Friday On My Mind

So, how was it? Bloody brilliant. If there are any Sydney siders reading this, Experience Hendrix is comin’ to Sydney and if you have ears and love them, you should probably go. The only downside for you is the lack of some of the brilliant artists who did the Melbourne gig.

Purple Haze with Jimi Hocking and Phil Cebrano was great, Kevin Borich did Foxy Lady and was great (and no one was surprised ) Geoff Wells did Angel and Manic Depression and was great (and no one was surprised by that, either) Simon Hosford was great, Danny Spencer was great, Brett Garsed and Stuart Fraser were stupidly great. You get the picture.

This is about the time where I make the confession that when I was younger, I didn’t really “get” Hendrix.
Then again, I was stuck in a hole and didn’t really get that music was allowed to be beautiful. Anything that expressive would have blown my little teenage mind. I guess my problem was that when I was sixteen and just taking up guitar, people were trying to shove Jimi worshipping upon me and like anything, if you try forcing me to open my mind (especially sixteen year old me) you’re probably gonna have to wait a bloody long time. I always thought Jimi was good, don’t get me wrong, but it seemed like everyone around me thought he was the messiah and I was the 16 year old who purposely couldn’t name a top 40 song. Some kids version of rebelling was drug taking, mine was being the guitarist who loved Neil Finn and who listened to The Who.

In other news, I got bugger all drumming done this weekend. I’ll be doing it all today. Lessons tomorrow. I’ll have to start playing Bruce stuff again (I’m listening to Cover Me right now)

Trying Again

I had my drum lesson last night, which went okay. We slowed down Glory Days and Dancing In The Dark just to give me a chance to catch up to Max a little bit. Let’s face it, he’s been doing this for a lot longer than 14 weeks. I’m also still in the process of tweaking my style and streamlining my drumming, as my teacher would say. It’s just a matter of giving myself the ability to play faster. I’m also breaking up my Bruce drumming with drumming along to different tracks – the White Stripes are good for a bit of fun. They’re great to warm up to.

Cover Me and Downbound Train are going really well. I’m at the point now where I’m getting closer to playing what’s on the record, introducing the China as well as the high hat and putting another feather in my cap, which I really love. I’m also falling deeper and deeper in love with music again, which sounds odd. I’m listening to different bands every day, some of my friends went to Sabbath so I’m listening to Tommy play a bit. I’m also getting into soul music, so it will be interesting to see what kind of drumming style I end up with, cause right now I look a bit like the gorilla in the Cadbury’s add, but without any of the talent.

Song of the day is Working On The Highway, just for a bit of mid week fun.

Day off due to illness and now we’re getting somewhere.

So there was no post yesterday cause I was sick. Realistically speaking, I am still sick. I still have no voice, I still feel like shit, but the good news is that you don’t need a voice to post on the internet (hell, some people would say you don’t even need a voice to have a hit record these days, but that’s another story). You also don’t need a voice to play drums. I still went to drum lessons yesterday and we’re making progress. Slowly, but surely, we’re making progress, which is nice.

I also got the drum tabs for Cover Me and Downbound Train. Both of these were my drum teacher’s suggestions. Good work, Damo. I have lots to do when I get better. I want to master all four songs by next week and still manage to rest up because it’s important for me. He gave me some tips too, like to tap using my heal so that I’m not getting cramps in my shins all the time and keeping my elbow low so that I can pick up speed. There was a tip from another buddy too about adjusting the height of my snare drum for rim shots (thanks joe!) It looks like I’ll be playing around with the height of my kit when it finally makes it’s way into that music room.

I got my Bruce poster yesterday. I have a link to the shot that I got below. I think it captures him beautifully. It’s going in the Music Room. I am still waiting on Dancing In The Dark. C’mon Aus Post!

I also got stuck into the chocolates yesterday. Being home is like playing my very own version of “biggest Loser temptation” and it’s fair to say that the sweets cupboard won. What was I thinking? Today is a new day. I’ve lost a bit of weight which although wasn’t the main goal, is a nice surprise. I still need to build up strength in my arms and legs so I’ll be hitting the gym for a while yet.

Song of the day is Working On A Dream as that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Enjoy

I has work to do

So, yesterday was an interesting day. Peace to all my friends in the US at the moment, my thoughts are with you

Now that that’s done, I spent yesterday doing one of three things. 1) working (cause I need it to buy more drums)

2) playing drums
Having a schedule (which I trashed today thanks to the faintest sight of the sniffles) really allowed me to get more time in drumming. I was impressed that I found time to get on the kit before work. This is always good.

I also had time when I got home to drum before my lesson. My drum teacher said that it showed. I had my lesson yesterday, told him about my blog and then drummed through my current playlist. I learnt that I need to listen to Cover Me more. Ohhhh what a shame. I now have written out drum tab for Dancing In The Dark and Glory Days. I guess the album I’m learning first is Born In The USA. Don’t roll your eyes, the album chose me, I didn’t choose it.

3) Doing things to help my drumming. I was frantically shoving vegetables into my gob yesterday in a bid to not get sick again, I also got up and did a quick work out so that I have more strength for when I’m playing and given the cramps I was getting in my right leg after an Hoyt’s worth of drumming, I’m going to need to do more. Max must have the legs of an athlete hidden behind that drum kit! It’s hard work, but I’ll get there.

The playlist that I’m drumming to is
Glory Days
Dancing In The Dark
Cover Me
London Calling
Twist and Shout

Below is my homework.