And a good time was had by all, including the gimp
We gathered at the shop, aka Club Spit East, as mentioned by Rob in a previous post. Our drummer Bill was absent due to a bad knee, but I would be the gimp referenced in the title due to a back that's giving me quite a bit of trouble right now. I ended up playing very little bass due to the strain on the back, but I did manage to enjoy the wondrous effects of beer consumption and have a very good time anyway. I also inadvertently gave myself the title of "Samsquanch", what Bubbles on the Trailer Park Boys calls Bigfoot. You see, we filmed the event so that we'd have a recording of the songs we were working on in order to refine and tweak things later on. Well, since I wasn't playing much I ended up walking in front of the camera a time or two. I'm not a small person and between that, the large flannel jacket I was wearing and the close proximity to the camera, I couldn't help but say "Look, there's a Samsquanch," the first time I saw myself walk by when we reviewed the tape. And then everyone ran with it so I guess my new stage name is now Samsquanch.


Rob has been working on a song about our friend Mark who killed himself a while back (see archives from July 2004) and it's been a tough one to write. He sang what he'd come up with so far and managed to make everyone cry, even people who didn't know Mark. We made a lot of other noise tonight, some of which will be usable, some of which will not but that's how it goes. A few of our songs were birthed fully formed, but that's pretty rare and nothing like that popped out tonight. Usually it takes quite few "practice" sessions to flesh something out and now that we've added Jon to the mix it will take some time to incorporate the new influence. Jon brings his own unique style of guitar playing to add to Rob and Tracy's unique styles and that's the magic of jam sessions. It's sort of like cooking - a little bit of this, a little bit of that and the end result is frequently something mighty tasty.

But we missed our drummer and grill-chief tonight. We are a band, but we are also friends and if the instruments and amps disappeared, we'd still be getting together to barbecue and shoot the shit - it would just be a little less noisy. And since we are currently on an acoustic bent, any required drums in the near future should work well within any knee rehab requirements.

The night ended with us snagging an awesome chair which was a shop relic that came from who knows where. But my sore back proclaimed it as a chair that was made when people knew how to make chairs and Tracy graciously offered it to us so we decided to cart it home. It wouldn't fit in the car so we had to tie to the roof.




Rob forgot completely about it when we pulled into the driveway and under the carport. Oops! Fortunately, it simply flipped over and survived the ordeal unscathed. It was originally destined for the front porch, but Rob decided it was the perfect chair for his desk and now you can just call him Mr. Cleaver when he sits there (as in Ward Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver) since it's at least that old.