So what have we learned so far?

1) We are all very different musicians.
2) We can make something great together that we never would have achieved alone.
3) This is worth all of the failures and frustrations.

While I could elaborate forever on each of the above, I think for now, it’s good enough just to say I feel like we will be at it for a while, and I know I’ll be enjoying it.

Stay tuned. Good things will come to those who wait (for us).

I found myself obsessing for hours after our rehearsal about what would work best with this idea I came up with a month ago, and nothing would work.  And it was all good stuff… stuff that might eventually become other songs, but none of them were the answer for THIS song.  It always felt like patch work, or grafting a limb that didn’t belong.

This process is effective. We have all the tools. We have the talent, the creativity, and the commitment to the process, and the only thing left is time. “Patience,” we keep telling ourselves. And we have to believe in this process, or else we know that we would just re-form with a new member or additional members and write what we always wrote, continuing in the same, comfortable roles. As much as we want to get out there and play again, we have committed to incubate until we are once again become full-grown. It would be easy to do covers and old songs in a stripped-down band, but that would be altogether missing the point of this new challenge presented to us… to make the best music the three of us can possibly make. The most honest, fresh, inspiring, and deep stuff… or just the plain most beautiful. I guess you might say we are perfectionists. I don’t really think so… but we’re can’t be far off.

Part of this process means we have begun to experiment lots.  As I hinted at before… we never intended to abandon drums/percussion, but we’ve had to come to drums as an instrument choice much more deliberately. The formula has definitely changed. There is no formula. Well sort of.  We still like guitars, and we still like singing.

Here are some snippets of what our practices have looked like…

Until then, here’s a little snippet of what we’ve been up to:

Told you we didn’t abandom drums!

Wires, wires everywhere.

Yes a song with Nick on electric, Brian on keys and bass.

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And for the hardcore fans that are also good readers… we present to you a clip:

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Patience…

i wonder how you make it in the music world. i was on facebook randomly the other day and i found this one high school classmate who apparently has written several cds worth of material and does a lot of charity events with the band at the tender age of 25 or something. when i listened to the music it was only ok though, nothing spectacular in my opinion. maybe things just have to fall in the right place at the right time.

fame is so far off for us though. i think i’m ok with just doing some small shows for now when we finally get enough original material together. plus, my bigtime moneymaking career which pays me in big sacks of money that i have to wheelbarrow to my car can’t afford me to leave or take that much time off if we ever got big enough to tour.

i tell my friends i have a band practice this coming weekend. more often than not their response is “so…. what the hell are you guys practicing for?” my response is usually a sincere look in the eye, a pat on the shoulder, and a labored whisper: “something awesome my friend… something awesome.”

so keep on waiting… good stuff’s a’comin.

-brian

but even with 3 we are still doing a lot more than i thought was possible. nick’s got a crazy brain that’s always got some new tricks and new gadgets up his sleeve. warren’s always putting stuff down with his direction and vision. and me, aside from the sex appeal (refer to hot hot pictures below) and loads of money, bring to the table my acoustic guitar stuff, which i hadn’t really gotten to explore with the band too much while we were a 5 piece set.

does this sound like a recipe for awesome to you????? i think so. i think so.

even our one or two stripped down practice have been really great. can’t wait to share our musical babies with you once they have matured. be excited!

brian

Nick hooked up his new tape echo pedal to my old digital piano (that I never play). It sounded so shimmery, and it completely worked.

I embraced more simple and spacious parts.

Brian started to treat his guitar more like a percussion instrument.

There are more interesting ideas that we have cooking up, but those will have to remain secrets for now…  Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.

We’re all starting over in a way. And yet, it feels good.

[View with PicLens]

This is exciting, because it feels as if we are exploring without as many restrictions as we used to have. No squabbles yet, either.

http://www.greenplastic.com/coldstorage/articles/edsdiary/index.php

Writing songs as a group is not so easy, once you consider that there are minds that have different visions, and perhaps a multitude of versions sound good, but none are wholly complete, nor great. But we’re learning!

brian the bass guy

Otherwise, I’m just getting tired of this kinda stuff.

Today I was glad I am not terribly claustrophobic. I recorded my vocals in a room roughly 3′ x 4′. I imagine someday we will be laughing about these days… yes, laughing maniacally atop a pile of $100 bills and listening to our platinum record on $1K Grado RS-1 headphones. Yes, I imagine.