We had a really good practice last night. This edition of the bi-monthly BigHandDave newsletter will be just a bit abbreviated. Sadly, my notes from practice vanished and memory can only fill in so many holes. Again, we had a practice where we played a lot of things for the first time.
We started out with “Bittersweet.” I like that song more and more every time we play it. Rodney commented that I had been practicing. Yes indeed! Thanks for noticing. We moved on to “C.C. Rider,” and it was our first time playing it. Just in case nobody has ever mentioned this to you, rest assured that Carl Perkins is THE MAN. If you don’t believe me, go back and listen to his songs. I do remember a case for mistakenlyrics.com when Philip thought one of the lines was “I’m going to make gravy.” The actual line is “I’m going away, Baby.”
Next we played “I’m Gonna’ Be (500 Miles).” another of my favorites. It’s really hard for me to sing that without throwing a Scottish brogue on top of it. After that it was “Play That Funky Music.” That’s a tough one to sing, but I’ll get there. It was our first time playing that one. Another debut for us was “These Boots Were Made For Walkin’.” We did a really good job on that one, despite some tempo issues. If we’re not careful, we’re going to make that one dark, like “Tainted Love,” which wouldn’t hurt my feelings a bit. Dave said something about Philip vibrating throughout that entire song, but I don’t want to examine that too closely.
We played “The Boys Are Back In Town” and “Stuck In The Middle With You.” After that we moved on to another first with “Gloria” which we nailed. Then another first timer with “Good Lovin’” and man, is that a fun song. “I Fought The Law” is another one we played for the first time. The Hawaii Five-0 drum opening is cool. Then we played “Walking In Memphis” which is another of my favorites.
We played “Dark Side” for the first time and Dave’s drumming was mucho excellente! Then we ran through “Bittersweet” again with Wes singing and “Play That Funky Music.” Dave even got so funky that his base drum pedal simply flew apart. As P said, “He boiled it all the way down to the funk.”
And that’s all that’s going to be said about boils.
P played a wicked cool slide solo on one of the songs, which I almost interrupted, and snuck in a bit of Clapton in another. He’s a tricky one.
I felt some clickin’ going on last night. I don’t think it was just my imagination. All I know is singing with those guys is about as much fun as I’m allowed to have.
There were, as always, many memorable quotes, but they will have to go undocumented. (See comment about vanishing notes above).
I do remember my favorite quote of the night:
“We need to figure out how to end that one.” ~JD
“We gotta’ figure out how to play it first.” ~Rodney
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