Stormcellar Band Home Page

Howdy Folks.

Just got a contract in for an upcoming gig and and noticed the following conditions listed at the bottom of the contract.

Songs NOT to be Played        

‘Ever gonna see your face’

‘Livin’ next door to Alice’

LOL! Management does not like the Angels (might be the refrain of 'get @^&#ed' that some people sing along with that song) but living next door to Alice? I can't say I'm familiar enough with the song to know why it's Verboten.

Don't worry, Dear Venue, we only have 4 covers in our repertoire, two of which are Little Walter numbers (Hate to see you go and Up the Line), some Sonny Boy Williamson (Help Me), a little Canned Heat and the occasional Allman Bros moment. Ok, that's 5 covers.

Nonetheless, none of our songs feature the words @##$, %^^&, &@*#@ or @&*#(#)!*&#&$#(!*#&!(#&&*(#@.

I'm not even sure what that last one was, I made it up.

I might add that there's a 5 cent charge at the moment for each use of the term !@^&@ as an adjective during band conversations. Mr Wizard gave me $10 and told me to let him know when his credit expired.

I have pointed out that we have Literary Standard to maintain. I like the use of pejoratives and expletives as much as the next bloke, but really, it limits your rhyming couplets to sentences that include Truck, Luck, Muck, Duck and Stuck and a few others that shall not be listed for fear of having to pay myself 5c.

UPDATE - I just went and googled Living Next Door to Alice and couldn't find a @&*# or a !)@_)##, so I guess this must be a matter of musical preference. Fair enough, I've been to plenty of Blues Jams with the words 'NO MUSTANG SALLY' listed above the sign up sheet :-)

5. Car horns

4. Chinese 7th Chord

3. Sounds like The W------ (redacted by Rosie)

2. Woof.

1. Try coming in on notes that exist.

Harmony is a harsh mistress :-)

Howdy Folks.

Our gig at the Jannali Inn brought to an end our residency there for the time being and we went out in style.

Last weekend's Bondi Royal set was a bit of a challenge as we have added 3 new songs into the set,  so we went to some lengths to ease the stress this week, with the help of Nabil and Robert on Sound (thanks guys) and some work on the setlist.

In order to keep the guitar changes to a minimum we had to go through quite the mathematical calculation.

Top row is non standard songs, followed by Mandolin (2 tunings), Guitar 1 (6 possible tuning states), guitar 2 (2 tuning states) and Guitar 3, (3 more tuning states). Each change from state to state represents a potential interruption to the flow (ie: dancing) whilst re-tuning, capo-ing and/or amp changes are made. BTW  those cards aren't singular, they're small stacks :-) After all, we've passed 5 albums and counting...

EDITORS NOTE: Massive props to Rosie for his DB of SC songs. Word to your data.

When a certain guitarist, who shall remain Mr Wizard, said 'isn't this all a bit complex' I pointed out the following:

1. I usually over engineer my solutions. It's part of my quirky charm.

2. Why do people question complex answers to complex problems (sigh...)...I mean, ever tried launching a Rocket? Now that'd be hard. We're just using an algorithm to manage guitar changes. Nothing to it.

So now that we've defined Guitar Change states, we can then factor in Key, Rhythm, style of song, tempo, feel, vibe, dance-ability and so on. A piece of cake.

How'd it work out? Well, during the first set, someone came and stuck $40 in the cup of peanuts I had on my harp case :-) That's a first. Where's my organ grinder?

Anyway, the upshot was that this method of set reorganisation totally worked. In fact, it worked too well. We started powering through the set so fast we had to stick additional songs in there.

The other result was that the dancing started early and went through the whole night. My favourite was the lass who is obviously a Kick boxer because some of those moves looked pretty darn deadly.

The three new songs we've brought into the set were once again, well received. In particular I am getting a kick out of Twice Shy Girl, but  Travelling Song is going over well and Give me something I want has a sheer knuckleheaded infectiousness that's hard to pass up.

Thank you very much to the wonderful folks down South for hosting us for the past four months., we look forward to returning after football season :-)

No not that Wizard.

Not Mr Wizard, but in fact, a Wizard-ess! We're very fortunate that one of Australias most talented musical directors (imho) is going to do some work with us on harmony arrangements and singy thingy's.

I'm almost looking forward to the lesson more than our gig this week :-)

Tall Timbers has been bugging me for a while, as we don't always have the wonderful Jo Fitzgerald there to sing along with us, so I figure the harmony has to be reconfigured for Four Blokes.

To hear the result, you'll have to come to a future gig :-)

Part #73 in my continuing fascination with packing our gear into unlikely forms of transport, I present the humble 'Echo', which to my amazement was capable of fitting half of our PA, including, very impressively, the bass bin.

Wow.

Who needs a van, we just need a fleet of Echos!