Been a while since I’ve posted, actually, it’s been a while since I have done anything on the internet, got my phone/DSL cut off. Good times.

In my internet-free time, I have had to entertain myself with working on songs, reading, and my continuing journey into Halo 2. Luckily, the band got back into rehearsal mode last week, so I was crazy busy working on our new songs. We had the most productive week for songwriting yet, we played 4 days last week and have almost 4 new songs. Monday we started playing a jam I have been working on in drop D (tuning the lowest string on the guitar down a whole step to D), one that I wasn’t sure was a “Project P” song or not. As we played it, it went really well and as I sang some lyrics that I had knocking around in my head it became clear that it probably will be a part of “P”. As usual, the title I am keeping under wraps, but the initials are “ER”.

Tuesday began with Dave in a really excited creative mode. He was full of energy and had a new jam for us. Chris and Perk locked it right up and I got a melody right away, in about a half hour we had what looked to be a whole new song. This one is good and fast, and short time wise. We have  a fair amount of 5-6 minute songs, so this one which is about 2 and a half minutes is a good thing. At the moment it’s called “Not what you said you’d be”.

Wednesday I came to rehearsal really pumped about how things had been going. At night, I do my normal routine of downloading all the sound files we record, then cut them up into mp3’s, and listen. (usually with my DSL on, I upload the songs to my iDisk for the guys to hear, but…) The two songs from this week were really different, and I was really into seeing what else new we could come up with this week. As a songwriter, I find that there are hot and cool periods, not just a steady output, and that the only thing that can put a limit on how much happens in a hot period is you. Keep searching, keep trying. Also, I have found that when I am writing a song and I think it is the shit, often I start playing something completely new, and find that that second idea ends up being the stronger one.

So we begin on Wednesday playing “Not what you said you’d be”, and tweaking the arrangement. After a while, Dave asked Chris if he had any fresh jams he had for us. Chris played a mid tempo sixteenth note thing that was full of potential. Dave worked with some dissonant open string ideas, Stephen gave it a spacious tom part, and I found a minor scale melody that led …somewhere. We got a chorus part based on the same chords, and there you go, it looked like another song was happening. This one I particularly like. There is a sense of drama and storytelling that speaks to what I like best about rock. Also, “ER” is part of another piece, “NWYSYB” is a “single-idea” type song, so this one would be especially fun to work on, from a songwriting point of view. We played it a couple times and I taped it.  At home I got really inspired and came up with the lyrics and a way to finish the bridge out to the end of the song.

We spent almost all day playing the new song, it’s called “Start of Darkness”. This one I seem more excited about than anyone else. We tweaked it all day, after a point where I thought it was great, but that’s how a band works. This is a truly collaborative band, so we will tweak as long as we need to until all 4 guys are satisfied. I think we spent too much time on it, and should have walked away, it’s not good to over focus on a song, after a certain point, nothing will help but time away and a fresh perspective. I have high hopes for this one though. We finished the week opening up a tune that we played as an instrumental to open our first show, “Punish Me”. This one has been our only “troubled child”. I haven’t found a path through the music, which is good, that means something to me. See, no matter how good the music is, full of energy or power, or drama or whatever, if I can’t find a meaning in it for myself, or as character saying something from within the song, then I can’t do it. I can come up with melodies and lyrics for days, but I can’t stand there and perform it unless it is tied to me in some way. We jammed “Punish Me” with a new take on the vocal melody, something more dark, less major-scale, and it seemed to open up. With a little work, it looks as though this one will come out of the garage, too.  All together, it was a fantastic week for the band creatively, it was so nice not having a show, or studio time to be focusing on, my favorite time with the band is when we are coming up with new songs.