So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star?
First thing you need are some instruments - and a vocalist.
Consider all the great duos of rock: Sonny and Cher, Simon and Garfunkel, The Proclaimers, The Pet Shop Boys, Ike and Tina….
Now let me add one more great duo to your listening library:
We call ourselves “Just a Band”. It just kind of rolls of the tip of the tongue, no?
No? Well, she’s the manager and she says, that’s the name of our band. Okay, then.
But first, we needed a few instruments: As we’re a bootstrapping band here that doesn’t have a lot of money for instruments, we had to make our own:
The drum set of course consisted of pots and pans with chopsticks for drumsticks.
Then we needed a guitar. Oh! And a tambourine.
For the guitar we found a lid from a plastic container and then taped a plastic ruler to it. The final touch is the spreading of the elastic bands and we were in business.
We almost didn’t have a tambourine due to artistic differences. She wanted the bells glued on to the plate but I had no glue that would be safe/stick so I rolled some tape up and stuck the bells on there and it seemed to work. It was touch and go for a minute there as I thought we were going to break up before our first song was sung.
We had all our instruments and we were ready, but then she told me that under no circumstances was I going to be doing the singing. This was just as well for all parties and especially our fans (Hello, Cleveland!)
We had a few practice sessions where I was directed to be the drummer and I was only to drum when she sang specific words and as I am not the fastest learner it took me a few tries and she was not happy with our progress.
We didn’t have an opening act, so we just went for it and she sung and I drummed. Then we mixed it up a bit for the other songs and swapped instruments. I still didn’t get to do the singing though. Under no circumstances was I able to sing.
After 4 songs (no encore as the dog can’t pay attention for that long) our show was over and our band disbanded never to be heard from again.
It was a short run, but if you look hard enough you might be able to find a bootleg recording somewhere.
Don’t forget to buy some merch on your way out.
Until Next Time,
TH and Co.