Friday on my mind

Yes, it’s a glorious Friday morning in Melbourne and I’m on my way into work. Ohhh well, them’s the breaks.

On the upside I’m back to the gym tonight. I feel disgusting by having a day off yesterday. I didn’t do it out of laziness. I did it because apparently, you’re meant to give your body time to recover. What if your body doesn’t want to recover? What if it still wants to go hard and slacking off just feels horrible? That’s kind of how I feel. Day of rest? My arse! Dear body, I promise to not make you rest again. You’re welcome.

So committed am I to this gym thing that I’m not going to see Wired tonight. It also starts at 7:30 and finishes at 10:30. I’ll still be in the gym at 7:30! If you can get down there, do it. I caught up with Jimmy and Steve last night at the delightful Whole Lotta Love bar. It was a great night. You weren’t there? Ohhhhh well, next time – or you could get down to Onyx bar for the full Wired line up and check that out. Choice is yours. It depends on your patience I guess.

I did manage to find some time this morning to have a little play before work. More importantly than that, tomorrow is drum day! I’ll probably try and do some pad work when I get home tonight, but this weekend is serious musician business. Watch out Melbourne, you’ve been put on notice. (I’ll be the one up early cranking the Springsteen and Clash CDs)

Glory days

So, I went to see Jimmy Cupples play last night. As per usual, it was awesome. He seems to have a way of just surrounding himself with really good players and letting the audience watch as it all falls into place. It was pretty great, actually and it’s always inspiring to watch good musicians at work. I sat there thinking “man, I gotta practice more” which is nothing unusual really.

The venue – whole lotta love is a great venue too. It’s on Lygon street, right before it becomes Holmes street. This means there are late night restaurants open for a tea or a meal afterwards.

As you may suspect, the venue takes it’s name from the Led Zeppelin song and don’t you know it when you walk in there. There is a floor to ceiling picture of Robert and Jimmy, as well as other zeppelin themed prints around the place. It’s a must see for any Zeppelin fan living in Victoria.

In other news it’s Friday and after Friday comes Saturday, to quote Rebecca Black. This means a whole day where I can sit at home and play drums and no one can invade my space or tell me not to. I’m really looking forward to that. I’m itching to either learn some new Bruce, go over what I’ve learnt or finally pick up the guitar. It will be good.

The winner is….

Wrecking Ball. That’s the album that I’m going to focus on as a guitarist. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that I can’t stop listening to it. I think that’s a pretty good reason. The second is that when I hear it, I can hear myself playing it – sitting down in my little studio with my guitar and laptop, slowly learning each part to it. I like the idea of being alone with my guitar somewhere, just playing. It’s peaceful.

Wrecking Ball also strikes me as an album that you can do that with. I don’t know if you could with The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle. It just doesn’t feel like it would make sense to play it just on a guitar. Wrecking Ball really lends itself to that.

In other news, I’m going to see the fabulous Jimmy Cupples tonight, so that should be good then there’s the big show at Crown tomorrow night – James Reyne, Joe Camilleri, Daryl Braithwaite and Ross Wilson. If you don’t have tickets to it, too bad, so sad. There is good news though, they’re doin’ another one there the following week. Hop on it.

I’m gonna hop off now (well not literally, my foot is a lot better) and do something with my day. Bye bye

I am a woman and I have needs.

Last night, watching a friend’s band, I was reminded of one of those needs that I’ve hummed and ahhhed over for the past few days, trying to fit it into my busy schedule – the need to play bass. I love my bass. I really do, but the only musical thing that I do these days is drum and I think poor Gable (my fender p bass) must be feeling a little neglected. He may also be feeling happy that he still lives in my bedroom though, so I dunno. The point is, I should be playing more and watching Travis Clarke do his thing last night on the bass playing all the fun stuff for bass players like Free’s All Right Now and ZZ Top’s La Grange reminded me that I should be doing that too. I’m not saying that I’m giving up my little drum project, I’m just saying that I somehow need to find more hours in the day to learn to play bass to a few songs (and a few Bruce ones too). Who knows, maybe if I can play all of Bruce’s songs, track by track, on each instrument, maybe then he’ll let me join his band? Please?

 

The other interesting thing that happened last night was that the drummer asked me if I wanted to get up and play. As I was in a dress (and am still shit) I politely declined., saying that next time I would. The problem with that is that now I have to be John Bonham or Max Weinberg by next time otherwise it’s going to be awfully embarrassing in front of not only a few friends, but also some of Melbourne’s finest musicians. Maybe I could get them to play some Bruce? That would be cool.  The band are Wired, they comprise of the freakishly talented Jimmy Cupples on vocals, Steve Ely on guitar, Davey Porter on drums and then a rotating roster of some of the best bass players my ears have seen. Last night Travis Clarke was playing with them and I enjoy his style very much. There’s nothing like a bass player with a good sense of feel, especially if they’re a little inventive, too.

 

Anyway, I’m off to play drums in an effort to be less shit. Have a great day.

 

The song I’ve picked for today is Further On Up The Road because I really enjoy the drumming in this one and I sense that there will be a lot of driving done this weekend.