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The band will play on ...

My various adventures and ups and downs while trying to put together a band in Buenos Aires. Connecting with like-minded musicians, who want to play for enjoyment rather than money or ego, isn't as easy as it might seem ...

Blog posts October 2014

Hair of the dog

Vinilo Sensation
"YES! YES! YES!" - (punches sky; high-fives; etc). This first concert was an overwhelming success; now we just need to replicate the performance next time.
 
The concert was last Friday; almost 10 days ago as I write. Everything just came together at the right moment and everybody was on top form ... and thoroughly pleased with themselves afterwards. There were inevitably some issues about presentation, but no musical problems or disasters. All-in-all, better than I had hoped and by far the most personally satisfying concert I've played in ... decades.

My idea had been to make this a 'practice concert'; only very close friends w…

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Ice-cream sundae

Make mine a 99
With the concert getting ever closer - only 6 more days to go - everything is sounding pretty tight; which is good, because there will be no more rehearsals before the gig. I'm not particularly nervous and I keep telling myself that we are often too self-critical and the audience won't really notice minor fuck-ups. The selection of songs was chosen with that in mind: Familiar, but not too familiar.
 
The band has undergone another name change and is now called: "Vinilo Sensation"; this is supposed to be Spanglish for 'Vinyl Sensation', but to me it sounds like something you'd get from the ice-cream van if you didn't have enough money for a ninety-nine. …

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If you leave me now

OK. So maybe I spoke too soon in my over excited last post. I'm not sure if it's the pressure of the coming gig or something else, but Marelena - trombone - isn't happy and possibly wants to leave the band.
 
Marelena is a tiny little woman who hardly says anything and has always pleaded poverty to avoid contributing to the cost of the studio. I'd always assumed she was about 20-22 and a student or something, so let her do what she wanted; besides, with 7 other people, her lack of financial contributions were easily absorded by the rest of us and we were happy to have her and her instrument along. However, things are not at all as they seem.
 
A couple of months ago, it was noted by various pe…

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