Gutbug

Over the next few weeks I had a few conversations with everybody, David and I talked about figuring out guitar parts and what things to focus on. I already knew a handful of DP songs so that gave me the confidence to figure out more. I spoke with Tricia, she and London had already rehearsed and had a few songs down as well as working on a few others.

Everyone in the band is pretty busy with hectic schedules; Ted and Tricia are both parents and have busy careers. David is working on his PhD. and playing in Red X Red M, London is, of course, still busy playing n bands and working with children as a nurse. He’s got a couple projects, one is Millions of Dead Comps. (they cover entire legendary punk rock compilation albums). I’m running a studio, substitute teaching and playing in a couple other bands. As you can imagine time is limited but it looks like we’ll be working on stuff on the weekends.

I got together with Tricia and London on Sunday. I hadn’t seen London for a few years. He was at a Leopold show that shared a bill with some friends of his and we chatted for a few minutes, so it’d been a while and he vaguely remembered me. We went back to London’s rehearsal complex and soon after Tricia showed up. We talked for a minute about songs and I’d told them the songs I knew. Tricia had just about gotten Krank so that was the first tune we played. London said he’d count me in and started keeping time with his sticks…my mind blanked…I’d forgotten that I was supposed to start that song but after a second I remembered the intro…..We fumbled the first time but after a quick clarification we tried again and got all the way thru it. London gave me props which was pretty cool since I know he really wasn’t aware of how well I could or couldn’t play but I think I made a good impression. We went thru Krank, HOD, Gutbug, Go Kart, Smitten, and God’s List. I think Krank sounded best but we made a lot of progress and I felt really comfortable playing with London and Tricia. The tough part is playing without vocal cues on some songs and having to cut all the weird divisions for the songs lots of odd numbers, not quite math rock but still a little tricky. There’s a song or two that they want me to try and sing so we’ll see how that goes.


February 2, 2010
This last weekend the four of us go to rehearse. Ted showed up with a large wok-like, grill pan to play on. By the end of practice it looked like a topographic map of Europe. We had the Alps on there and everything. We'll see what his rig eventually consists of. At one point, if I recall correctly he had some cool metal to play on, a big, old fashioned milk jug, and a snare-like contraption with chains on it (is this right Ted) and that sandpaper block to scrape that you hear at the beginning of Go Kart, plus a couple of toms.
I was having some headaches with my parts, recalling how long the sections lasted but we got them worked out. It’s tricky at times because I’m having to combine David’s and Robert’s parts for the sake of rehearsing. Once David gets in there it’ll be cool to hear how our parts crash together. We worked on the previous songs and also started on Dept. of Existence and Slow Leak, just getting reintroduced to them. Slow Leak is one of my favorite songs. For years whenever I would plug in my guitar and check an amp I would play the intro to that song. I like the way you have a chord, a small melody ringing out and then that huge low D note sustaining. Great intro, really gets your attention. Also when the rest of the band comes in there is just a lot of power in that rhythm. Ted and London do some really cool stuff in there as well, they trade off parts, ending each of the cycles and really compliment each other.
Besides music, we’re also working on designing a new t-shirt and getting the tour rolling. Tricia proposed a Heavy stressed font like the letters on the Punishment Room album and I suggested that the Distorted Pony logo from the first single (I think it’s on the label of Work Makes Freedom e.p. ) be overlayed on the letters to be somewhat in the background. It’ll be on a similar color to the olive green of the album.