Systematic Chaos

Well, my band has a new name. We decided to drop “The Traveling Wildebeests” and embarked on a strange, complicated journey to come up with a new name, which involved dozens of submitted names, multiple levels of voting, and a vague sensation that we somehow wound up at a spot which had been predetermined from the out-set. It’s not a name I would have thought of (my original idea was “Cat Daddy Pirates”), but it’s definitely one I can live with.
We’ll be playing two gigs this week. The usual Wednesday jam at Demmi’s in Tampa, and some kind of festival gig at Covington Park in Apollo Beach. So I suppose this week will be the debut of the new name and a breaking with the past. I’ll be working on songs today, trying to make sure that I’m up to speed and that at least this Saturday’s gig goes off without a hitch.
I can’t really say what I expect from this band. From what I’ve seen so far, I think we mostly exist to jam a bit and to blow off some steam. Which is wonderful. It’s nice to have to opportunity to get my bass and vocal chops back in fighting form. But I suspect getting to use those chops in an original context will happen outside of the band. So far no one has seemed interested in the idea of working up some originals, but I think “This Old Dawg” would be perfect for the music this band plays. Of course, it’s quite possible that they’re not nearly as impressed by “This Old Dawg” as Victoria and I are.
Whatever else, I’m enjoying playing with John and Del. John has talked about wanting to bring in a keyboard player, but I hope we keep it a three piece. We’d have no problem pulling off a three piece band, and I think we sound damned good. Hopefully we’ll find ways to make it work. We won’t be able to play everything that we’d like to, but I think we can do amazingly well on certain things. I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out.