Category Update

Who would have thought that sustaining a deep muscle bruise and tearing several tendons would be the best thing that could have happened to me?
As many of you know, I was taking care of Tino (a parrot) during the December ice strorm
I injured myself when he flew down the hall and I chased after him
I tripped and knocked myself out for a few moments as well as falling on my shoulder and pinning my arm behind my back
This caused a great deal of stress and anxiety in my life because I consider myself to be primarily a drummer
It would take months for me to heal and I had to really limit the amount of time I played the drums
Many people advised me that it is easy to damage what takes weeks to repair so I had to completely change my drumming style
Luckily, GIRL is not a band that requires me to...

Tonight will be the third show that I have played with Scary Cherry and the Bang Bangs
This one is going to be much more challenging than the previous gigs
Those were 1 set shows that tend to go by very quickly and have a limited amount of technical issues that require me to pay attention
Most of the set so far has been songs with backing tracks and one transition
Tonight’s set at lee Harvey’s will be a 2 hour set with a completely different set list as well as several different transitions
All that require that I not make any mistakes

The steps leading up to this point have been hard ones indeed
Having to learn two sets of songs is stanard for the working musician and nothing too unreasonable but that’s when you have a whole band to rehearse and complete tracks to accompany the process
Th...

A few months ago, I was approached by Lezlie of Scary Cherry and the Bang Bangs to see if I would play drums for them
They had been tennants at my rehearsal space for a while and eventually I produced a background video for their live show
Ayo had quit and they were looking to take the band in a different direction
They wanted to flesh out their live show with backing tracks as well as video
I had shown them videos of PyroPlasticFlow and they asked if I could facilitate them going multi-media
I saw this as an opportunity to stretch those compromise muscles and this was going to be a compromise on one of my biggest predjudices
Being in a female fronted band

Here’s a joke I’ve been telling forever-
What’s the upside of being in a female fronted rock band?
You don’t have to worry about how...

The prospect of The Necro Tonz getting back together gave me mixed feelings
When Colleen first broached the subject, it was that I would sit in on a few songs but I felt like I wanted more involement
I set about looking for ways to use my skills to do a variety of things
The first thing that came to mind was that I could provide backup vocals and harmonies
This was soon followed with the idea that I would use my Roland SPDS as a percussion pad (bongos, timbales, triangle etc…)
The ideas that I have been brewing for Tiki Torture would also come into play with video
This would give me a real world application for my ideas concerning backgrounds
In addition, I also recognized the chance to handle compromise more effectively
After all, these were all musicians with egos and quirks equal to my ...

Street performance has become more and more of a priority
Up until last weekend, I had just played my drums on the street but last weekend, I got to bring a full elelctronic configuration
I got permission from July Alley to use their electricity
I was expecting to set up over at Kettle Art (run by the eternally cool Frank Campagna) which had a different set of parameters to consider so I didn’t plan on getting electricity to MY SPOT
I had to locate some tape at the last minute to tape down the electrical cord
Saturday I brought some rubber slip mats

This was the first time I have ever gotten to put my electronic ideas to the test and I think I did fairly well
The setup consisted of the SPDS looping pad, a Kaoss pad and the BR864 multi-track as well as the Brock Spock electric Harp guitar (...

The last few weeks have been productive
A few weeks ago, I decided to get off my ass and pull my drums out on the street in Deep Ellum
Laziness was one of the factors that kept me from doing it but the biggest one was fear of all the negative variables that were swirling in my head
Would the cops hassle me?
Would someone try to rob me or start a fight? (this is Ellum)
After getting out there and doing it, I saw that none of those fears were correct
Not only that, but I never would have thought that I could play drums for 5 to 6 hours
My recent drumming-stamina issues have been a huge issue and I succeeded in adapting my playing for the long haul
I have an idea where I want to take this and will address it in a sec

Speaking of drumming stamina issues, I have isolated two of the main causes ...