Hell, maybe I'M amazed!

Man, it’s been one hell of a weekend. I get back to town Friday afternoon just in time to pick up Keith from the airport. We find him some digs and I rush off to Jack’s place to pick up my Tele-acoustic and practice my solo gig for that evening. Kenny Roby and I hit the stage about 10:20pm or so and entertained the folks for the SparkCon Festival down at Slim’s, the old Raleigh Lakeside Lounge. It really went a LOT better than I thought it would, I was having a meltdown about it all day. Being the drummer in the band and also the songwriter, I usually write the shit, show it to the guys and then forget it, the key, chords, everything! So it took a lot out of me to remember how all (12) of the songs went, especially the new one I did, “Indy 500”. By the end of the night, we had folks joining us on stage to sing along. It turned out to be great fun!

Saturday it was get-to-work day with Keith. We first stopped by the grocery store and got “supplies”, or in other words PLENTY of voice lube! We got two songs done before everything kinda went to shit and we called it a night at an early 8pm. I was in bed by 10pm. About 2 in the morning I woke up still vibrating, oversensitized and dizzy from the stress of what had to be done today (Sun.). Jon gave me a CD of 5 instrumental Keith tracks that needed lyrics so that we’d have something for him to sing today. “Oh, no problem, I’ll just wake up in the morning and write 5 songs” I said to myself, thinking at the time that there wasn’t a chance in hell that THAT would happen. But sure enough I wake up again to the sound of the neighbor’s hunting beagles at 7am. Knowing that I have work to do, I try to relax and let a few ideas roll around in my head. At 7:50 I make coffee and turn on the laptop. At 9:38am, I stroll back into my bedroom and proclaim to my still sleepy-headed wife, “I AM A BADASS!” having just completed the lyrics for the fourth of the 5. “This one is REALLY great!” I say, not being TOO damn ashamed of the others. I didn’t bother with #5, knowing that we’d be lucky to get Keith to sing the four, “I Just Might” (think Humble Pie at the Fillmore with 2 extra guitar players!), “Oh no you di’ent!” (feels like “Miss You” but rocks harder and makes you wanna dance more), “Crazy Lips” (another relentless groove with some nasty talk mixed in) and the very beautiful “She Still Sings”. When I sang those lyrics to everyone Jon had to wipe away tears before he sent Keith out to the mic. We kept Keith on task all day and I promised him “candy in a glass” after he had finished singing 2 of the songs. I really di’ent want him getting into the wine until we had SOMETHING done!

At 10pm, we put all four songs to bed, finished and close to being ready to mix. I REALLY kind of amazed myself that I was able to pull it off. Think about it, I wrote 4 brilliant songs in about an hour and 45 minutes first thing this morning and we sang’m and made Rock history with’m all in the same day. DAMN! I AM a badass! Like Walter Brennen used to say “No brag, just fact!” Keith ONCE AGAIN left something down at Slim’s so after we were done I dropped him off. As he gets out of the car, still full of excitement about the day’s work, he offers me an honest “I love you”. “I love you too” I say. What!? You think we do it for the money?

A special extra effort award goes out to Jack and Jonathan this weekend for their hard work. Without them, Rock history would not be possible! We love them too!