The team is returning to Joe Squared in Baltimore, MD, on Saturday, March 6, 2010, from 10:00 to 11:30pm. We know you had a great time at the last show. You’ll like it this time, too.

Come for the pizza. Come for the beer. Come for the band. Come ‘cuz it’s Saturday night. Come on, come down.

A piano would come in handy. Of course, the ability to play one would be important as well.

Why, though, if I neither own nor can play a piano, would I be imagining a piece of piano music?

Aren’t you beginning to feel time gaining on you? It’s like a predator. It’s stalking you. Oh, you can try and outrun it…but in the end, time is going to hunt you down and make the kill.
- source withheld (if you’ve seen the movie, then you know)

I’ve been worrying lately that the day would come soon when casual conversation with friends would be dominated by an excess of detail over various chronic maladies.

Well…

My Hartke 3500 and I have been together for 16 years. Seen many a club date, jam session, and innumerable practices. We’ve gone on the road together, recorded albums together, taken accolades and flying ashtrays. But then the buzzing began. Not that annoying 60Hz hum. No, this was different. And it’s been getting worse.

I’ve replaced the batteries, installed a new tube, turned the volume down, played quieter, but the buzz persists. It’s not the cables or the effects, though one of those needed a (battery) clip replacement a few months ago. I guess I’ll try replacing the speakers–one at a time, of course, because insurance won’t cover the costs.

If that doesn’t work…damn, I hope it’s the speakers.

I heard the other day that Coldplay is being sued by three artists all claiming that one of Coldplay’s hits ripped off one of their songs. They (allegedly) ripped off Joe Satriani, The Creaky Boards, and the-artist-who-was-when-he-wrote-the-song-but-is-now-formerly-known-as Cat Stevens.  In other words, four artists from arguably different genres  wrote the same frickin’ song. Sorry: “allegedly” wrote…

How does this turn out well for any of these people? Have any of them thought this through?

Leaving aside the tabloid-fodder aspect, I think far worse is the implication that there are so few original musical ideas left that Brit-pop megastars,  guitar heroes,  ’70s folkies, and bands named The Creaky Boards are left copping each other’s chord progressions. I mean, there couldn’t be any other explanation.

Could there?

In tribute to the demise of originality, herewith I present a contender for the cover of our next record (assuming we make another one). Apologies in advance to Prefab Sprout fans.

Band practice tonight. Quartet format tonight for the first time in two weeks. And the fretless bass is back in rotation after some much needed repair. It sounds like a fretless bass again! Unfortunately, the action and setup are now so different that playing it proved an exercise in frustration. And so, back to the woodshed.

Anagram of Occasional Banister: “I score cannabis a lot”

Thus the perils of anagramming. With that, a 2006 rendition of our own variation on Stevie Wonder’s “Too High.” Really only a riff on the bass line of its verse as a forum for trading solos.  Have a listen.