche but when he writes a song with oh so clever lyrics that talk about how oh so clever his lyrics are I am tempted to think he’s a douche.
It is for this very reason that God created producers. Producers are supposed to keep young and very talented guys like Jason Mraz, John Mayer, and Gavin Degraw from showing their douche-ness. When it’s done right (thanks Jack Joseph Puig) you get songs like “Daughters” from Mayer. When it’s done wrong you get “Curbside Prophet”, Mraz’s horrible G. Love impersonation. Thank God for great, wise producers who not only know how to recognize talent but also know how to steer it.
My next doctor appointment is a week from today. He’s supposed to let me stop using the knee brace and the crutches. That’ll give me three whole days to get it back into full rock and roll form for the show that Friday. God I hope I’m not hobbling around on stage like an old man. That would suck. Knees suck. I’ll probably just have to wrap the hell out of it and hope for the best. Make sure you come out and see if I look like a total idiot.
I finally got the Audio page updated. There is all kinds of new stuff to listen to so make sure you check it out. I put a couple of short clips from our weekend with J. Christopher Hughes on there too. One of them is You Devil You and the other is The Cutout Bin. All of the new stuff is under the “Untitled” link just so you know. You can get there from here too. Make sure you refresh the page when you get there so you have the latest version.
Here is one of the latest demos that I’ve got. It’s pretty much the same deal as usual that I don’t have lyrics yet…except for a couple of lines. I think I’m trying to see how many songs one guy can write over the D-C-G chord progression before someone tells him to stop. The vocals for this thing were recorded really late one night after everyone else had gone to bed so that’s why I’m singing so quiet. I am going to get the rest of these demos together and post them properly on the audio page but I’ve been super sick for the last few days and just haven’t felt like doing it. I’ll get to it though.
Well we’ve gotten a pretty good response from yesterday’s blog. It sounds like people are interested in hearing the rough demos. I’ll start working on getting them together and put back up. There are a few new ones that I think are really good.
Nate and I got together this past weekend to work on some new stuff. The “I hope you gave ‘em attitude” tune sounds so cool with Nate taking over a lot of the work on his Wurlitzer. I’m super excited about that one. Now if I could just get some lyrics together we’d be in business.
I was going through some old emails today. I’m sort of into hoarding any kind of correspondence between me and my band mates. I just like going back and reading about what was going on at that time. That’s probably the same reason I do this blog. It’s not because I think this is very entertaining to read. It’s really just for me to go back and read in a couple of years.
Anyway, the emails I was reading were from about two years ago. That was when we started recording this album. I can’t believe it’s been that long. We’ve had a lot of things happen that slowed down the process (not the least of which was the decision to can it all and start over) and there were a few emails that sounded like the band was coming to an end. Needless to say, that never happened…thank God.
We’re going to start work on the record here in the next few weeks. There were two major things that we told J. Christopher Hughes (our producer) we needed to get past before we could start. The first was the birth of Dino’s baby and the second was my knee surgery and recovery. Both of these things have now come and gone so I expect that by early June we’ll be hitting it heavy.
One more thing. If you’ve been following this site for a while you’ll know that we used to have a lot more demos of our new songs on the audio page. There is still a little bit of that but for various reasons we decided to remove the really rough stuff. I’m thinking about putting it back up. There are some more new songs and more demos that I think are interesting. If you would like to see that stuff go back up on the site, take a second to email us and let us know. Some of these are not for the faint of heart but I think they’re kinda cool because they show the process of a song going from a nah nah nah type of melody all the way to completion.
We just got back from hospital. Marco is cute as all hell. He weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces and was 18.5 inches. He looks exactly like Dino with a little more hair. Everyone was doing very well. Gina is up and about and said she feels good. I forgot to take my camera with me. What an idiot. Hopefully Dino will have some pics to post soon.
Congratulations Dino and Gina Nicastro!
This afternoon around 1:30PM our drummer Dino and his wife Gina had their first child. It’s a baby boy. His name is Marco Pietro Nicastro. Jesus…he’s Italian…we get it already…dang. Very exciting stuff. With Dino’s and Gina’s combined good-looks, I’m sure Marco will be dating one of the nurses before they leave the hospital. We’ll be going tomorrow night to see the little guy…can’t wait. Kids are bitchin’.