Learning To Fly
September 27, 2007
FRIDAY 14, SEPT.
Worked at the Guitar shop till 7pm. Then Rusty and myself toughed it for 90 minutes in LA’s crap Rush Hour Traffic. Got to rehearsal around 8:15. Chapple, Daddyo and Todd Jaeger were already there and jamming on their own. We plugged in and went at it on the music. We always did the record in order and then we’d do bonus tunes that we planned to do at the Milan show. Getting the cues and sounds and harmonies and overall feeling seemed so difficult at times, as we were very hard on ourselves. Maybe that comes from playing with Arthur, who held us to very high standards. Anyways, we rocked to quite late. Got out of rehearsal about 11;30pm, was home by Midnight. Went to bed dead knackered.
SATURDAY 15, SEPT.
Got up early, made some coffee for me and had some serial. Worked on Beatles guitar stuff and then made Hannah Tea. Went to work at 11am and Rusty and myself left for rehearsal around 7pm and proceeded to rehearse with the band till about 11pm. Again, going over cues, harmonies, ect… Band was sounding tight tight tight. Also, it was nice to have Russell at rehearsal the Sunday before. He’s a great fellow, as well as an amazing singer and super-duper guy.
SUNDAY 16, SEPT.
This was the day of our rehearsal show at Cole Studios in Hollywood (off Melrose and Vine.) I drive an old station wagon…and so I drove Hannah, Rusty, Lucy and myself in the ’79 Mercedes Turbo Diesel (no I have not converted to Vegetable Oil, stop asking) and chugged it on the Santa Monica FWY, actually holding it at 65MPH. Took that to La Brea and that to Highland and that to Melrose. Took a hard right and went east on Melrose until I saw Cole. Took a left. Bam, there it was.
We loaded in – this being about noon – and then by 2pm many friends/ family were in attendance and we played a fun, really good show. People left about 3:30 and them twice as many showed up at 4pm and watched an even longer show. It was great all the way around and little Nevin Greene (aka, Little Daddyo) was trying to play the drums.
We finished the show and then headed home, but not before Hannah saw one of her American Idol guys, someone called Elliot Yamin or something like that. He was jamming next door.
MONDAY 17, September
Actually worked at the guitar shop till 9pm, then headed home, had some pasta with Hannah and then packed my clothes. I didn’t sleep till 1am but them had to get up at 3:30 for my 4am taxi pick up. The taxi driver was an old guy from Vietnam and he drove like Starsky & Hutch but he got us there on time. Our flight left LAX at 6:30am and I was dead tired. But I was on that flight and I could sleep till Philadelphia’s plane change over 5 hours later. No more direct flights from LA to Milan for whatever reason…so we took it.
PART TWO (TUESDAY 18, SEPT) to be cont’d tomorrow…
Mike Randle
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