My as yet unnamed band had another preliminary practice yesterday evening, and it was pretty OK. Perhaps surprisingly (for those who know my musical tastes and aspirations), the general vibe is distinctly un-experimental and straightforward – we were, like, learning to play proper songs with more than two chords, properly and in time. Added to this was the fact that I was using somebody else’s guitar and amp, and was thus adrift without any pedals, unable to use noise and scuzz to disguise the fact that I play like a tone-deaf monkey most of the time.

It was really good though. In a lot of ways I’m really glad of the opportunity to learn to play (sort of) properly with other people, figuring out how to do a few decent tunes. I mean, I’m sure I could far more easily round up some shifty noise bastards and record a bunch of disgusting 60 second spazz-outs called things like ‘Rampage Etiquette’ and ‘I Am No Dude Deputy’, but what the hell would be the point, y’know? Not to belittle the many people who are really good at that sort of thing, but that kind of music can be just sooo self-indulgent and obnoxious a lot of the time, and my heart wouldn’t really be it, I’d just be doing it cos I was too lazy to learn to play properly. I’m finding it far more exciting to just play good pop songs with verses and choruses at the moment, although I’m still not much good at it.

TO CLARIFY: I don’t mean to say I’m playing, like, dad-rock or Beatles covers or anything. It’s still cool, honest, we’re just talking closer to, say, the Pixies and PJ Harvey than to Bilge Pump or the Locust, and c’mon kids, that’s no bad thing really is it? I’m setting my sights on the holy grail of that classic Glasgow 1997 Urusei Yatsura sound, but hey, since when haven’t I done?

Off to practice some “doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo”s...