Time

In an absolute flash of inspiration, at yesterdays' practice The Night Before absolutely nailed an amazing version of "Time" by Pink Floyd, from their classic album "Dark Side of the Moon". No, seriously, we nailed it. (Changing tenses mid-sentence, Mr Mal? Tisk tisk tisk! rofl). Sounds like a million dollars, with Matt and I trading guitar work together, and Julian adding perfect rhythm parts for a near-perfect groove. It suits my 'growling' singing voice* perfectly - and the song seriously rocks. It sounds very "us". We recently dropped "Breathe" from our repertoire, but because "Time" incorporates "Breathe" in it's coda, it just came together perfectly. Oh seriously... who've ever thought I'd be playing in a band that'd wanna even do a song like this, let alone nail it first run-thru together?!?

"... Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun "

No band ever does "Time"! Matt even let me take the Dave Gilmour guitar solo (which I found was really simple... easy to make those sounds, and therefore the feel came straight away for it, using my gherkin guitar and guitar amp). Oh, I love playing with these guys!!!

Then, together with the crazy psychedelic lightshow we've put together, people are gonna absolutely freak-out! lol.

(I really need to change the "four-piece" details on that website, don't I? That'll be a short project for me this week.)

We even pulled out, totally randomly out-of-nowhere, great rocking versions of "Back In the USSR" (The Beatles) and "Rock and Roll Music" (The Beatles' version), which we use to do with Mick... we literally haven't even attempted to play them since Mick left us about 3 or 4 months ago - and they just fell out of the sky and worked perfectly for us as a three-piece. Seriously rocked well.

I know we're not gonna change the world or anything like that with our music. We're just a dirty little rock'n' roll combo. But heck, it's a whole darn lot of fun!



www.divshare.com/download/5623365-02f
"Sympathy For the Devil", The Night Before demo (27 Sept 2008). Live in one take, by the way!
Length: 2' 09"
File Size: 1.97 MB

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www.divshare.com/download/5623523-830
"Immigrant Song" (Led Zeppelin), The Night Before demo (live, 1st time we'd even done it! I swears! lol) 21st September 2008.
Length: 1' 33"
mp3 file size: 1.43 MB

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We're getting some positive feedback from the demo CD too. We're not 'believing our own publicity/hype', altho it's nice to get some positive comments back about what we've been doing so far. Helps make it feel like we're on the right track.

We took our first official group portrait photos yesterday as well. That was so much fun... we tried to look serious and dressed-up and all that (just our stage 'black' clothes), but we couldn't stop laughing. When they get edited, I'll be posting them, for sure.

I haven't played in a good ol' dirty rock'n'roll band like this in like 20 years - these are niiiiice times for an old world-weary fart like me.

Julian in reverse, taken thru a mirror.

To top-off an even better day, the second channel on my bass amp (which sounded like it 'cooked' [ie. read 'blew-up!!!'] the other week) is now working perfectly, for no apparent reason! Go figure! Gotta love Peavy amps.

* It's nice to be able to 'sing' something that suits and sounds perfect for that song. We'll have a proper front-man vocalist eventually, but until that time, I'm becoming more and more able to get away with pretty good versions of the stuff we do. Of course there's no-way I can sing like Shane, so those songs we did with him we've 'put on the back burner' for now. But yeah, most of these songs are sounding really quite good with my growly vocal attempts. Very rock and roll - which is what we are. Both the guys came up to me separately and encouraged me that my vocals lately have been really good for us... and they weren't trying to blow smoke up my arse either! Oh, I know I'm no 'singer', but I can get away with a lot in this style of music doing what I do.



And I haven't even begun to write about my Saturday with my sons. This has seriously been the best weekend I've had all year.

Only downside was that, cum-Sunday night, I was basically feeling lonely! The other guys were off hanging-out with their families, and I went home for a toasted sandwich and watched some telly! Oh well... such is life.

Peas be with ewe

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