What Is Next

As I mentioned in my last post, I already have had some ideas about what to do next, now that Blue Funk is no more. So here they are, in a particular order.

• Find more gigs with other bands. I’ve already done gigs with Collective Hallucination, and could find gigs with other bands if I made an effort to do so.
• Blues jams and open mics. Lori and I, as well as possibly Rebecca, could go more frequently to blues jams such as the Thursday jams at Dan Electro’s and the Houston Blues Society one at The Big Easy.
• Work on songwriting. This includes finishing up songs that I have started, as well as learning how to use the tools I have to make demos and printed music for these songs.
• Woodshed. My playing chops are nowhere near where I’d like them to be, and I think they need to be better to do the first item above. See my post from 3 March. I also think they should be better in order to do the next item.
• Last but not least, Joe Stone goes solo. I heard an ad the other day for a performance by a singer/songwriter, and it talked about the great band he was going to have. While I don’t have the chops, repertoire, nor pedigree that someone like this has, I thought about all the options this would give me. I could use any musicians I wanted and could do the gig. I think my songs would be better promoted as a solo act “songwriter Joe Stone” than as part of a band. There are some cons, like having to do all the work myself as far as promoting and merch, and I don’t have any money to pay the musicians until/unless the gigs pay so that might limit who I can get at first. But after talking to some other musicians about this, the idea of just hiring musicians is really appealing.

Another aspect I’m already liking is managing one artist. For the past few months, I’ve been having to do things like update calendars for Joe Stone and Blue Funk, sometimes the same event for both. Now, it’s just me. Even if I play with other bands, I would just be updating my friends, family, and fans about those shows, leaving the band to do their own promotion. So I would just update the Joe Stone events like I have done with listing the CH gigs. I’m not saying anything bad about the work I did for Blue Funk, just that the dual entities were difficult to manage in parallel.

Notice that none of my options talked about joining another band. I just don’t see doing that, for several reasons. One, I know myself too well, and know that I need the creative outlet and the control of the artistic direction. Two, once you’re in a band, you’re obligated to them. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if I started playing with several bands, and there was a conflict, I’d have to be obligated to the one I was a member of. Three, I just don’t want to deal with those dynamics and potentially drama. One of the things I enjoy about my time with CH is I just do my part, play the songs. Not that I don’t care, but I don’t have to deal with things that may happen around me. I can focus on the music as well as showing up on time and not worry about the rest.

First on my list, woodshedding!

Next, in part 3… nah, I’m done for now. 😉

Fri, 2009 03 13 at 4:49 PM |Permalink for this entry

On the Cusp of Greatness

No, not really, but it's fun to say.

I've been saying for the past week or so that sometimes, when you put a piece of steel in the forge, it comes out stronger, but other times, the forge reveals the flaws in the steel. That's one way of looking at what happened to Blue Funk last weekend, because the band broke up. It is not worth going into all the details, but looking back over the longer picture, this may have been coming for a while. As I posted previously, we have had trouble getting our groove back as a band. There may have been other factors that were causing that difficulty, and these may have led to the breakup.

Another way to look at it, because you can never have too many metaphors, is two people are dating, and one asks the other to marry, and the other says, "no." Once it's clear that the direction of relationship for the two people is different, is there really any point in carrying on?

The other side of this is the shame of it all. We had gotten a couple of gigs, had been talking about doing a recording so we would have material to try to get more gigs, we had Angelina take photos for us, and were discussing merchandise to have to sell at gigs as well. I guess in that regard it was good that this happened now instead of after investing in all that, but it makes me realize how close we were to taking the next step.

The situation is a bit odd for me in many regards. I've been kicking around "Blue Funk" since around 1994 or so, if not earlier. Besides the time with Mikey and Joe, this is the furthest the band has ever gotten and the longest it has been "a thing." We started with Tony and Rebecca in late 2005 and Jeff joined in January of 2006. We've been going ever since. To not have that as part of our lives will be odd. Whenever Lori and I visit an open house or home tour, my first thought is always, "is there a room we could use for the band if this was ours?" If it weren't for the experiences I've had in this band, I would not be taking on the whole professional musician thing. The growth I've experienced as a person and player over the past few years because of the band is immeasurable. But now I will have to learn to move on without it.

What's next for me? I've hinted at it above, but I think I'll save it for a separate blog post. You don't want this one to be even longer, do you?

Fri, 2009 03 13 at 11:49 AM |Permalink for this entry

I’ve Been Bad. Sorry.

Sick and swamped

It's been exactly a month (same day last month, 28 days/4 weeks ago) since my last entry. The reasons I haven't posted are because I've been sick and I've been swamped. The Twestival gig was the week after my last post, and dangit if I didn't get sick again that Monday, sucking up all my energy that I had planned to use to get prepared for the gig.

The week after was the CH gig. I didn't really spend much effort getting ready for that because most of the songs were the same as the previous show, albeit with Ant's usual changed-up arrangements. There were a couple of new songs that I should have worked on a bit more, but oh well.

Blue Funk confirmed a gig at Coffee Groundz for March 21, and our good friends The Distracted are opening up for us. Some of you may know, Tony was the drummer in Blue Funk before Phil. We are spending the next few weekends getting ready for that show.

One unfortunate thing that has been happening with Blue Funk is that we still haven't gotten our groove back. What I mean by that is before Jeff left in October 2007, and with John afterwards, all agreed we were a pretty tight little band. But, John sorta leaving and us not getting together regularly during the latter half of 2008, we are not as good as we once were. Before we knew it, we had shows to get ready for, and the only way to do that was to rehearse, something we've never done before. We have always just jammed and grew as a band that way. Rehearsing can be very draining, because instead of just having fun and playing, you're trying to get the arrangements of the songs just right. Some in the band are feeling it and struggling with it. But, we plan to get back to the jamming so we can be like we were before, and not have to rehearse for any upcoming shows at that point.

I am happy to say that I have been able to spend some time practicing on my own technique and skills. Like I mentioned in the post about Irie Time, there are certain skills that I don't have that I want, and I've been taking the time to start to develop those. I feel that if I can develop these skills, I can be much more marketable to other bands, and then I can decide if I want to play with them, not the other way around.

Tue, 2009 03 03 at 10:10 AM |Permalink for this entry