SUMMARY: Lots of uncharted territory with basically no drama. That’s an accomplishment, but every single song needs a lot of work.

Except where noted, I’m not going to adjust the mix. Here’s the order of the songs I mixed, so the starting point is When Love Comes To Town.

Here’s all the songs zipped together:

OVERALL SUMMARY: We haven’t played these songs either ever or in a long time. More homework before this “uncharted” territory would expedite things including form sheets published before hand and (for old songs) published earlier recordings. THERE’S A TONNE OF WORK NEEDED AND MAYBE SONG SUBSTITUTION.

When Love Comes To Town – SUMMARY: Shows a lot of potential. WHAT WORKS: Basic rhythm and vocals are good. NEEDS A LOT OF WORK BEFORE BEING READY TO PERFORM (priority order):

• Settle on a form with a lot less guitar noodling and be able to execute it with confidence.
• Everyone learns their lyrics.
• Rhythm guitar sounds is a million miles away from the record and should be cleaner (foot pedal).
• Lead guitar solo bits are not nearly memorable enough. I’d change the arrangement to replace some of it with more YEAHs maybe with harmony or maybe with noodling on top of it.
• Lead guitar sound does come up loud enough (foot pedal) and should have a much more distinct from the rhythm guitar sound.
• The blues ending doesn’t work. I don’t expect Glen to change though. But its just formulaic and not creative.
• Just my opinion, but dropping the leaving the girl at the altar is too big a deviance from the record.
• Most of Glen chord additions work and I don’t expect him to change but the E down to the D chord sounding like a blues song detracts from the song a bit.
• What happened to the really cool arpeggio guitar part from the record. Not hard to play or learn and very likable?

Go To The River – SUMMARY: Shows some real potential. WHAT WORKS: Basic song is is likable.

NEEDS A LOT OF WORK BEFORE BEING READY TO PERFORM (priority order):

• Need to have a form that we agree on and execute.
• Needs a form that start thin and builds thruout the song. That’s going to take some real work.
• A lot more call response would be good. If the backing vocals sang more of the You’ve Got To Go To The River chorus (including things like: If you want to be clean) with lead vocals riffing in between those phrases like a black gospel choir. I bet Christina could help us but only after the October Showcase.
• Guitar sound really detracts (foot pedal) and its just like When Love Comes to town. This is important.
• That C7 chord doesn’t work. I’ll try to come up with an alternative. The melody could also be adjusted.
• Guitar solo currently detracts. Lead guitar sound is only a minor part of that. Maybe call response with the backing vocals or harmonica or sax or something would help. But we should be able to pull this off as a trio. This is an opportunity to try out my NO REHEARSAL SPECIAL GUEST idea.
• Asking people to sing along seems to me to be unlikely to work.

If You Can’t Bear The Cross – SUMMARY: Is it worth the effort to clean up? I wouldn’t spend the effort on it. WHAT WORKS: Not much in its current form and has less potential than other songs in my opinion. NEEDS WORK (priority order):

• Everyone needs to relearn the form and Doug needs to make form sheets.
• Glen didn’t remember the lyrics or the melody and couldn’t sing the high parts.
• Rhythm guitar sound is the same bad.
• Plenty of bass mistakes. Hold me accountable if I can’t do it this Friday. I remembered it by the end of the song.
• No backing vocals. They would help.
• Guitar solo is inadequate both sound and the notes played.

King Of The Road – SUMMARY: likable. Not sure the just the acoustic and vocals work. WHAT WORKS: Rohn’s singing (when on key) and showmanship.

NEEDS WORK (priority order):

• Vocal pitchiness.
• Key transitions – I’d recommend one only like Roger Miller.
• Form – either keep it short or find a way to have it build (add bass later with Rohn clapping, or, add goofy scatting like Roger Miller does himself or something.
• More repetitions.

Get The Log Out – SUMMARY: Musically likable. WHAT WORKS: The basic feel if done right. The crowd singing works. The solo between crowd singing is pretty good. The scatting works (if cleaned up). NEEDS SOME SIGNIFICANT WORK (priority order):

• Everyone needs to relearn the form using Doug’s form sheets.
• We need to work every bit that was done wrong, one bit at a time. Who is going to identify those bits. Here’s what I got:
  • Intro Get The Log out: Don’t sing with Glen. Echo Glen.
  • Intro guitar did not come in right.
  • Rhythm guitar is the same bad sound. It should have a much cleaner jazzy sound:
  • Bass should go gentler during “you know the people”. The drum could be jazzier with more creativity there also. Maybe work the high-hat?
  • The ending was a train wreck. It would work if we did it as expected.

What’s A Matter With The Mill – SUMMARY: Not bad for the first time with no chart or form sheet. WHAT WORKS: Crowd backing vocals. Maybe the lyrics are clever enough to overcome its boring 12 bar blues with nothing interesting rhythmically going on besides the stops basic song. We’ll have to see after the Showcase if anybody in the audience remembers it. WHAT NEEDS WORK:

• Agreed up form (keep short, avoid wasting time on a guitar solo or keep it as short as practical).
• Keep the stops and play the song really clean.

That’s The Way You Work It – SUMMARY: Likeable if the guitar solos are kept short enough and if we improve the execution. WHAT WORKS: The basic beat and the crowd vocals.

NEEDS SOME SIGNIFICANT WORK (priority order):

• Have an understood form. DOUG to publish form sheets.
• Work each bit and the transitions.
• Rohn to switch between the THAT’S THE WAY YOU WORK IT BEAT and the WE GOT THE POWER BEAT and play something that is significantly different.
• Having the crowd sing where they should.
• Add having the crowd sing OH YEAH phrases.
• Solo Guitar sound and choice of notes are inadequate. Sound should be bigger.
• How about bringing the Timbales instead of a guitar solo?
• Have the drums do a bar or two solo switch into We Got the Power would probably improve it.
• Intro – having a longer drum intro with room for some added finesse would probably be good.