Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends

Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends

Of course, we're so fucking tame these days that "aggressive" means Beds Are Burning and Roadhouse Blues, but what the fuck. We DID beat the living shit out of them, and I convinced them to pull back out BOC's Burnin' For You, which we hadn't played in months. Once we got past fucking the intro up all to hell, it was pretty damn good.

I can judge how good I'm doing physically and emotionally these days from the quality of my singing. I've struggled with it for years, this band was the first place I ever really tried to work on singing at all, and the fucking TORTURE I went through a few years ago when I was constantly sick and had my tonsils out had me convinced I'd never wnat to get in front of a microphone again.

The past year has healed all that. I finally feel really good about singing, and I know I'm in a good place in my head when I can sing as well as I did tonight. I got one hell of a good reaction to my solo version of Rockin' In The Free World, and I fucking deserved it. I put so much of myself into that one song, I could barely walk after I was done. My back is fucking KILLING me right now.

I was shocked and quite happy to find out that they not only have decided to go on without me and M, they already have a bass player lined up and possibly a guitarist with vocal and keyboard ability. M and I both immediately offered our help to whoever replaces us in learning the material. I kinda expected the atmosphere to be a bit weird tonight, but it wasn't at all. We had a damn good time.

Looks like we're not cancelling any June gigs after all, the thing M has to do has been moved up to the beginning of July. We have a gig on the 8th. Nobody seems concerned abotu cancelling that pareticular one (I'll be coming up from Cincy at that point, so I don't give a shit one way or the other) but we might have a gutiarist ready to fill in by then. Gonna be an interesting few months riding out the end of this band.

The stuff I intended to take to Cincy yesterday was still in the van, so I shoved my gear in with it and brought it up here to my parents. I'll load more stuff up tomorrow for Cincy. So not only did I get a less crazy weekend, I saved myself another trip in moving my shit. There's only a few more opportunities, and I still have plenty to move.

Tomorrow's private party gig should get out early enough to put me back in Indy by 10PM. Looks like next week's might even be early enough to get me back in town by 7:00. A nice extra bonus, though next weeks is a significant cut in pay. They're going to feed us very well, though, so I'm not too bothered by it.

Watching the singer's nieces dance is always a treat. One of them (who turns out to be a few years younger than I thought, she's our guitarist's age) is very pretty, but mostly she just looks so FUCKABLE out there. Damn, that girl can MOVE that ass.

Before I came up today, I listened to Why Dontcha, the first album by West, Bruce, & Laing. I rave about Jack Bruce's bass playing all the time, but this album (essentially making him a member of Mountain) has to be his best studio work. I love his studio playing with Cream, but it was the live stuff where he really tore it up. On Why Dontcha, though, all that nasty fuzztone and all those crazed slides and adrenaline-fueled obnoxo-fills are on full display. The outro on their version of the old blues classic Third Degree has to be as pure of an example of what I wish I could get away with in a band as exists on any recording. LUDICROUS tone, completely over-the-top "check out the size of my balls" playing. Gawd bless you, Jack Bruce. Thanks to you, I'm virtually unemployable outside this band. LOL.

I'm utterly fuck tired. sleep well, motherfuckers.

Love,
Dougie

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