POP DEPRESSION #2 / creative weekend out of town

Every now and then I try to organise a creative weekend with my band. It's a chance to get out of the daily routine, forget about the weekly errands and recharge the batteries. I am lucky to own a house in the countryside which serves as a perfect getaway from the chaos of the city. Throughout the year, the house is used for leisure weekend activities (BBQs and enjoying the nature) and for the production of home made wine (we have a small vineyard, just enough to produce wine for the entire year). This weekend I decided to turn the wine cellar into a rehearsal room, since my band and I have an upcoming show this Thursday. The idea was to just hit the countryside and work on some new material I've been writing. I've posted a lot of that material on Steemit in the last few months but this weekend was the first time I tried to play it live with my band. We rented a small PA system, brought all the equipment and just jammed for two days.

(a somewhat blurry view of the countryside from the car. There are a few houses in the area but not many people live there so we didn't have to worry about making noise in the middle of the night. A musician's dream come true.)

(this is the view from the wine cellar)

The house was built by my late grandfather back in the 80's. It has two floors (the upper flooor is used as a common area and the ground level is where we spent most of the time), a vineyard at the back, electricity, water and an old, very basic furnace on regular firewood. The last few days were a bit cold and it started snowing heavily but we've build a good fire in the morning and it kept us warm throughout the day. There's not much in the cellar - a table, a small kitchen and tools for producing wine - so there was enough room for the PA, the amps, the instruments and the drum set. Although it is a cellar made of concrete, the sound was surprisingly good. There wasn't too much reverb and it turns out the acoustic properties of the place work really well. We managed to get a decent, fairly clean sound and it got me thinking about turning the house into a studio sometime in the near future...

(here's the wine press and a wine barrel)

(small kitchen)

(firewood waiting to be put in the furnace)

(and this is my bass player getting caught up in the moment)

The equipment we used was this: an Ashdwon bass amp + Fender Precision bass + pedals, a Trucker guitar amp (from what I've found on the Internet, it's an 1980's British made amp) + Stagg electroacustic guitar + my new Vintage Modified Squier Jazzmaster, a Behringer guitar amp + an ARZ Ibanez electric guitar and a Hohner Organa which is an analog keyboard with an accordian sound but it has a built-in fan (rather than a bellow) so you get an infinite sustain abnd a drum set. I also brought my laptop and my M- Audio condenser microphone to record the sessions.

(the organa)

(my drummer with his simple drum set - kick, snare and two 24 inch cymbals)

We arrived on Saturday morning and played all day and then we came back on Sunday and pulled another all-day-session. We ended up with 10 songs (we played some of them earlier but this time we made completely different arrangements), 4 of them being entirely new ones. The place has a really positive and creative vibe so we spent the entire Saturday just working on new material while Sunday was reserved for playing thru the material over and over again. The tracks we ended up with still have this ''jamming around'' vibe to them but they are structured and they sort of feel finished. Listening to the material later (some recorded with my mobile phone and others recorded with my mic), there are still parts that don't sit together completely and we still make mistakes here and there but the overall sound of the band and of the songs is very interesting. Here are a few tracks we finished:

The show we are playing on Thursday will be recorded and I am going to post it on my blog in it's entirety because I'm really excited to hear the difference between the rehearsals and the actual show. So, that's it, wish us luck and I'll keep you posted!