The weekend Thread

[Brian Krashpad]

Brian - Your posts always remind me how much cooler Gainesville's music scene is than Tampa's.

We do have a very cool scene, though I dunno how it compares to Tampa's. I have played there a couple times and seen at least one show I didn't play at (the Damned, ages ago) and always had fun.

One thing about GNV for sure is that it's crazy outta proportion for the size of the town. And despite being an old fart and not in with the current crop of hispters I probably saw a couple dozen "scene friends" at that free fest yesterday. Good times.

[Eric***]

Did nothing for what feels like the 80th consecutive weekend. I need to move soon, otherwise I think I might go insane.

[deeaa*]

Twas only -10c or so, we were sweating with all the warm clothes...funny how that feels cold in the start of the winter and now it feels like you need to keep taking the hat off to cool down a little very easily.

Sent from my HTC HD2 using Tapatalk

[Brian Krashpad]

Twas only -10c or so, we were sweating with all the warm clothes...funny how that feels cold in the start of the winter and now it feels like you need to keep taking the hat off to cool down a little very easily.

Sent from my HTC HD2 using Tapatalk

Haha, perspective!

[R_of_G]

We do have a very cool scene, though I dunno how it compares to Tampa's. I have played there a couple times and seen at least one show I didn't play at (the Damned, ages ago) and always had fun.

One thing about GNV for sure is that it's crazy outta proportion for the size of the town. And despite being an old fart and not in with the current crop of hispters I probably saw a couple dozen "scene friends" at that free fest yesterday. Good times.

Tampa gets decent shows here and there (like Sleigh Bells a few weeks back) but there's a lack of a strong local scene, with the exception of some local hip-hop flavor and the long time ties the death metal community has to Tampa. There are a handful of good artists, but too few original acts to really be considered any kind of scene.

What this town could use is a truly good promoter that can put together the right local acts with the right touring acts and create a show people will talk about, but I don't have any money and nobody seems willing to allow me to do it on spec.

[Brian Krashpad]

Tampa gets decent shows here and there (like Sleigh Bells a few weeks back) but there's a lack of a strong local scene, with the exception of some local hip-hop flavor and the long time ties the death metal community has to Tampa. There are a handful of good artists, but too few original acts to really be considered any kind of scene.

What this town could use is a truly good promoter that can put together the right local acts with the right touring acts and create a show people will talk about, but I don't have any money and nobody seems willing to allow me to do it on spec.

I would imagine promotion is very difficult, kinda a damned if you do, damned if you don't sitch. Even though Crash Pad I think has a pretty good rep for putting on an entertaining show and writing good songs, and we've been pretty good about getting press coverage (mainly by doing high-profile benefits), still with several members past the typical "let's party 5 nights a week" age, we can hardly be considered a big "draw" for promoting purposes.

The new album even has a song called "Nigel, Book Us Dammit" on it. And yes, there's a real Nigel, and that's his real name.

[R_of_G]

Plenty of guitar so far today. My neighbor (bass player) came over for a few hours.

He, along with our other neighbor (guitar) and a couple of guys from his church band (guitar and drums) have recently begun rehearsing a mostly cover band with the intention of gigging in bars and stuff around here. Though I'm not in the band or particularly fond of some of their song selections, they're still my friends and insist I hang out when they're been putting together playlists to get my input.

Anyway, I could hear Josh (bass) playing across the street earlier when I was practicing this morning so I invited him over. He wanted to practice some of the band's stuff to work on his parts, so we did some of the covers they're working out and some stuff I thought would be fun to play with him.

Our setlist looked something like this...

Stone In Love - Journey (Theirs)
Moby Dick - Led Zeppelin (Mine)
Gimme Three Steps - Lynyrd Skynyrd (Theirs)
Knockin' On Heaven's Door (Theirs)
I Got Mine - The Black Keys (Mine)
Still Got the Blues - Gary Moore (Theirs)
Mountain Jam - Allman Brothers (Mine)
Mr. Big Stuff - Jean Knight (Mine)

I can't play blistering leads like the two guitarists in the band, but for songs I just learned the chords to two minutes before we played them, I think I churned out some pretty solid rhythm and fills.

I will admit this, much as I got burnt out on Skynyrd growing up with classic rock radio, that song was a lot of fun to play.

[deeaa*]

A few more for Brian to shiver at...




We were out on the lake, they have miles and miles of these skating tracks circling there, walked a short couple-mile route and back to harbor.

[Tig***]

A few more for Brian to shiver at...
We were out on the lake, they have miles and miles of these skating tracks circling there, walked a short couple-mile route and back to harbor.

That looks like fun! All we have here are indoor hockey sized ice, which is about as exciting as riding your bike around and around in a parking lot.

[deeaa*]

Never tried those tracks myself...I only have hockey skates, no 'long-distance' skates. I should try it sometime.

When I was younger we used to spend days racing our cars on those at night when skaters and such went away. The best tracks, however, were those made for ice-'dirt' bike racing, perfect for cars w/regular spikes to really slide and race on. The car tracks are made for ice racing rally cars and wayy too wide, you get up to speeds that are impossible without those 1" spikes the rally cars use. But the bike tracks are the width and curvature of normal roads, only on ice...so perfect for practice and fun driving. Also noticed the snow banks on the side, when packed, can challenge car structures pretty nicely in strength...

[Brian Krashpad]

Brrr!

Sat:
practice w/church band, dropped off CD at GROWradio.org . Our drummer delivered a few CDs to the 2 local small indie record stores and even to a head shop/porn shop, haha!

Sun:
played one song in first service, bolted for brekkie w/the crew at Mickey D's, then back for second service, confirmed I'm playing next Saturday at FL/GA Youth Gathering down in Lake Mary (near ORL) w/some DJ in front of what I'm guessing will be at least hundreds of kids (high schoolers I think), making up shit on the fly. Vicar actually told me "You have complete license to go crazy." OK!

Great Crash Pad rehearsal in evening, plus got played on broadcast radio and a local internet station (different one than I visited day before). And our new website is up:

http://www.crashpadband.com

And this a.m. looks like we're confirmed to play biggest stage in town for an Earth Day benefit in April, prolly headlining! Krazy times.

[R_of_G]

Congrats on the airplay and the benefit show gig Brian. That's awesome.

Spent Sunday with my neighbor playing basketball for a few hours, then throwing a football around for another half hour or so while our kids played in the yards. I'm still a terrible basketball player, but I was shooting well enough that I don't think I embarrassed myself, though in fairness, my friend is 6'5" and played both high school and college basketball. I can still throw an accurate football though. Hadn't done that in years. Some things you don't forget how to do.

[Eric***]

in front of what I'm guessing will be at least hundreds of kids (high schoolers I think), making up shit on the fly. Vicar actually told me "You have complete license to go crazy." OK!

Will you at least have songs to base it off of? I've played some freeform performance stuff before on a bi-weekly basis for a few months, and it's hard to sound even close to what I'd call decent if you don't have either a strong leader, at least a minimal amount of practice, some sort of song to guide you, or at least some chemistry with the other band members. Obviously the thing I was a part of had none of that, so I bowed out for my own sanity. I imagine what you describe will be slightly less chaotic, but I'm curious how it will be set up. Sounds like it could be fun.

[Brian Krashpad]

Will you at least have songs to base it off of? I've played some freeform performance stuff before on a bi-weekly basis for a few months, and it's hard to sound even close to what I'd call decent if you don't have either a strong leader, at least a minimal amount of practice, some sort of song to guide you, or at least some chemistry with the other band members. Obviously the thing I was a part of had none of that, so I bowed out for my own sanity. I imagine what you describe will be slightly less chaotic, but I'm curious how it will be set up. Sounds like it could be fun.

No, as I understand it, this will be more song-based. I'm going down there with the lead singer of our praise band, who will lead the songs that the DJ will play, and I'm guessing they will want the kids to sing along. I feel kinda bad that our full band didn't get the call, but the knuckleheads in charge (apparently it's fairly anarchic, which seems to be the norm for big-scale church youth gatherings, similar to some benefits I've played) had already hired this DJ guy. It could be a total disaster, but whatever my many faults as a guitarist are (and they are many, haha), I've gotten to the point where I'm pretty good at just winging things, and not fixating over stuff that goes wrong that's beyond my control. Last year around this time I played a show with my side band the Hotheads, where I'd planned on playing bass and switching to guitar only for like the last song of our set, and ended up sitting in on guitar with the openers and the closers, even though I didn't know their songs (both did originals) and didn't have lead sheets, just playing by ear. The band leader for the closers asked me to join that band, haha.

If it ends up being really crazy and over my head I'll just lay back.

[Eric***]

The most interesting part of my weekend was in church on Sunday. They have two bands that switch off from month to month, and the leader of the one playing right now is an OK guitarist from what I can tell. Likes delay, might be really good, but I can't tell from his playing in church. He's usually a little on the fuzzy side and plays through some Fender FM 212 amp -- I think it might be the house amp for the church. Anyway, I was walking to the bathroom after the service and checked out his floorboard. I kind of figured he used a pod of some sort, but he had a real pedalboard -- a pretty big footprint from what I could tell. Based on what I saw it looked like a couple of white Boss pedals (probably DDs), an orange Boss pedal, some wah I didn't recognize (best guess is a Fulltone) and a Klon Centaur. WTF? A Klon?

I don't want to bash the guy, as he does a good job of singing and playing and is a really good singer. That being said, I've been trying to figure out his deal for awhile and I'm more nonplussed than ever right now. Maybe I should actually say hi and talk to him some Sunday; what a concept, huh?

[Brian Krashpad]

The most interesting part of my weekend was in church on Sunday. They have two bands that switch off from month to month, and the leader of the one playing right now is an OK guitarist from what I can tell. Likes delay, might be really good, but I can't tell from his playing in church. He's usually a little on the fuzzy side and plays through some Fender FM 212 amp -- I think it might be the house amp for the church. Anyway, I was walking to the bathroom after the service and checked out his floorboard. I kind of figured he used a pod of some sort, but he had a real pedalboard -- a pretty big footprint from what I could tell. Based on what I saw it looked like a couple of white Boss pedals (probably DDs), an orange Boss pedal, some wah I didn't recognize (best guess is a Fulltone) and a Klon Centaur. WTF? A Klon?

I don't want to bash the guy, as he does a good job of singing and playing and is a really good singer. That being said, I've been trying to figure out his deal for awhile and I'm more nonplussed than ever right now. Maybe I should actually say hi and talk to him some Sunday; what a concept, huh?

Not being a pedal guy I dunno what a Klon even is. Sounds expensive, haha. I'm pretty shameless about hitting up total strangers about gear. I always feel kinda stupid about it, but I always do anyhow. Most people find it flattering. I know I would.

[Tig***]

Congrats on the airplay and the benefit show gig Brian. That's awesome.

Spent Sunday with my neighbor playing basketball for a few hours, then throwing a football around for another half hour or so while our kids played in the yards. I'm still a terrible basketball player, but I was shooting well enough that I don't think I embarrassed myself, though in fairness, my friend is 6'5" and played both high school and college basketball. I can still throw an accurate football though. Hadn't done that in years. Some things you don't forget how to do.

Sore muscles today?

I notice that if I suddenly do something like play basketball or football for more than a few minutes, I'm a wreck the next day. Then again, I'm getting a little older these days.
____________________

+1 on the big gig congrat's, Brian!

[Brian Krashpad]

Sore muscles today?

I notice that if I suddenly do something like play basketball or football for more than a few minutes, I'm a wreck the next day. Then again, I'm getting a little older these days.
____________________

+1 on the big gig congrat's, Brian!

Thanks Tig.

I was always too short for basketball and too small for American football. I used to shoot hoops with my dad at my house but that's it for those two sports. Haven't played either one, in any way, in literally decades.

Same goes for baseball. I think I played softball at picnics and such when I was little but that's it.

Pretty dang un-American.

[R_of_G]

Sore muscles today?

Yup, though not nearly as bad as I was anticipating which means while I'm still out of shape, I'm in better shape than I thought I was. I was expecting not to be able to walk today.