Blog: Band Practice

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I was back on the train to Leicester yet AGANE last night, heading off for another band practice. Once in town I hopped into a taxi in order to get to The Foresters Arms for my traditional pre-practice pint. This time I was joined by Mr T Pattison, who told me several marvellous tales of his current life as an International Jet Setter. Apparently, these days when he gets on a plane they already know his drinks order: GLAMOUR!

We nipped over to Stayfree where we were soon joined by Mr FA Machine. I'd already had a call from Mr T "The Tiger" McClure telling me he'd be a few minutes late, and I said "Don't worry - Frankie and Tim will still be talking about The Fall for the first ten minutes." Tom arrived 15 minutes into our timeslot, to find that that is EXACTLY what was going on!

Once we were all sorted and settled (Mrs E Pattison being absent once again, almost as if she doesn't LOVE being trapped in a sweaty, mouldy room full of loud noises and men breaking wind) we got down to BUSINESS, with the aforesaid business being ROCK. We spent about 45 minutes working on That Guy again - as reported previously, there's LOTS of different parts to it, one of which we changed a bit, so it took a while to get right, but once we did it sounded ACE. We then had a few goes through Easy Christmas, which ended in some discussion about PRODUCTION. We're hoping to get it fully recorded and mixed next month, so that it can be added to Christmas Selection Box, but I'm keen to retain focus on the keyword "Easy" in the title. With this in mind Tim offered to recruit his daughters to record the video for us. It's certainly easier than me doing it!

We then ROCKED through most of the other current "new album" songs - We Did It Anyway, (You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock (twice, as the first time was distinctly lacking in VIM), and Burn It Down And Start Again with it's slightly confusingly simple New Middle Bit. We didn't bother doing 20 Things To Do Before You're 30 as we KNOW that one, so had some time left to do something ELSE.

A few days previously Tim had reported that he'd had his iPod on SHUFFLE and Hibbett's Superstore had come on. He claimed not to have heard it before (which SURELY is impossible as I always thought he listened to nothing BUT my extensive solo OUVRE) and to have liked it, so the rest of the Validators had "reaquainted" themselves with it too, in case we had time to try it out.

We did, so we did, and it sounded really really good! "You need to do some words then", said Frankie once we'd finished, and I realised that I already HAD some. Last week, during one of my regular ODYSSEYS around London town, I'd gone to have a look at the Leaping Hare in Bradgate Circle, in order to get some INSPIRATION for entering a competition. The idea of the competition was to write a MONOLOGUE for a statue (there were four to choose from, and this one looked the easiest to get to, also most fun) and I was duly inspired to write a POEM, called Leaping Hare In Broadgate. I still had the words in my NOTEBOOK which was with me and so I had a go at saying them along with the music, and it TOTALLY WORKED. Weirdly, I sort of knew it would, as The Gods Of ROCK had clearly decided it would all come together like this. When we'd finished The Validators ASKED me to read it out so they could hear the words (this happens RARELY!) and they all seemed in favour, so that's a surprise EXTRA song to add to the much mooted Album Of Hits.

As we packed away we talked about possible titles and what other songs might be available - it feels like it's going to be Quite Good - and with that all done Tom gave me a lift to the station, stopping off over the road for a PINT and chat in The Hind. It was a delightful end to a really rather marvellous evening of ROCK!

posted 15/10/2014 by MJ Hibbett

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