Practice makes perfect or, the end of the honeymoon.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 6:24PM We as a band, cannot accomplish anything with practice. We lined the floors and walls of a perfectly good garage with scraps of carpets, filled the walls with old show posters and packed it with expensive gear.... all for one purpose, to practice. This isn't something new, we have always practiced, we did it in my living room for a while, moving the couch and leaving scratches every time. But now? now we have a place that is set aside for just that, practice. We try to do it at least once a week, though some of us would prefer more, we realize to have healthy marriages and families is rather important.
At first it came easy, like a string of good dates with a new gal, then... something happened.. a gluten allergy is revealed a little to late, say... on the way to the ER. That "honey moon" stage is all of a sudden over, real life starts, the realization that we are fallible, insecure, wrong. But is all lost? hardly! Usually the best things come out of adversity, out of challenges! a healthy relationship is one that is not devoid of fights, but rather working through differences... okay... not take the analogy above and replace it with four sweaty dudes in a garage trying to make music... seriously... it is easier to explain to the hive ridden girl that you pretty much poisoned during a romantic dinner then it is to get four guys to agree on a chord progression during practice in a garage that is baking you at 100 degrees. But, if you can do it, you will come up with something better then if you called it quits and tried to find a new band. I promise you.
Practice doesn't make perfect because we know the songs like the back of your hand, practice makes perfect because you know the players like an extension of you... to know when Dan will transition to a fill, to know when drew will sit in the pocket with a classic run, to know when Sean will make a funny face as he bends a note into the bridge... thats perfect, and that takes practice.
life, music, practice, the whicker and pine The Lumineers
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 2:48PM I love broadway. I love sputnik and the goodwill, indyink and the hi-dive. Though I have only been in Denver a year, I have seen quite a few good shows at the hi-dive, Damien Jurado, Kay Kay and his weathered underground, Lizzie Huffman, Rocky Votolato... whats funny, is that last night was my first time seeing a Denver band at the hi-dive. I went at the behest of a Seattle friend who manages quite a few nationwide acts. She has just sign a local Denver group... The Lumineers. My first induction into The Lumineers fan club was at Moes Barbeque when they opened for Seattle friends The Head and the Heart late last year, while I enjoyed THATH's set, it fell flat in comparison to the rowdy anxious folk that The Lumineers brought to the stage that night. Over the past year, numerous sleepy, flat folk bands has sprouted up across the country... but when TheLumi's took the stage (both at moes, and at the hi-dive last night) there is a change, that perception is throw away, it's okay to feel the electricity that is prevalent in the room, it's okay if people don't think your cool that you dance along and sing the (catchy as hell) choruses, or grin with the lead singers witty turn of phrases ("it takes a man to fall in love, it takes a woman to make him compromise") their shows ebb and flow with a natural feeling that is rare in this genre, and I love it. I am proud to say I am a part of the Denver music scene, it must be the mountain air, because the music is just damn good.
Everybody's got the same story
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 11:59PM When I was 10 years old, I was at the library looking through CDs. I did this often. It was in Lincoln, NE. I found a copy of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album cover caught my eye. If you're not familiar with the cover of Sgt. Pepper's, then clearly you have stumbled across the wrong blog.
It is now many, many years later, and I am the lead guitar/Rhodes/Harmonica/MacBook Pro player in the Whicker and Pine. I was asked to post a blog entry this week. Plumbing the depths of my intellect for content is less glamorous than you might hope. Rock n' roll is really the only thing I know much about. I have come to terms with this fact, and joined one hell of a rock band to prove it.
People are often surprise when I tell them that checking out a Beatles record from the library is to this day the most influential moment of my life. I suppose modern musicians are expected to have a hipper story filled with unexpected nights at CBGB watching cool bands no one's heard of blow my mind and light my soul on fire. Instead, I found a Beatles record at the library in Lincoln, NE. I learned every lyric before I returned it a week later. I felt mildly uncomfortable during the end of "Lovely Rita." I thought "A Day in the Life" was the single greatest musical composition I had ever heard, although at age 10 I feel my opinions may have been underdeveloped. I now consider it the number 2 greatest composition.
The greatest record I've ever listened to in my life was created by my friend Allen. He is in a band called Anita/Exira. I am one of the shamefully fortunate few who have a copy of Anita/Exira's self-titled on 130-gram vinyl. The first time I listened to the record, I sat in silence for nearly an hour when it was done. It was the most beautiful, simple, aching, and brilliant composition I'd ever heard. If I ever quit music, it will be because I've excepted the fact that I will never make something as good as Anita/Exira. And I will be okay with this fact.
At this point, I've written somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 words about myself. Even as a rock and roll guitar player I know this is a lot to expect you to read.
Please come to the next W&P show. We are a very good band of very good men working very, very hard to make music that makes us happy. We also believe it will make you happy. It's also your best shot of hearing my Sgt.Pepper's story in person. It's much more exciting that way.