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

Day Three Hundred Nine (Year Seven)

Well, it happened.  We came, we saw, and we (sort of) conquered.  I'm not sure how great we played all the way through, but there were definite moments that went really well, and all things considered (from my side anyway), it was an absolute blast and I hope we get to play again for something that's not church related. The set list, as it was, went like this: 1.  I'll Fly Away 2.  From This Valley 3.  Crazy 4.  My Church 5.  Jolene 6.  Long December 7.  You & I 8.  Can't Help Falling In Love 9.  Hey Jude It was an interestingly eclectic group of songs, with more bluegrass and country than I would have expected. It definitely took us a little while to get our feet under us, and on some level I felt like we were just getting warmed up by the time "Hey Jude" ended, but it was a start, and I'll take that any day.

Day Ninety Three (Year Six)

Today was an interesting day. On one hand, it wasn't a day where I spent a ton of time in the studio, but on the other hand, it was a day where the time that I did spend in the studio was probably the most productive time I've had in a long time.  In short, even though I didn't spend all that much time working on the EP tonight, I feel like I got a whole lot closer to finishing it. I've been frustrated with myself lately for not finishing things a bit quicker, and struggling with the fact that, while I have been successful at finding a whole lot of kernels of songs, they haven't seemed to want to sprout into completed works.  Tonight, instead of freaking out and making myself more stressed out, I sat down and looked at a few favorite songs to see if I could sneak a peek behind the veil, if you will. The answers jumped out at me immediately.  I haven't been doing enough with the kernels.  Mostly, I haven't been facilitating the chord changes that will a...

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...