Concert, Basement Practices, And A Birthday!

Hey hey, what's up? The concert, as well as band practice, as well as my birthday, went great. In order? Okay!

The concert was actually somewhat non-eventful. I played my two songs for jazz band perfectly, "Green Onions" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". I had intended to get video of me playing, but my mom and I forgot the camera, so no dice. My friend Nick played with me on 'Green Onions", and it was cool sounding with two basses. A guy name Jared, an amazing bassist at our school who is actually in a ''real" band with a record deal, played an amazing bass solo that just showed why he's a professional. Of course, he had thousand-dollar equipment and pedals, but still...what he played took some skill.

Band practice was very awesome. Turns out Bobby can sing! Well! He had a few new songs to show me, and one of them we worked on quite extensively. He's described it as sounding very much like Neil Young, which I agree with. I made a sweet bass line, and we recorded it a few times.

He also took a look at my new stuff, and at some lyrics I've been writing. Some of my songs have both lyrics and a guitar part, some are just guitar, and a lot of the lyrics are without music. He came up with a melody for one of my songs, Zen Stereo (mad props to the blogger I borrowed that name from!). We also just chilled and played video games while listening to George Carlin records, which was really fun. It's been a while since I've just chilled and hung out with someone, so it was nice.

Have I mentioned that today is my birthday? Well, it is! Woohoo! I didn't tell anyone, but a lot found out through that darned facebook. My mother got me a pair of old-school roller skates, but the store was out of my size so they are a bit delayed. Ah well, no matter. she also gave me a $25 discover gift card to use when we go to Cleveland for our half marathon in 2 weeks. Keeley (my girlfriend) made me 3 mix CDs and got me a bunch of really cool guitar picks. They're really nice, and very thoughtful. Joe got me a Barnes & Noble gift card, which is great considering I really need something new to read.

My grandparents got me exactly what I requested, which was a really big bass amp. It's 100 watts, and it has a bunch of effects built in (that I can't seem to get to work yet). My uncle got me a new gig bag for my bass because my old one is broken, and a pack of new strings. Those, along with my new amp, are making me sound better than ever. Seriously, the amp is intense. I can out power pretty much any guitar amp, and when I use it in our living room ant about half the max volume, the house shakes and pictures wobble threateningly. it's sweet.

So...I've talked about me; how are all of you doing? Hopefully well! See you soon, but I have to go to bed now.