Jam Report #36: 2/17/02
Feb. 17th, 2002 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAs originally posted to the OKP. Transcribed to Livejournal 10/7/05.
In which we get pretty random with the tempo and pretty rockin' with the electrics; in which Paul's keyboard is officially christened with its very own name; and in which Patrick finally gets his flaming bowling shirt. Songs: "Jolly Butcher", "Mari-Mac", "Bluesy Butcher", "Stray Cat Strut", "My Boyfriend Wears a B-Cup", "Jenny's Jealous", "Acres of Clams".
Okay, so, well, it's another late Jam Report; this is what the Jam Reporter gets for having a strange and stressful life as of late. But on the other hand, I have my mandolins, I'm learning how to sing while I'm playing along with myself, and I'm mere days away from having a brand new Great Big Sea record in my very own hands, so life's not all bad either!
Meanwhile, this past session was fairly productive all around. Attendees on hand: me,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solarbird (Dara), spazzkat (Paul), ssha (Cyn), daspatrick (Patrick), Monica, Dana. mamishka (Mimi) is out again doing painting and Fred is not due back to join us until April (though he's been keeping us apprised of his progress via email!).
Things started off as our recent session has been doing with practice runs of old standbys; first up, "Jolly Butcher".
For this one, Monica worked a bit beforehand on the chord changes that involve F, as she finds she generally gets sloppy on those at speed. In terms of singing, Cyn and Monica took care of that, as we were sanskathrynt (Kathryn). Our initial take was a bust as Cyn wound up singing too low and also forgot the words, so we dug up the lyrics and tried again; on the next take, Cyn took it up an octave and Monica sang with her on the choruses, so that Monica could cover the melody and Cyn could cover the harmony. That did work pretty well. The tempo did not. I hit my high G's, though I kept falling apart elsewhere.
Onward to "Mari-Mac". Monica took the lead on this, since we were sans both Kathryn and Mimi. She tried to play guitar first time through, but had to drop off the guitar after the speed-ups halfway into the song; she dropped the guitar entirely for subsequent takes, since it was just too darned weird for her to just put down the guitar in the middle of a song.
This session's tempo randomness continued on this ditty, though. We were particularly missing our drums, and although Paul's keyboard came in very handy later on in the session, it wasn't exactly useful for "Mari-Mac". We kept speeding up too fast when the speed-ups happened.
In the middle of working on this ditty, pretty much entirely at random, we fell into an impromptu improvisation of the blues version of "Jolly Butcher" we've been playing with. It was pointed out to me during our review of our session recording that I have, by writing this, spilled the beans that we have been in fact working on a blues version of "Jolly Butcher", but well hey. What few loyal readers we have out there need something to look forward to! Anyway, we fell into about half a take entirely at random, when Patrick started in on blues riffs and I jumped in on the piccolo, and then Cyn jumped in on the lyrics. Monica made partly amused and partly horrified faces as we did, so I had to try very hard to keep from cracking up.
Once we got that out of our systems, we went back to "Mari-Mac". Monica seems to have this idea that her trying to mimic Séan McCann's little end-of-verse nonsense syllables makes her sound goofy; she's doing Séan's as opposed to the version that Kathryn does, which is different. Monica is, however, mistaken about her sounding goofy, as the rest of us have assured her.
Third up: "Stray Cat Strut". Patrick had to sing lead on this since Paul had a bit of a cold and sore throat, left over from the Gwar concert he and Patrick and Kathryn and Cyn had all gone to the previous Tuesday. We broke out the electrics in force -- Cyn's bass, Patrick's electric, and the Colonel as well, though Paul had issues with his shoulder strap as it was too low from playing Dar's ditty last session.
I was a trifle rusty on my flute part since we hadn't done this for a bit, but I'm definitely comfortable now with dropping out on the solo in the middle; I still need to remember to drop out on "I got cat class and I got cat style", though. Also, I dropped out briefly because my little brother called, but wasn't gone for long.
Paul broke out his keyboard again to test out a drum line, on one particularly fast take, but we didn't really employ the drum line in this song.
Dana brightly suggested doing this ditty at the same tempo as "Mari-Mac". We, uh, don't think so. ;)
Cyn took over singing later on, and Monica took over playing the bass, though Monica still finds the whole notion of playing a right-handed bass weird and alien; she's made noises now about getting her own left-handed bass. Dana sang too, but found that she kept coming out breathy and/or sharp, and has announced her intention to start warming up on her way over and never mind being on the bus.
Maintaining the electric theme and mood, we moved on to another tackle of "My Boyfriend Wears a B-Cup". After, that is, a great deal of setup as Monica and Paul and Patrick played with their instruments and adjusting this thing and that thing and figuring out what the heck they were all going to be doing.
The keyboard was employed more heavily this time; Dana volunteered to try to stand in for Mimi, but that wound up not working out, so Paul dug up a pre-programmed drum line for us to use instead, complete with a rather cool little intro. He also found a great little pre-programmed drum riff to go on the end -- which met with general overall resounding approval. We have, furthermore, decided that the keyboard should be a member of the group as well, and we have named it Roland. Roland will be duly credited on the bio page as soon as Paul scans in a picture.
I don't really have much of a part on this song -- I tried a different simple part this time, standing down in the first and second octaves rather than jumping up to the third as I'd done the last time we played with it. Also dropped out on the solos. I'm very much second flute on this ditty, as it should be, since it's Dar's ditty in the first place :) Dar really needs to be closer to the mike, though, since her part for the song can be barely made out over the various electrics.
Paul and Patrick had a great deal of fun, however, trading solos back and forth; between them and the bass and the drum line, this comes out surprisingly listenable in our humble collective opinion, though we're nowhere near ready for a public take. It has also been universally decided that this particular ditty really needs to be credited to our alter egos, Crime and the Forces of Evil. As does our next original ditty, by Patrick, which is what we did next!
"Jenny's Jealous", a little composition of Patrick's, has to do with his girlfriend and her reaction to his affection for a particular band. It has gone over quite well with the group so far -- more than one of us have found ourselves song-virused by it. This session we mostly just workshopped on it, though, since Patrick hadn't really gotten around to writing out the various parts he's worked out for it so far. Cyn needs bass tabs, and since Patrick has asked for backup vocals we'll need that written out as well; I'm thinking I will probably try to do backup vocals since the flutes tend to really get drowned out by the electrics anyway, and Patrick did specifically want more vocals. But he did have chords, and he and Paul and Cyn played with it for a while before we decided to call ourselves done with it for now.
Last up, "Acres of Clams". We started off doing a partial sort of fall-together take, since Monica wanted to do a tempo check. After that, we did only one real take of this since we were all getting tired at this point; Monica and Patrick had to re-kibbitz to determine who was going to start us off. We are, however, getting a better idea of what to do with the tempo on this, which is good. Patrick sounds quite nice coming in on the choruses with Monica. And it did also help that we had copies of "Fisherman's Frolic" to be handed out to the guitar players, so they knew where the chords were! The "Frolic" still needs some polishing but it's definitely coming together.
Patrick belatedly acquired his flaming bowling shirt, though Dana did not. We have discussed whether or not we ought to all show up at the GBS show in April wearing these shirts, and we seem to have some dissension in the ranks as to whether this crosses the line between "fan tribute" and "getting the security called out on us". ;)
The pie: strawberry rhubarb.
More in two weeks (give or take a few days depending on how lame the Jam Reporter is next time),
Anna the Piper
In which we get pretty random with the tempo and pretty rockin' with the electrics; in which Paul's keyboard is officially christened with its very own name; and in which Patrick finally gets his flaming bowling shirt. Songs: "Jolly Butcher", "Mari-Mac", "Bluesy Butcher", "Stray Cat Strut", "My Boyfriend Wears a B-Cup", "Jenny's Jealous", "Acres of Clams".
Okay, so, well, it's another late Jam Report; this is what the Jam Reporter gets for having a strange and stressful life as of late. But on the other hand, I have my mandolins, I'm learning how to sing while I'm playing along with myself, and I'm mere days away from having a brand new Great Big Sea record in my very own hands, so life's not all bad either!
Meanwhile, this past session was fairly productive all around. Attendees on hand: me,
solarbird (Dara), spazzkat (Paul), ssha (Cyn), daspatrick (Patrick), Monica, Dana. mamishka (Mimi) is out again doing painting and Fred is not due back to join us until April (though he's been keeping us apprised of his progress via email!).Things started off as our recent session has been doing with practice runs of old standbys; first up, "Jolly Butcher".
For this one, Monica worked a bit beforehand on the chord changes that involve F, as she finds she generally gets sloppy on those at speed. In terms of singing, Cyn and Monica took care of that, as we were sans
kathrynt (Kathryn). Our initial take was a bust as Cyn wound up singing too low and also forgot the words, so we dug up the lyrics and tried again; on the next take, Cyn took it up an octave and Monica sang with her on the choruses, so that Monica could cover the melody and Cyn could cover the harmony. That did work pretty well. The tempo did not. I hit my high G's, though I kept falling apart elsewhere.Onward to "Mari-Mac". Monica took the lead on this, since we were sans both Kathryn and Mimi. She tried to play guitar first time through, but had to drop off the guitar after the speed-ups halfway into the song; she dropped the guitar entirely for subsequent takes, since it was just too darned weird for her to just put down the guitar in the middle of a song.
This session's tempo randomness continued on this ditty, though. We were particularly missing our drums, and although Paul's keyboard came in very handy later on in the session, it wasn't exactly useful for "Mari-Mac". We kept speeding up too fast when the speed-ups happened.
In the middle of working on this ditty, pretty much entirely at random, we fell into an impromptu improvisation of the blues version of "Jolly Butcher" we've been playing with. It was pointed out to me during our review of our session recording that I have, by writing this, spilled the beans that we have been in fact working on a blues version of "Jolly Butcher", but well hey. What few loyal readers we have out there need something to look forward to! Anyway, we fell into about half a take entirely at random, when Patrick started in on blues riffs and I jumped in on the piccolo, and then Cyn jumped in on the lyrics. Monica made partly amused and partly horrified faces as we did, so I had to try very hard to keep from cracking up.
Once we got that out of our systems, we went back to "Mari-Mac". Monica seems to have this idea that her trying to mimic Séan McCann's little end-of-verse nonsense syllables makes her sound goofy; she's doing Séan's as opposed to the version that Kathryn does, which is different. Monica is, however, mistaken about her sounding goofy, as the rest of us have assured her.
Third up: "Stray Cat Strut". Patrick had to sing lead on this since Paul had a bit of a cold and sore throat, left over from the Gwar concert he and Patrick and Kathryn and Cyn had all gone to the previous Tuesday. We broke out the electrics in force -- Cyn's bass, Patrick's electric, and the Colonel as well, though Paul had issues with his shoulder strap as it was too low from playing Dar's ditty last session.
I was a trifle rusty on my flute part since we hadn't done this for a bit, but I'm definitely comfortable now with dropping out on the solo in the middle; I still need to remember to drop out on "I got cat class and I got cat style", though. Also, I dropped out briefly because my little brother called, but wasn't gone for long.
Paul broke out his keyboard again to test out a drum line, on one particularly fast take, but we didn't really employ the drum line in this song.
Dana brightly suggested doing this ditty at the same tempo as "Mari-Mac". We, uh, don't think so. ;)
Cyn took over singing later on, and Monica took over playing the bass, though Monica still finds the whole notion of playing a right-handed bass weird and alien; she's made noises now about getting her own left-handed bass. Dana sang too, but found that she kept coming out breathy and/or sharp, and has announced her intention to start warming up on her way over and never mind being on the bus.
Maintaining the electric theme and mood, we moved on to another tackle of "My Boyfriend Wears a B-Cup". After, that is, a great deal of setup as Monica and Paul and Patrick played with their instruments and adjusting this thing and that thing and figuring out what the heck they were all going to be doing.
The keyboard was employed more heavily this time; Dana volunteered to try to stand in for Mimi, but that wound up not working out, so Paul dug up a pre-programmed drum line for us to use instead, complete with a rather cool little intro. He also found a great little pre-programmed drum riff to go on the end -- which met with general overall resounding approval. We have, furthermore, decided that the keyboard should be a member of the group as well, and we have named it Roland. Roland will be duly credited on the bio page as soon as Paul scans in a picture.
I don't really have much of a part on this song -- I tried a different simple part this time, standing down in the first and second octaves rather than jumping up to the third as I'd done the last time we played with it. Also dropped out on the solos. I'm very much second flute on this ditty, as it should be, since it's Dar's ditty in the first place :) Dar really needs to be closer to the mike, though, since her part for the song can be barely made out over the various electrics.
Paul and Patrick had a great deal of fun, however, trading solos back and forth; between them and the bass and the drum line, this comes out surprisingly listenable in our humble collective opinion, though we're nowhere near ready for a public take. It has also been universally decided that this particular ditty really needs to be credited to our alter egos, Crime and the Forces of Evil. As does our next original ditty, by Patrick, which is what we did next!
"Jenny's Jealous", a little composition of Patrick's, has to do with his girlfriend and her reaction to his affection for a particular band. It has gone over quite well with the group so far -- more than one of us have found ourselves song-virused by it. This session we mostly just workshopped on it, though, since Patrick hadn't really gotten around to writing out the various parts he's worked out for it so far. Cyn needs bass tabs, and since Patrick has asked for backup vocals we'll need that written out as well; I'm thinking I will probably try to do backup vocals since the flutes tend to really get drowned out by the electrics anyway, and Patrick did specifically want more vocals. But he did have chords, and he and Paul and Cyn played with it for a while before we decided to call ourselves done with it for now.
Last up, "Acres of Clams". We started off doing a partial sort of fall-together take, since Monica wanted to do a tempo check. After that, we did only one real take of this since we were all getting tired at this point; Monica and Patrick had to re-kibbitz to determine who was going to start us off. We are, however, getting a better idea of what to do with the tempo on this, which is good. Patrick sounds quite nice coming in on the choruses with Monica. And it did also help that we had copies of "Fisherman's Frolic" to be handed out to the guitar players, so they knew where the chords were! The "Frolic" still needs some polishing but it's definitely coming together.
Patrick belatedly acquired his flaming bowling shirt, though Dana did not. We have discussed whether or not we ought to all show up at the GBS show in April wearing these shirts, and we seem to have some dissension in the ranks as to whether this crosses the line between "fan tribute" and "getting the security called out on us". ;)
The pie: strawberry rhubarb.
More in two weeks (give or take a few days depending on how lame the Jam Reporter is next time),
Anna the Piper