Wednesday night was the last rehearsal for the poor souls who have agreed to come along to LA. Up to this point it had been sort of rough going. Not that it was bad, but Lyle and Lee come from a different sort of band (a VERY good band, I might add), in some ways, and the styles were not matching well at first. I have become spoiled by working with a bunch of people who would come in and play what was on the recorded version, or use it as a starting point. But in this instance they were bringing their style with them. So it was a little dicey for a while trying to make the songs meet in the middle. But everything seemed to fall into place this time around. Still a little messy in some ways, but good enough for a 20 minutes set, I think.
Chris is a better drummer than he realizes. He’s my link to how these songs should sound.
So… Tuesday will be all about me running around with my head cut off, trying to get organized to leave tomorrow. At the same time I have to go pickup the poster design and deliver it to Daemon, and go grab a box of Slumberland CDs to sell in LA.
I am leery, still, based on the last experience there. For anyone who missed the story months ago, I played IPO two years ago, and I played it solo. I had explained it to them beforehand that I could only do it acoustic and they were fine with it. So Sarah and I flew out and had a great week, visiting with Scott and his lovely Maggie. Then I played the show, an ill-advised 20 minute set of introverted acoustic pop, bracketed on either side by bouncy pop bands. I had resolved to just play my stuff and not try to cater to appeal to what they would expect, and while this is certainly laudable from a philosophical standpoint, in practice it was ugly. They applauded, don’t misunderstand, but I didn’t sell a single CD, no one signed up for the mailing list, and no one came up to me afterward to say a word.
This is the reason why I wasn’t surprised last year to have not been invited, and why I was surprised this year when I WAS invited. I knew there was no way I was going to do it solo, so that’s how this whole mess came together. But it’s almost as if I haven’t played it before, because I honestly don’t know what to expect. Whether things will go much better with a band or whether I’ll still end up at the end not having had any results whatsoever.
Expect many posts during my trip. Probably starting during the flight Friday morning.