It Never Rains But it Pours
On sunday my band The Black Orchid Rebellion finally secured a functional jam-space in downtown Victoria and had our first REAL jam in there. For the first time I really saw and heard how good we are going to be live, and just how well the three of us actually work together, as we jammed it up really well - the songs seemed to come together very naturally and everyone seemed on top of their game. We even did a little arranging / writing on one song called 'Contagious', which previously hadn't had a lot of work done on it.
We kicked that songs butt, let me tell you. I've been borrowing Spencer's Big Muff overdrive pedal, which is a great pedal for putting a really cool sounding distortion on bass, and that ended up being an overriding theme of the song - a simple, smooth, and crunchy-sounding bass line underneath an almost Metric-esque drum-beat and cleanly distorted guitar turning dirty around the end of the song. Anyway, it was really good. Hopefully we will have some recordings soon, as Spencer moved his recording computer in there.
In other music news, the other band I am playing with finally had a full-out jam session last night in Brian's home studio. This was both of our first times playing with Shayne, the drummer, who is actually very, very good. Brian is a great guitar player as well, and we had a really good time jamming out some sweet tunes, including one of my own devising (I came up with a bass line that the other two totally built upon, ending in an alternatingly almost industrial / surf sounding song. Sounds weird, but it worked.) For a little taste of what we are doing, you can check out Brian's myspace page. The other cool thing is that we are going to most likely share the jam-space with B.O.R. , which will make it a lot cheaper for everyone - especially if this band ends up with four or five members as we are planning. $200 split between seven people is much better than split between three!
The cool thing is that I am getting so damned inspired musically lately, just in simple things like my own personal sound as a bassist. Having been listening to a lot of Muse lately, I totally want to be a bassist that makes a real creative impression by being central to the sound of whatever band I'm in.. to that end I have been playing with various effects and techniques - that Big Muff pedal I was talking about puts out some great sounds, and I also went into Long & McQuade to try out something I had never even really heard of previously, called a Bass Synth pedal (specifically the Electro-Harmonix Micro Bass Synthesizer) and I was totally blow away by the
sounds this thing can come out with! It's like playing a synthesizer through my bass guitar.. just plain cool, and it will make me different than 99% of all the other bassists out there. I may not be a terribly technical player -- I like to play simply, and drive the song as much as possible (although there are times when I like to add interest to the low-end as well), but I want to make whatever I am involved with sound different, and cool. Too bad this thing is so expensive, but it's worth saving for. Other thing I need to get is a good compressor - a mainstay of any bassist for fattening up the tone.So, to sum up - you can expect to hear some cool things out of my bands in the near future, I think!
The Eyes Have It!
In other news, my on-going eye-tearing problem has hopefully (cross my fingers) been taken care of today, after much long frustration and repeated eye-wiping for the past year and a half or so. I finally got in to see an Opthalmologist a couple of weeks ago, and he basically said that my persistent tearing was likely the result of either allergies or a blocked tear-duct. So I tried some drops for ten days or so, which did not solve the problem.
Today I went in to have my tear-duct irrigated in the hopes of discovering the blockage and fixing it - this was an interesting procedure, as the opthalmologist had to use freezing drops and then stuck a couple of different probes into my tear duct to "dilate" (stretch) the tear duct, and he noticed at that point that my tear duct was extremely tight, which was possibly the true cause of the problem. Anyway, after he had sufficiently stretched the sucker out he stuck another syringe-like probe in there and squeezed water or something through there. If there were no blockages I would feel the liquid draining down the back of throat, and sure enough I felt it.. and it was a strange, strange sensation let me tell you.
So we ruled out a blockage, however the doctor believed the problem was likely happening because my duct was so tight, and he said that the dilation might help for a day or two, or maybe a month, but would likely not fix it permanently. The best solution, in his opinion was a "three snip" procedure, in which he would freeze my eye (with a needle), and then use some tiny scissors to make a triangular incision (thus the three snips) to enlarge the tear duct. He said I could wait to see how the dilation worked, or he could just do the snipping right now, and I opted to just get it over with, as I have had quite enough of the tearing and wiping by now.
Probably the most painful part was the needle he had to stick in there to freeze it.. Lisa stayed and watched the whole thing, and she reported that my face while he was putting the needle in was the worst part for her. Yeah, it hurt, I will admit, and probably largely due to the fact that it was in my friggin' eye! Then he went about the snipping, which was a little uncomfortable in parts, but wasn't too terrible. Didn't take very long, at least.
The doctor seemed to appreciate the irony of the shirt I chose to wear to his office, which Lisa scored me on the weekend, though it seemed to make him slightly nervous... not really.Anyway, my eye is kinda swollen and a little sore, but I will survive. I decided that it was probably not in my best interest to drive to work though. And besides, I have decided to make it a personal policy that any day in which I am subject to any sort of surgery, whether minor or major, is an automatic sick day.
Well, there's the news!
