Getting Into Bands and Gangs

Considering how shite we were the first time, it's amazing that we decided to give it another go.

This time round, however, the guitar cable is good, the acoustic strings are new and we've got even got a laptop pumping out a drums-and-bass backing track. It's marvellous what such planning can do: we took take after take after take until we were able to lay the entire song down at one go, then decided it was rubbish and went on to record separately, playing and singing along while listening to the backing on headphones.

And then we went on to the next one, an original, but were too exhausted to attempt any serious recording and just whacked out its chords into the microphone. At the end of the session we had over 400 megabytes of wave files, deep indents on the tips of our fingers from sliding and hammering strings, and four hours less in our day.

But we also had a renewed enthusiasm. Later in the night, at Historia, we made a pact to do this regularly, with the modest goal of eventually playing a short set at POW. We even tried to cajole Camra's mild-mannered stand-in bassist into helping us out...and we are still trying.

The influence of alcohol? The brazen folly of youth? Or two people who genuinely believe, at all of 25, that they can still keep the dream alive and party like they're 15, getting into the band they never had the chance to be in?



Again, this is hardly the stuff of legends, but it's definitely looking more legendary than anything else I've had before this. And as if the celestial beings were lending their endorsement to the events of the day, Camra played a much better set than they did at this same venue two weeks ago, and they even offered us whatever feedback or help we might need on our way.

Damn, I've been reading too many rock biographies. But watch this space.