Next up is April 1st at The Royal Room, with Maracujá. We’ll have several subs for this show: Sam Esecson from Maracujá on percussion, Scott Teske on bass and Whitney Lyman on vocals and possibly some more percussion. Writing the charts has paid off in this respect; I can have a modular collective band made up of people who read music, and not ask too much of anyone’s time. Scott showed up to rehearsal a few days ago and sight read all the music without even hearing it, and it sounded perfectly great.
I had struggled for months after deciding to start a band, trying to find people who could really be in the group, and that’s gotten impossible as I get older. The days of having a band that rehearses twice or even once a week are over, that’s a game for people in their 20’s. And I play in too many projects to even make that work for myself much of the time. So, the charts were the answer. They’ve paid off big, allowing me to have talented people like those mentioned above in Northern Thorns. I just wonder if it will eventually coalesce into a constant lineup. The guitar parts are more demanding than the other instruments, hence harder to sub out, and I haven’t had to yet thankfully. And I also have to wonder sometimes whether viewing the band modularly comes off as disrespectful to the people involved. I hope not. I got the idea from Mike Sparks (who played bass and sang wonderfully at the Vermillion show), who approaches his project Noonmoon in a similar way. A show gets booked, then he sends out an email and sees who is available and wants to join him to play the music. My band is more particular than his, but I really liked the concept and so I’ve copied it.
In any case, I’m excited to share the stage with all these folks on April 1st.
