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| Intriguing, this one! |
I kind of messed up presenting these series of rehearsals, shortly before recording our demo, June 1990. It's a great demonstration of how often we rehearsed.
We rehearsed on the 18th and the 19th (i've just updated that blog post as I wasn't able to write much about it originally....), then again on June 20th, and again on the 23rd, this rehearsal. On June 25, 26, and 27, we recorded our demo with Kenny Dugan, overdubbing the vocals on the 30th. Well...if you're going to be in a band....might as well play!
Maybe because we had been rehearsing so much, we do a lot of exploratory work on this day. At first we're loosely jamming on "Licking Stick" for a bit, nothing too great, but then, about halfway, it lifts off into some wild psychedelic jamming that would not sound out of place on a Doors or Jefferson Airplane record! Hubie and Frank play some great guitar on this, and the blend of Ted, Hubie and Frank at some points is positively Ellingtonian! This slips into a slow "Return Britain", not one for the ages, but it's interesting hearing Frank try out some ideas that he'd later use in the demo, a few days later. The best part of this "Return Britain" is the end part of the jam.
Again, we do some Marley jamming, this time one of our favorites, "Satisfy My Soul", though we didn't know it so well at that time. At one point, we briefly sing a bit of "Duke Of Earl"....makes me wish we had explored our doo-wop side!!!
Ha, in the break of "New Voice", Hubie brings back the eerie harmony idea that we did on the 1988 demo version (we were never quite sure what to do in that break! the harmony idea is my favorite "solution" to the problem.)
I hear Lisa's voice, she's engineering.
Tape one is so-so, nothing great, but tape two, the band is warmed up. We do a little thing, improvising over some chord changes that Hubie and I are singing over. Frank starts playing a variation of "Soul Serenade".....and it all lands on "Gimme Fun". Then this rehearsal really comes alive. I LOVE all these early "Gimme Fun"s. It took a little while for these "dance" tunes to get "just right". "Gimme Fun" was the first of these ("It's Warm Outside", "Someone's In My Head", "Bambaleda"), and these early versions are always fascinating. It was always good for me, I always appreciated being given room to try out so many different things before I landed on "the" right groove. And the groove I finally arrived at for "Gimme Fun" is definitely the right one!
This version has us working on the "hey people, feel it" part. I've always felt a little embarrassed that Ted & I took the back up from "You Can Call Me Al" during this section, hope no one noticed, even though it had been a giant hit! Personally, I think "Gimme Fun" is as good, if not better than "You Can Call Me Al"! Ha, I throw in a line from David Essex's "Rock On". This also has Frank and the guys coming up with that great ending riff which I very much missed after Mr. Russell's departure! Just another brick in the wall!!!!
Anyways, this song became the band's credo, the thing we were all about: gimme fun fun, one two one two! I also think it changed Hubie's writing, possibly. In the 80s, he wrote a string of sad, haunting songs - the 90s would find him in a much sunnier frame of mind.
This segueways into "I've Got An Onion", and as "Onion"s go, this is one of the best. At one point, Hubie and Mike (that's me) start singing a bit of "She". Oof, I hear I missed editing out some snotty little Mike comments while we're rehearsing "Castles And Planes"....well, let them out there for posterity.
I think this is the last "End Of The Story" I have. This Hubie song - which has such a great melody - always stayed sort of formless. Even though this predates it, I've always associated this song with "Sailing", they were written around the same time, towards the end of the Howie era. This is a nice version. Maybe if we had written a break or something; but a break would have broken up the mood, so we were a little stuck. Frank plays some nice guitar on this.
We wrap the rehearsal up with a subdued "Is It Safe?" and an electric version of "Don't Step On The Blue Grass"! Enjoy, you sea monkeys!
Rehearsal, Rocky Point Studio, 6/23/90
Licking Stick jam ->
Return Britain
Waiting On A Friend
Satisfy My Soul
I Shot The Sherriff
Frank riff jam
Duke Of Earl
Beating A Dead Horse (breakdown)
Jam ->
New Voice
We Both Wobble
Spotlight Shining
Soul Serenade jam ->
Gimme Fun ->
I've Got An Onion
She
I'm So Tired
Castles And Planes
End Of The Story (Violin Without A Bow)
Is It Safe?
Don't Step On The Blue Grass
Hubert Poole - guitar, vocal, percussion
Frank Russell - guitar, vocal, percussion
Ted Schreiber - bass, vocal, percussion
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal
Recorded by Lisa DeVirgilio on a Tascam Portastudio cassette 4-track
Download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/2y8a5ah133nc1ax/1990-06-23+Rocky+Point+Studio.zip
or use the temporary Dropbox link (a couple of weeks)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/h75yg3eobf8yto3/1990-06-23%20Rocky%20Point%20Studio.zip?dl=0
