Red Krovvy, Anyone?

Meeting Ryan for the rehearsal at 6pm to set up for New Year's Eve gig involved crawling off the couch into the deep freeze, but I didn't think it would involve bleeding.

We were doing a tune called Affirmation which involved lengthy strumming with the thumb followed by a funky bass riff. I was happy as a clam, trying not to mess up, when something caught my eye.

Looking down at my thumb, it was bleeding pretty good and had gotten on the bass strings. I had cut myself digging through a Haydn box set earlier in the day and thought that it was not an issue.

The look on Ryan's face was hilarious. Methinks my six-string compadre has a bit of the wheezies when it comes to the red, red krovvy flowing real horrorshow.

"Didn't you know?!" he asked in horror.

"No. I didn't." I said to my own sincere disbelief. I am no soldier nor tough guy. Far far from it. No pain involved, so I never noticed.

I was going to take a pic of it for the old blog, but then thought that might be too much.

As opposed to the bloody strings? Ha!

Another thing: the man brings in these complex tunes and expects me to deliver. I told him flat out last night, "My man, you sure do have a lot of confidence in my reading ability." It's a rough ride at first, then slowly the music feels easier. Some of them are his own and that makes you want to really do them justice. I know the agony of having other players butcher original music and it is destructive.

These freakin' tunes can be quite a lot to tackle. All these complex G9#11 type stuff and a maze for a roadmap. In fact, most of the time, once you get a decent fingering for these seemingly complex chords and a grasp of the rhythms, figuring out the form is the hardest thing for me. I find that's very true in Latin and rock music as well. Easy chords-tricky form.

A two and half hour rehearsal with him (or a gig) is unlike most rehearsals that I attend. Though we have lots of laughs, it's a workout, baby. Oh yeah. The hilarious difference is that he was off to a gig after that session while I was a bit shagged.

The New Year's Playathon at The 'Stro should be blog worthy, so if I don't see you before then,

Happy New Year's to you!

I'll be working.

And looking for you-know-who.