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Making a dumb anime-reference flyer for an upcoming show counts as practicing for that show, right? The whole time, I was listening to one of the other bands that are playing, so that's got to be worth something.
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Jul 11, 2022 06:36
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 10:34 |
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Everybody’s got their own story and goals behind it - I started on bass specifically because I was promised a slot in a band if I did, and writing and performing original music is always Where It’s Been At for me. Anyway, sorry… it’s been a bit. I’ve been dealing with a lot of… things. I hope I’ll be able to keep on top of the thread. Faustus’s post did inspire me to come in and ask something of the people who have been gigging recently, which is how you’re dealing with the COVID-risk situation. And ramble, I guess. We played our first show since just before the start of the pandemic last week, and it was… well, it just was. The “sell X number of tickets” style of pay-to-play, which is a model I’ve only ever had bad experiences with. But the bass player set it up, and I expressed my concerns early on, then let it slide. Figured it would be a learning experience for him, and, at worst, be like renting a practice space for a night. Somehow managed to con/guilt people into buying my share of tickets (only one actually made it to the show, though… ugh, it just feels… dirty), and, true to form, the guy tries to screw us the minute we get there. (“Um, I gave you 50 tickets to sell, not 25, so you need to give me 25 tickets or a couple hundred dollars. Oh, and even though I said there’d be a house drumkit and that bands would only have to bring cymbals… there isn’t, so you’ll have to deal with that.”) Thankfully, bass player produced both the emails where they had set up the 25 ticket agreement and our old practice drumset, since his house was only a few blocks away. Still not the most auspicious start. That guy also set up all the bands, and we were a bad fit stylistically: there was a white funk band, a white reggae band, a two-piece that described themselves as “The White Stripes meets Tom Petty,” and us (leftist nerd punk). We were louder and heavier than anyone else there, both in sound and in content, and were unlikely to win over anybody there to see any of the other bands. At any rate, we played our set, the lights were too bright to see how many people were out there (which I really don’t like, I try to play to an audience) and Ihe buddy I brought said we pretty much cleared the room. Whatever, been there plenty of times. Here’s the part where this show was different. Usually, even when I’ve been playing in a band that doesn’t fit, I go out in the crowd and really take part, which tends to balance out the stage comedown. I get a little feedback for how we did (something I feel a need for even more, since , in the last band, I just played guitar and did backing vocals - now I'm front and center). But this time, I felt incredibly self-conscious, to the point where I couldn’t make myself mingle: me and my buddy were the only ones masking. He had a whole getup with wraparound shades, which, with the mask, made him look like a cyberninja in a denim vest with metal patches. Me, I was just wearing what I wore onstage, with the mask, and it felt incredibly alienatin. Maybe it was more than the mask itself, I felt like I was just in a different world than these people. I backed off and hung out at the merch spot for the rest of the night, just kind of… stewing. Weirdly, this is still bothering me a week later, to the point where I’m hesitant to go find more opportunities to play out. If I was single, I might go full “Open Biden” (as our own COVID threads put it), but my partner’s higher-risk, and it seems like the variant we caught in April doesn’t provide poo poo against the current one in terms of antibodies. On the other hand, part of me feels like I’m being hugely irresponsible by playing out at all, even with a KN95. How is everyone else handling this? Staying steadfast in masking? Going without, but dutifully testing a few days later? Just going “YOLO, gently caress it?” I feel like this is something I need to come to terms with before we start trying to line up more gigs. Anyway sorry for the  . Guitar, man. Takes us to the weirdest goddamn places.
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Aug 7, 2022 23:32
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JamesKPolk posted:https://bonafidemasks.com/powecom-kn95/?sort=bestselling&page=1 The Powecom is exactly what I was wearing, in fact, ordered from that very link. I had bought them a month earlier based on (probably) those same reviews when I wanted to get something in black - I had a work event, and I just couldn't bring myself to wear one of my white "sanding a deck"-lookin' N95s with a dark fitted suit. The Powecoms have been the most comfortable for prolonged wear. We have two sets of N95s: the aforementioned deck-sanding ones that get physically painful to wear after 3-4 hours, and some duck-looking ones that tend to slip up my chin if I'm doing a lot of talking. Given how long I'd have to be there, the Powecom just seemed like the (literal) best fit. The "alienation" effect was probably the combination of all the poo poo going down that night, with the masks being the most visible aspect. The next show will be outdoors, at least, to a more receptive group that will mostly be people that know me. After that... we'll see. I'll try to get everyone to buckle down into recording. With COVID looking pretty indefinite at this point, I don't know how likely the guys are to sign off on never playing indoors again. Omicron boosters are theoretically coming, but they'll probably be gatekept again (we're all too young and, somehow, healthy to even qualify for the second wildtype booster). So yeah... we'll see. Maybe we can find people who want to do outdoor parties once the weather cools down. At least I'll have some more time to build up the Mask Library. Thanks for listening to me gripe, everyone. landgrabber posted:oh hey. i didn't read this post but i've been thinking of you lately, because i remember you being a huge dinosaur jr. fan. i recently kinda got into sebadoh. my favorite rivers cuomo poo poo is some of his demos -- turns out he was a big lou barlow fan in the 90s. soul and fire specifically reminded me of one of my favorites -- really good stuff. Sebadoh and Folk Implosion definitely influenced a lot of people, in approach as much as in sound. Musically, they can both be all over the place - but that's kind of the point. Barlow got his song ideas shot down in the early days of Dinosaur, so afterwards each and every one got explored. DIY as it can tend to be, his music really does benefit from a tight group, though. He's been getting two songs per album since the Dinosaur reunion and they've always been stellar.
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Aug 8, 2022 04:54
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That's a Bad Monkey.
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Sep 3, 2022 15:23
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fuf posted:2. MP3 playback with speed and pitch shifting! I'm a big fan of the Amazing Slow Downer, after about an hour with the free version, I went and threw the guys money. Before that, I too was doing Pacemaker in Winamp, so it was a pretty natural progression! Now ASD is my go-to whenever I want to play along with something, whether I'm slowing it down/changing pitch or not.
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Nov 17, 2022 03:36
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