The weekend Thread

[Robert****]

Congrats Brian! You've got awesome friends!

[Tig***]

Awesome friends and guitar!
I would have teared up a little.

[Brian Krashpad]

Thanks guys. I heart those kids. I'm old enough to be their dad! They know I already have tons of guitars. As if I didn't feel guilty enough already with an embarrassment of riches!

I literally couldn't speak.

A true rarity that, haha!

[marnold***]

I literally couldn't speak.

A true rarity that, haha!

An Easter miracle!

That is a rather sweet guitar.

[R_of_G]

Good for you Brian. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Enjoy the sweet new Casino! Can't wait to see the guitar face pics of you rockin' it on that one.

[Brian Krashpad]

An Easter miracle!

Bazinga!

That is a rather sweet guitar.

Ta Rev. I can't call her Cassie, the most obvious choice, as that's what I call my LP Classic (a/k/a Cassandra, Classy Cassie). Given that I got her on Black Saturday and first played her in public on Easter, I reckon she's gotta be Mary.

[Brian Krashpad]

Good for you Brian. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Enjoy the sweet new Casino! Can't wait to see the guitar face pics of you rockin' it on that one.

Aww, thanks.

Will definitely play her at our First Things First outdoor downtown gig on Sat. April 21. Since she was a birfday pressie will prolly also play at the Crash Pad show scheduled for my actual birfday, May 12.

[Brian Krashpad]

And to top off the weekend: the new Crash Pad album gets its first review:

http://twoguysmetalreviews.blogspot....crash-pad.html

[marnold***]

This is the busiest weekend for us Christian clergy types. Three sermons, four days. That's a lot of writing and a lot of memorizing (basically the equivalent of writing and memorizing a 30 page paper in seven days). You also want your very best--no seeing-eye doubles here, you want to hit it out of the park. I'll leave that to others to determine whether I did or not. I also played in the Good Friday service as another thread details. I plan on taking a little personal time to decompress this week. Hopefully I'll be able to do that. Naturally I've come down with some bug now.

[Tig***]

And to top off the weekend: the new Crash Pad album gets its first review:

http://twoguysmetalreviews.blogspot....crash-pad.html

Nice review!

[Eric***]

Went to the city to which my wife and I will be moving and found a place to rent. Talked the guy down in price a little bit and put in an application, explored the city a bit more. She will be moving there in just under 2 weeks, so there are quite a few things to do before then. Still, it's nice to be moving forward.

[Tig***]

Vacation time these last 11 days has been busy at times, lazy at others. Playing guitar, but not listening to music much. Visiting relatives, working in the garden, relaxing with some MLB. Total decompression from work and night shift.

[Pickngrin]

This is my first post in the weekend thread (and my first on the fret in recent months). My wife and I went to a local flea market yesterday (didn't buy anything) and went out for pizza for dinner. Today, I build some storage shelves for my garage. That was a project I had been wanting to get done for awhile. Also took care of a few other minor house tasks.

[Brian Krashpad]

Welcome Pickngrin!

This is a good way to meet people and find out what they're about.

FRI: played my first open mic. EVER. Despite that I've been gigging in local bands for 30+ years, I'd never stepped outside my "comfort zone" and played a solo show. I rehearsed with a 12-string acoustic, but couldn't make that work. After the whole throat cancer thing I hafta sing LOUD for my vocals to work, and need the musical volume to be loud enough to push my vocals into that "zone." I played the 12-er so hard I broke two strings, haha!

So I gave up and took my little Super Champ XD with me and played it with distortion the way I do in my full band (although with a full band I use a Sovtek with a 4x12). I wasn't sure it would work, though I briefly rehearsed that way at home. Luckily, I was able to find my "Crash Pad voice" with that setup, so my vocals were OK. I'm resigned to not ever being a great singer, just so long as my voice neither breaks nor totally goes out, if I can find my Crash Pad voice I'm OK.

I played the new Casino, and broke a string mid-way through the 5-song set. Breaking the string totally detuned the entire guitar, so I had to stop that song, but luckily I brought my Frankentele as a backup, and finished the set with that. The kids (it was an event put on by a high school club, I know the coordinator from my church) seemed to like it.

Afterwards this cute girl (not one of the high schoolers) came up to me and said "So, do you have a political affiliation?" Which would've possibly been the weirdest pickup line I've heard, had it been one. She'd liked my song "Labor Day," which begins with the line "Workers of the world, unite!" I didn't think there were cute socialists, but I happily stand corrected.

SAT: A.M.: Had a First Things First practice for our upcoming Praise In The Field performance on the Downtown Plaza. Walked into the fellowship hall, and they'd moved our stage from where it usually is. We got all set up, started practice, and some old biddy came out of the woodwork and basically ordered us out. There was no event going on in the room, they were just doing set-up for something scheduled for that evening. I hafta say I was livid. There was no reason her people couldn't have continued doing whatever they were doing (I should note that the room was already set up for the event, with the tables in place and set for the dinner). Man I wanted to throttle that woman. So, she ruined an hour's work by seven people so her precious ears wouldn't be offended by our devil music. We broke everything down and did a short practice up in the choir loft with the electronic drums, but the whole point was to do a practice with LIVE real drums to get our newer singers used to that. Grrr.

P.M.: The missus and I went to a charity event courtesy of the mag I write for (which was a sponsor). Lotsa rich folks, free beer and wine, and a GREAT dinner (filet mignon, turkey, pasta, mashed sweet potatoes, salads, desserts, cappucino, etc.). Really great evening.

SUN A.M.: Played the 11 o'clock service, went pretty well.

P.M.: Crash Pad practice, drummer MIA, still haven't figured out where he was or what happened; the other 3 of us practiced without him. Did our short set (upcoming show is a 6-band extravaganza) with especial emphasis on the new tune, "Hey Tayvon," which we now seem to have ready for it's official debut (I did play it in my solo set on Friday as a way of getting in some extra practice) at a big benefit this coming Sunday. Went home and the local rock station, which has since become an internet radio station, opened their 11 o'clock local music show with Crash Pad's "Make Haste Slowly."

All in all, despite a couple speed bumps, a great weekend. If I could just find my drummer.

[Brian Krashpad]

After I posted my novella above, my mag editor posted a pic of me from the charity thingie on Satuday:

[Eric***]

Friday: Nothing

Saturday: Had some in-laws over for a party, bought some beer.

Sunday: Played two services on bass with the other team in church, both of which went pretty well overall. Got the green light to play guitar with them in two weeks, which is also pretty sweet. Went to a baptism service in the afternoon for one of our friends, then went out for a run afterward and subsequently negated all benefit of said run by eating pizza.

[Tig***]

Mrs. T and I both took off the last week and a half. Mostly to host her mother in law from her previous marriage. Sounds strange, but my wife has known this wonderful woman since she was in her teens and has always been a second mom to her. After losing her own mom and then her husband, she got even closer to the mom in law.

Anyway, my wife hasn't seen her in 14 years, so we flew her in from Maggie Valley, NC, and set her up with a nice hotel suite (she's allergic to cats and dogs, so our house was off the list) for a week. She got to meet her 5 great grandchildren, catch up on family time, and see the local sights. It was a wonderful time for us all. Now, I have a second mom as well! She's a sweet, smart, and loving woman.

[Brian Krashpad]

Eric, sounds like the church gig is going well, congrats!

Tig, that's very cool of you to do such a sweet thing for your wife's second mom. Glad y'all had fun. YAY!

[Glacies]

This weekend was an experience. I finally finished up getting my tiny workshop in order for the band to move in. We were in the drummer's house, but his wife didn't really like us there and the kids bedtimes were tough to work around sometimes.

So we set up in my house. I'm happy about that because I can have a few drinks and obviously not worry about driving (I swear I play better that way), and the bass player lives like a mile away. Dummer set up his second set which is much smaller and much older than his main set which is like a 10pc Ludwig. His "portable" set is a 5pc Pearl that is like 40 years old and he beats the hell out of it...

So we finally finish setting up and we start working through a few songs. I was amazed at how good I have gotten since I last played with them. Just my speed and ease on the fretboard. Solos are so much more colorful now... was pretty proud. But we're in the middle of playing Basketcase by Greenday and 3 dudes I've never seen before in my life walk into my workshop, attached to my house. Like, strangers just let themselves into my house!

Well, he told me before we started playing that he might have some groupies show up. I thought he was joking, we always joke about drugs and women and stuff when we're actually all married, straightlaced guys working in the commercial nuclear industry. So I told him it was fine and made some joke about that they better flash me too or something. Well he was serious, some old friends from work, also nuke engineers busted in with a cooler of beer and hung out while we played a couple songs, cheered us on, took some video of us and really talked us up. Was kind of a fun, weirdly formed party over my house at 6pm on a Sunday night. I've never played for an audience before either, that was a blast.