Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Nineteen (Year Two)

Went to the Sonia Leigh in-store performance at work today before my shift.  I was expecting it to just be her and an acoustic guitar, but to our amazement, we got a 5 piece band!  It was Sonia and her acoustic guitar, her drummer, her bass player (with an acoustic bass), her lead guitarist (on acoustic), and an accordion player.  This is the second time I've watched accordion take lead phrases with an acoustic as the backup instrument (the other was at last year's Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash gig), and it was equally as amazing today as it was then.

The other cool thing to watch was the way that Sonia and her guitarist interacted & structured their acoustic arrangements.  Her guitar was almost always capoed up the neck, while his was almost never altered.  It was a mini-crash course in part layering, and a really cool way to make more noise with less instruments (something I can definitely use in recording).

As an added bonus, they played at least half of the new record.  As best as I can recall, here's what was on the setlist:

1) "A Poem From The Ocean Floor"
2) "Bar"
3) "Roaming"
4) "My Name Is Money"
5) "Ain't Dead Yet"

It was really cool to meet someone who seems to be on the way up.  Both Sonia and her band were extremely personable, and very glad to be there for the gig.  It was a definite highlight of working where I do and an awesome music moment in my year.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dat Two Hundred Thirty One (Year Three)

So, apparently the new Airborne EP that came out yesterday is MP3 only!  Downloaded that as soon as I figured it out this morning, but didn't have time to sync the ipod after doing so.  Therefore, I naturally had a ton of time to listen tonight that was away from my computer. On the plus side, though, I was able to spend some of that extra time with a guitar in my hands, working on the chord progression for this month's song.  I've got an opening chord change that I really like, and the flicker of a two guitar approach, with one of the two parts capoed up the neck dancing somewhere in the back of my brain.  If all goes according to plan, it could work out really well. Also, finally over halfway in the Grohl bio.  Considering I was hardly home at all today, I feel like I got a decent chunk of that read. Tomorrow should (hopefully) be another decent day for music, with a chance to play in the evening, and enough time for a few runs through the Airborne EP....

Day Two Hundred Twenty Seven (Year Two)

So, the new Springsteen disc is amazing.  There's enough of a mixture of his upbeat rockers, his ballads, and his message songs to make this his best record since The Rising .  And speaking of that record... Buying The Boss the day it comes out always takes me back to a specific moment in life.  It was July 30th, 2002, the year after 9/11, the year after someone on the streets of New York told Springsteen "we need you now."  I had driven to Oshkosh, WI to visit some friends, when I remembered that Springsteen's disc was scheduled to come out that day.  I drove downtown to The Exclusive Company, but had to park a few blocks back.  At the time, there wasn't much going on downtown, but when I got out of the car, I could hear this music coming from up the block somewhere.  The closer I got to Exclusive, the more it began to dawn on me, they had set up a giant set of speakers in their upstairs windows, and were blasting the new album out into the streets....

Day One Hundred Forty Two

So, I haven't been sleeping much lately, and I've been staying up late. listening to music, doing a bit of playing, and watching old episodes of Behind The Music on the internet. It's funny, you know, because I never met the rest of my "band," I've become the critic. It's all right, don't get me wrong, but for a decade now I've always hoped that I'd find a way to release something. It'll happen, I know it will, but it's continually happened slower than I expected it to. I've gotten close to getting something released, as I've documented before here before, but with the winter coming and the cold closing in, I'm facing another chance to make something musical of the winter. I'm going to start by finishing up the old things that have gotten pushed to the sides in the last few months. With the buildup of everything since the summer, it should be easier. Even if all I do is spend the winter writing lyrics, trying to g...