Pushing The Tide

“Push The Tide” was the band name proposed by Ken the bass player. It refers to the difficulty of trying to exit the harbor while the tide is entering. Although the name “Shain Reaction” is apparently the name that won out, I see where the other would be a very appropriate name for a group of all over-50ish musicians attempting to form a new Rock & Roll band. At the beginning of August we were talking excitedly about being on the verge of “ready to play out”. Now in early September, for a variety of reasons both simple and complicated, there is some discussion about needing to revamp our song list, define our direction, and not rush into anything anytime soon. Apparently being with a bunch of genteel easy going people can be as frustrating as being with a bunch of egotists. For my part of the problem, while the others all seem to have ideas of what they want to accomplish – I (after meeting them) had a clear vision of how it could be. I auditioned with them knowing what I wanted and listened to what they said they wanted. After a couple of weeks, it appeared to all that this was really an excellent combination of talent and had great potential. But it was THEIR band that I was joining (despite no name at the time) so although they were counting on me being able to initially carry the nights worth of music (about 75-80% so in effect, they were looking for a front man for them to be the backup band to) it was not a situation that I felt like I could or should be the “leader”. Unfortunately NOBODY felt comfortable being in charge, which can be a disabling or even fatal situation.

So we have been practicing as much as time allows for a bunch of busy working family people can get away with. I tested out a large number of well known and not too difficult songs with them, and many fell together rather easily. I also made it clear that I felt that vocal diversity was desirable – my voice wouldn’t last too long as being THE vocalist all night, and the audience would get bored listening to my voice all night long. And in the end, with somebody else being the lead vocalist on whatever amount of songs, I would end up harmonizing on those songs (which is less taxing than being constantly the lead vocalist) so in effect I would be singing almost every song in some capacity any way. NOT being the full time lead vocalist was not going to be a problem with me.

Joni the drummer also had a number of songs she had done in the past and hoped to continue doing. Some went well, some didn’t click right away. I tried to identify which ones I thought we could put together with the least amount of time and difficulty, and continued to encourage her to work on them and find more – and even suggested many that I had played with other female vocalists that I thought she/we could do well. Despite finding a number of her songs to be ones we should be able to do, she continued to add to her list of “potential” songs while not pushing to actually finish rehearsing ones that we had previously attempted.

Rob only had a couple of songs to sing and although he liked the idea of doing more, lacked the confidence to attempt too many too fast. I suggested that he look at any of “my” songs that we were doing and see if there were any that HE could take over singing. So far he HAS taken a couple of mine – with my blessing.

Ken has continually resisted being the vocalist on any songs despite having a perfectly good singing voice – citing the difficulty in playing bass and simultaneously singing.

Bill the newest and 5th member arrived with an extensive list of possibilities – of which we quickly tried to identify which ones would fit in best and that we could play without setting back our time table too far.

So, as we are all busy besides trying to do the band and have trouble focusing and making forward progress, I hoped to help the situation by taking the songs we had developed the best so far and try to create a 3-set song list from them. I find this to be the best way to see if you have too many slow songs, or too many that are too similar, and to balance the vocals so that no set gets overloaded with one persons songs while another is under utilized. I can’t/don’t want to sing eight songs in a row. Each version offered was always with the expressed hope that the others would comment and contribute to the process. The most recent list (adding a handful of Bills songs and therefore reducing my workload to less than 50%) I sent out a week ago. A couple of comments/ suggestions were emailed back and forth, and then surprisingly some previously with-held complaints started coming out. Apparently I was hogging too many of the songs, and too many of the songs were worn out and beat to death while others were not rocking or danceable enough. Not surprisingly, I was initially upset at the criticism (I had been hoping for input, not blame). I felt that they were unfairly forgetting that when we met, they NEEDED me to sing most of the songs, and I had – through my own efforts – REDUCED my work load considerably already. It also drove home the fact that we NEED a leader, and I am still not the right choice for the situation – someone else has to step up.

So tonight we gather for practice, where we know we have to talk over these differences of opinions and maybe sooth a few hurt feelings (some of which may well be my own). I expect a fruitful outcome. Every body professes to have great admiration for each others musical abilities and personalities, and we all agree that there is indeed tremendous potential to proudly perform some really good music. Booking lots of work may indeed be a feat of “pushing the tide” but once we get out I believe the “Shain Reaction” will be a good one. This should be really fun and likely be the best band I have every played with. I just need it to happen soon because I can’t wait!