Action: Delay!

This entry is overdue...but I wanna write it anyway. On Saturday, we had another kickin rehearsal. I had come to practise prepared to furthur rehearse and polish the 5 Kevala songs we debuted at Holy Joe's, but my bandmates really felt like jamming new stuff instead.

That was a wise choice, because we ended up with three decent song ideas by the end of the day. One of the things that is so awesome about the current state of the band is that we seem to be able to churn out new song ideas like buttah. I think a reasonable goal for us is to have 10 full-fledged songs by the end of the summer.

After an adventurous all-star wings outing (see: honey jerk & szechuan) we proceeded to do, in my opinion, one of the best band-bonding experiences ever. In a very random and unexpected turn of events, we went to a friend of Darren and Mark's (who shall remain nameless for protection) tae-kwon-do school to...well, horse around. We ended up having a sparring tournament of sorts. There was only one way to win a match: you had to get your opponent to touch the ground outside of the square. (Someone please tell me the official name for this sport) Anyway, the bottom line is that the most unsuspecting person came out on top. That's right folks, white man smith himelf, somehow managed to push and shove his way to victory.

It's a real shame roop wasn't there, cause I'd have loved to see either of two outcomes:
a) Jim beats Roop and throws the wimpy white guy title right back into Roop's face
b) Roop beats Jim and calls him wimpy white guy

We have to do it again.

It's also important to note that mine and Jim's first match was "inconclusive" (ya right, I beat him, hehe) so we had to go again. But, he did defeat me fair and square the second time. Also, Mark likes to point out that he was the only one to beat everyone, and therefore he should be ranked No. 1 in the world.

Fin

Anticipation

So it's friday and I just finished work...the weekend is here and I feel pretty awesome.

I'm listening to our recordings of our latest songs and I still can't believe that we've written these songs in just a few weeks and they already sound so full and musical. Everybody has put down some amazing parts..I don't think words can explain how I feel about these songs...it's like everyone's parts compliment each other so great..we're all meshing really well.

We have a practice tommorow morning and I'm itching to play. It's been since two sundays ago because we skipped last weeks practice as everyone was pretty busy and had too many things to do. But tommorow is going to rock..I can't wait to play with everyone and I think that's a pretty awesome feeling. I've been in band situations before where it becomes like a chore to get together, and it's just not fun. You end up dreading practicing, and as a result the band suffers..you never get anything accomplished and it just ...well...sucks. What we have going on right now is the complete opposite of that. I think everyone is on the same mindset and we all want to have fun and make some great music...and there's certainly no harm in that!

Stay classy San Diego...

Songwriting Insecurity

I realized recently that my confidence in my songwriting ability is constantly changing. It’s sort of on a cycle that repeats every so often. It goes from “I think I’m a pretty good songwriter,” to, “I’ve never written a decent song in my life”.

I’m not exactly sure as to what makes it change, but I think it has a lot to do with comments people make to me. Especially comments from my bandmates, who are my harshest/most accurate critics. One of them can tell me a song of mine is great and I’ll feel awesome for awhile. Another one can tell me my song is pretty lousy and I get depressed for a month.

And they’re usually right. I don’t accept it at first, but if they tell me a song of mine isn’t very good, they usually hit the nail right on. I just get so attached to what I’ve written that I refuse to accept that it's anything less than perfect.

This sort of insecurity is probably common in any art form, sport, hobby, or activity. I’m sure painters, martial artists, and basketball players are constantly struggling with their confidence. The kicker for me is this: how do I express myself when I’m upset or depressed? I write songs. Hehe, so if I’m feeling really down and I write a song to express myself, and the song sucks, it just gets worse. I think I’ve written at least two songs about my insecurities. Both of which I have since decided are mediocre.

I don’t think that “toughening up” is the way to overcome the insecurity. Instead I think I have to lessen my attachment to the music. After all, they’re just notes, chords and rhythms. I didn’t invent any of them, they exist in nature. I’m simply organizing them how I best see fit. It’s almost like I’m the bridge between the music gods (who have provided the tools) and the audience. And if I write a song that doesn’t fly, no big deal. I’ll write a better one next time. I just can’t get hung up on the ones that don’t work.

Futbol

I am by no means a big soccer fan, but the world cup is fun to watch regardless. (especially in HD!!) Today, right now in fact, England is playing Trinidad and Tobago -- huge underdogs, and you can really feel the excitement in the air downtown. Somehow, everyone here seems to be both working and also watching the game simultaneously. I was just at the BCE place food court where they have screens set up, and there were so many people in there it was hard to get a standing spot with good visibility.

It's funny, today, every West Indian is Trinidadian. Hahaha it doesn't matter where you're from, you're Trinidadian today. Even if you're only the child of West Indians. =) And there are a lot of West Indians in Toronto. But there's no shortage of England fans either. So evenly split, in fact, from the screams of the crowd, I couldn't tell which team had the scoring opportunity.

I've got some proline money riding on T&T: HUGE odds!!

Ok, back to "work".

p.s. Go Kevala Go. Now this is a relevant post. =)

AND WE'RE BACK! (A Post-Show Post)

.....

It is 1:58. I just arrived home from Kevala's first ever show. I'm sitting here in my room, surprisingly, not listening to music. My ears are still ringing and fragments of songs- sounds and vivid but surreal images, are coursing through my head. It's silent in my room, however, the night is playing over in my head cranked to full blast and in high definition.

I'm not even sure what to write here. I don't want to document the experience, really- partly because I'm exhausted from this day, and also partly because It's a jumbled mess of events in my mind.

The two bands who went on before us were fantastic. Thin Ice were incredible- for a drummer/keys duo with a guest trumpet player, they sounded full and tight.

The New Effector were really impressive as well. Really, really tight playing from those guys. The front man was kind enough to lend us his amp, as I required a monitor AND a guitar (I'll explain in a sec), so that was really cool of them.

Our set began at....damn it, I don't even remember...Regardless, the show began with Ice Jam. The sound was really well done and the energy was explosive. SO explosive that you could EVEN say Mark's electric guitar strings EXPLODED off his guitar. TWO of them, infact.....exploded.....off... his guitar...After the first song. Despite playing an energetic opener, the band's moral, I could sense was a little damaged. Mark was without a backup and was forced to play Jim's second Acoustic. HOWEVER, the front man from TNE was awesome enough to lend Mark his beautiful archtop, and so the night looked to be promising once again.

The set consisted of four (i think) JSB tunes and just about as many new Kevala songs- Reach For You, Summer Girl, Home, Throng Jam (ridiculous), and Jenn (also kind of ridiculous). Don't even ask about the names for the latter two. The story behind the name 'Throng Jam' is stupid beyond all sense. For the first time performing these songs live, they sounded great (from on stage). Hardcore fans seemed to really dig the new stuff and were delighted (if i'm not being too presumptuous in stating the following) to hear oldschool jsb tunes.

Anyway, the show's energy was amazing, despite a couple of akward moments fixing guitars and other technical difficulties. I played sloppily and feel really down about my performance (regardless of the fact that I didn't really have any huge blunders). I don't know why- now that I think about it, I sucked it up hardcore- I'm really friggin dissatisfied with my performance tonight. HOWEVER...

...My bandmates were out of this world. Jim was blasting out rhythms like it was his job. Solid, Solid, Solid, Solid playing. His solo in throng jam (ridiculous), was pure sex. And speaking of pure sex- Mark's solo's all over the place (when I could hear), made me want to cry. Amazing. kdlajsdasd. Cracker nailed his parts (lyrics!) ...like. he..(im not even going to finish this one). And Darren. MY GOD!

Darren deserves his own paragraph, so here it friggin is. Darren pwned his bass parts. I can speak for myself, Steve and Wimpy when I say that we're all amazed at how he's learned old jsb tunes as well as new Kevala songs in the span of 8 Days! D played incredibly and it has further affirmed our decision in adding this amazingly talented player into the band's lineup.

Tonights set (in random order) and play by play:

1. Ice Jam (BOOM! KEVALA EXPLODES BACK INTO THE MUSIC SCENE!) (Oh Shit!Mark breaks two strings!)
2. Drink Up Boy
3. Jenn
4. Winter (pretty awesome!)
5. When We're There (Oh Shit! Thanks to a rabid fan, Jim trips over the intro)
6. Reach For You (sick!)
7. Throng Jam (ridiculous) (Pure Sex)
8. Summer Girl (Roop's Gold Star Song)
9. Home (show closer! I didn't screw the ending up!)

The night's set ended with a collaboration with Thin Ice- 'There There' by Radiohead. For having never played with them before, it was apparently amazing- as audience members can testify. It was a huge blast!

The energy coursing through our hands and feet for that hour and (few?) minutes was immense. It's a feeling I've missed so dearly during the last two seasons. I mean it when I say it's the greatest feeling in the world- performing with your best friends and band mates, doing what you love most. You're really put into another world when you've got a room full of people in front of you there to enjoy your music, the bass drum blasting through their chests, and guitars, pan, and bass filling the room with music.

Wow...despite my shitty performance, I truly felt that we were a new band tonight- although, i can't explain why. Though, i'm glad things feel this way. I'm reminded now of the amazing future we have in front of us.

As an aside- I need to practice. Big time.

The audience was really great- thank you SO SO very much to everyone who made it out tonight. You're all so amazing. We really, really love you all.

We'll buy you ice cream. It's a promise. Just none of that cookie dough shit.


Anyway, if you've gotten this far, you're either really wasted and have nothing better to do..or wide awake.....and have nothing better to do.

I'm really going to stop rambling...........now.

Thank you all again so much, everyone.

byebye.

Learning Lyrics

So, we're debuting 5 new "Kevala Songs" (as opposed to Jim Smith Band songs) at the show tomorrow, and that means a lot of lyric leaning for yours truly. Anyone who's been to a few JSB shows before, may have had the privilege of seeing me hunched in a corner desperately trying to learn lyrics to a new song, half an hour before we take the stage. I'm hoping that's not going to happen this time, but it's a daunting task.

All of these lyrics were finished in this past week, and it's probably harder than you think to get them to a level of memorization where you don't have to focus all of your energy on remembering them during the performance. I have to also focus on playing pan parts, stage presence, and communicating with both the audience and my bandmates... This may seem silly but it's tough, and the last thing I want to do is look like I'm focusing on reading an imaginary lyric sheet floating in front of me, or just plain making an ass of myself by forgetting every other line.

So that's been most of my day today, learning lyrics. All day long. I also did yard work (laugh it up boys) much to my dismay - while listening to in-rehearsal cuts of the songs, and took a couple hours away from the lyrics and saw 'The Break Up', which was fantastic as it managed to be both hilarious and very real. See it. But I really better go to bed now.

See you tomorrow! Yeah, if you're reading this, you sure as hell better be there. =)

Greetings/Salutations

Hey everyone,

I figured I'd shed some light as to who or what this "Darren" character is. Well, simply (or complexly) put I'm an anomaly created by the matrix in order to retain a low end structure in the scheme of things. You can call me Larry.
Stupidness aside I'm the bass guitarist for the wonderful new creation; Kevala.

First off I'd like to say I'm extremely grateful and excited that Roop, Jim, Steve and Mark decided to choose me to play bass and join them on this sure-to-be amazing quest. It marks a new chapter for me and I'd be lying if I said that I was anything but extremely happy with how things are going right now. Playing in various bands over the years I've never played with musicians of this talent and musical diversity that I've felt this akin to. I've played with Mark for a number of years and I know that this band will create some awesome jaw dropping material!

Like Jim said this past week has been pretty hectic..the guys have been awesome in showing me the new tunes and I'm trying my best to learn them as fast as humanly possible. It will be extremely rewarding on sunday knowing that we put it together after only a week or so of playing altogether. And it'll only get better from here!

Well I think that's all for me right now...you can expect more from me, and from Kevala here so check back frequently, mmk? I leave you with an inspirational quote:

"We must move forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and twirling, always twirling toward freedom!"

- Darren

IDIS (idiot dancing in sombrero)

Hey folks, you gotta see this video. It is amazing.

IDIS video

When you are finished basking in its amazingness, be sure to rate the video 5 stars! You don't even have to supply a real email address - just make one up!


Jim needs to be bigger than star wars kid.

Rehearsals

We've been practising our balls off this week for our upcoming gig. Saturday was actually the longest practise in band history, clocking in at over nine hours. We're furiously writing new songs as well as teaching some old ones to our new bass player Darren. In fact, as I write this, three of the songs still do not have a melody or lyrics. Yes, it's six days before the gig.

However, Steve is a all star and I have no doubt that he'll write some amazing melodies that will be ready for the show. We have one more rehearsal on Friday night to tighten up everything and then we're on stage!

It's been hectic but it also feels really good. I feel like we're all playing really well together and we're listening like crazy. Hopefully that comes across in the music and that instead of sounding like five individual players, we sound like one cohesive unit. All of our parts are complimenting each other in ways that are just incredible. I haven't felt this kind of togetherness in months which is why we're so pumped to play the show.

Transition

Leaving the "Jim Smith Band" behind and embracing the Kevala era is an experience filled with mixed emotions. The Jim Smith Band represents one of the most important aspects of my life over the last 4+ years, one that's not so easy to walk away from. The memories, friends, and most importantly, the music made... these I will cherish always.

But the future looks amazing.

Kevala represents a new beginning, and, it's really quite exciting. Myself, Roop, and Jim are proud to welcome Mark and, much more recently, Darren as the final two components to our new and hopefully improved sound. Our rehearsals thus far have been innovative, energetic, and inspired. Things really look good.

Last night, Scott came over and I finished off the vocals for the long overdue JSB EP. Finishing this EP in many ways symbolizes the end of the JSB. It's closure, and something we can use to look back and realize what a positive experience it was. It's sounding great, and will be an excellent treat to the few (or many?) JSB fans we love so much.