Breaking the Band

These years in Kamloops, I have been so lucky to regularly jam with Breaking Band in The Bassment — thank you David and Ronda Olds for being in the band and hosting us so luxuriously. The band is turning a page as our guitar player Irwin won’t be living in Kamloops because he’s moving on from TRU. I’m sure we will play together in the future, but the days when we jammed every Tuesday night and played any party that would have us are likely over.
 
We have a Last Waltz / Shut Up and Play the Hits style gig planned for next month, but we have gotten rusty on a lot of our favourite numbers, so we need to rehearse. That will be tricky to arrange, as all of us are quite busy these days and leaving town for significant and non-complementary stretches of time between now and the party. Tonight, we weren’t sure if Matt would make it.
 

A thing I have always appreciated is how when we get together everybody seems to get a sense of the collective mood and we jam accordingly. Some nights we focus on trying to get a tricky cover to sound right. Some nights we compose an original song. Some nights we jam freeform and maybe stumble on something we love. Some nights we randomly pick songs we know and try a few we don’t know. Some nights we only play a few songs and tell stories and laugh. Now that I think of it, we laugh no matter what.

Tonight, we really should have focused on the set list, but as usual our desire to have fun took over…  I hope it is obvious that this was a goof-around moment, on a song we’d never done. But this is the kind of stuff guys like Irwin and Dave can do, as we are waiting on our friend Matt:

 

 

There have been many times over the past five years playing with these cool gifted friends where I’ve thought something like, “wow, how do people that don’t get to play in fun bands manage to survive?” I guess I will find out. Or, find a fun band. Preferably with these guys in it.

3 thoughts on “Breaking the Band

  1. Among the favorite memories of my few months visiting TRU were the Tuesday’s at The Olds getting a taste of the experience you describe. Great times indeed and great people.

    Breaking band is breaking up? snifffffff.

    Is that Dave’s dog in the featured image?

  2. Breaking Band can never die… like the Pawnshop Guitar, we traverse the world on new journeys, but always reminisce/long for our original subversive roots in the Bassment – trying to conquer the competitive market of small-town cover bands with a twist of eclectic originals and general tomfoolery

    Say it ain’t so, I will not go
    Turn the lights off, carry me home
    Na, na, na, na
    Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na

  3. Pingback: Irwin | Abject

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