Time for a New Song (or Two)?

Last weekend’s gig at Shine should have been the proverbial “walk in the park.”  Familiar songs made up our set list.  We had practiced them.  As usual, we had nothing complicated.  Hey, we are the Lava Pups -- not the Symphony or some jazz assemble.  Simple, primitive, and raw fit us to a tee.

Readers of this blog and anybody who attended the show know that we managed to screw up in every imaginable way.  Twice we started songs over.  Once was because I got going in the wrong key; once, Robert just did not remember the song.  I walked out into the audience and either forgot where I was, lost my timing, or could not see the markers on the fret board.  Robert broke a string.  The tremolo on the Jazzmaster was out of commission.

That is the glass is half empty version.

In the glass is half full version, we absolutely knocked several -- actually two-thirds -- of the songs out of the park.  We began and ended strong.  We performed some of the songs the best that we ever have.  If we were major league baseball players, we would be destined for the Hall of Fame with those kinds of statistics.

We averted a disaster.  We survived the show, and everybody had fun!

So things are not as bad in Pup Land as they seemed the morning after the show.  Aren’t we always our toughest critics?  We simply need to heed the advice of Benjamin Franklin:  “moderation in all things -- including moderation.”

Realizing that the glass really was more than half full is exhilarating.  It stokes up the embers of creativity.  We are ready for a new challenge.

For a month or so, a couple of ideas for songs have been bouncing around in my head.  They probably have been there gestating for some time, but they were pushed into the crevices and dark recesses.  Pieces of melody would pop up every so often.  They then would disappear.  One has a “stomp” feel.  The other is double-picked.  Until recently, neither had revealed its bridge or a key change.  But they are banging harder and harder.  Clearly they want out of my head and onto paper, the guitar, or both.

Now, if I only can remember what Ferenc taught us about songwriting at Sierra Surf Music Camp last year . . . maybe we can deliver these tunes!

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