Playing in prison to morrow.
Posted: January 4th, 2008, 8:13 pm
Well, it's Friday night,and I am in Sedalia. I just got back to my friend Steve's house, after rehearsing with him and a drummer for a gig at a prison tomorrow. Unfortunatel, we've had a few difficulties with personel. The drummer who was going to go was refused admittance, apparently due to his pre-conversion police record. He plans to appeal it, but it puts him out of the running for this trip. And, the guy who was gonna be the rhythm guitarist needs to be home with is wife this weekend, so he's out of it.
Steve did find another drummer to work with who can get into the prison; I guess he's involved with a prison ministry, and goes in a lot. So, we are gonna go in as a rock power trio. The only thing is, this drummer hasn't played at all for the last ten years. No kidding, tonight was the first time he's touched a drumstick in all that time.
When I heard that, I was aghast. And when we started rehearsing with him, my worst fears materialized in front of my eyes and ears. His timing was shot, his tempo was all over the road, he completely lost the beat if he did any sort of a fill, and his tone was pitiful. I thought, "Oh Lord, this isn't going to work at all. We are gonna stink so bad, no one who hears us will ever be able to forget it. It will be indelibly etched in their brains forever, and they will all suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after hearing us."
While this nightmare was unfolding, I was trying to think of other options, anything we could possibly do instead of this; maybe he could play a hand drum of some sort and we could do a light acoustic set. Maybe we could get the guy who plays congas at the church here to come along. Maybe we could have a terrible auto accident on the way and go to heaven before we get ourselves locked out of there forever for heinous musical crimes against both Deity and humanity.
I was unable to come up with anything I thought Steve would go along with, so we kept rehearsing. Amazingly, after a couple of hours of going over the 6 songs we intend to do, he had improved to the point where I no longer felt my eternal destiny was in danger if we played in public. The guy is still not great, and I fear he will take some time to get his cookies back togther again tomorrow. But, he was keeping a reasonably steady beat by the end of the evening's practice, which is much more than either Steve or I thought he would at the beginning. We won't be great, but I don't think we will cause any permanent damage.
We are going to the prison at Fulton, Mo, which is the entry port and procesing center for inmates of the Missouri penal system. Apparently, the men come through there on their way to whatever prison they will serve their sentences at. The gig is to play three half-hour sets of uptempo if not flat-out rockin' music to get the guys' attention and keep their spirits up, during and after which the chaplain's staff will be working with them. I think the times we play are 11:30 AM, 1:30PM, and 3:30 PM.
Please pray for us, I am sure we will need it both from a musical and spiritual perspective.
Steve did find another drummer to work with who can get into the prison; I guess he's involved with a prison ministry, and goes in a lot. So, we are gonna go in as a rock power trio. The only thing is, this drummer hasn't played at all for the last ten years. No kidding, tonight was the first time he's touched a drumstick in all that time.
When I heard that, I was aghast. And when we started rehearsing with him, my worst fears materialized in front of my eyes and ears. His timing was shot, his tempo was all over the road, he completely lost the beat if he did any sort of a fill, and his tone was pitiful. I thought, "Oh Lord, this isn't going to work at all. We are gonna stink so bad, no one who hears us will ever be able to forget it. It will be indelibly etched in their brains forever, and they will all suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after hearing us."
While this nightmare was unfolding, I was trying to think of other options, anything we could possibly do instead of this; maybe he could play a hand drum of some sort and we could do a light acoustic set. Maybe we could get the guy who plays congas at the church here to come along. Maybe we could have a terrible auto accident on the way and go to heaven before we get ourselves locked out of there forever for heinous musical crimes against both Deity and humanity.
I was unable to come up with anything I thought Steve would go along with, so we kept rehearsing. Amazingly, after a couple of hours of going over the 6 songs we intend to do, he had improved to the point where I no longer felt my eternal destiny was in danger if we played in public. The guy is still not great, and I fear he will take some time to get his cookies back togther again tomorrow. But, he was keeping a reasonably steady beat by the end of the evening's practice, which is much more than either Steve or I thought he would at the beginning. We won't be great, but I don't think we will cause any permanent damage.
We are going to the prison at Fulton, Mo, which is the entry port and procesing center for inmates of the Missouri penal system. Apparently, the men come through there on their way to whatever prison they will serve their sentences at. The gig is to play three half-hour sets of uptempo if not flat-out rockin' music to get the guys' attention and keep their spirits up, during and after which the chaplain's staff will be working with them. I think the times we play are 11:30 AM, 1:30PM, and 3:30 PM.
Please pray for us, I am sure we will need it both from a musical and spiritual perspective.