Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Jam
I just went jamming the other day with my BMT mate, who amazingly recalls that I like john mayer and his music. I mean, it's been more than a year since our last point of contact, and he actually messages me one fine day:
Ahmad, still remember me? Andy from your bmtc platoon. You still playing john mayer songs?Like wah, that brought a smile to my face. Yes indeed. It's realy cool ar. Anyway, so after a small exchange of sms-es, he was wondering if I'd like to jam john mayer songs. What other answer could I have possibly given when faced with such a question? ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY! =) So we all met up at Peninsula Excelsior for our jamming session. Besides a drummer that couldn't make it, it was me, andy (due to the lack of a drummer, he played the drums while doing vocals) and a bassist. (Sorry, I didn't manage to catch your name.) Once we were there, it was just us and music that linked us all. It's not like we played john mayer songs entirely. There was a tinge of jason mraz and howie day as well, and forgive me wally, I forgot about Damien Rice's songs. Haha. They were requesting to play that. All in all, I enjoyed the session, as it was my first time playing with a true bassist. He didn't play a monotonous range of notes, but improvised, and played almost like David Labruyere in the album. It was really fun, and short. We only played for ninety minutes, but man, we played to the max. Here's the set list:
1.St. Patrick's Day by John Mayer
2.3x5 by John Mayer
3.No Such Thing by John Mayer
4.City Love by John Mayer
5.Why Georgia by John Mayer
6.You And I Both by Jason Mraz
Andy wasn't able to concentrate fully with his vocals while playing the drums, and who can blame him? It sure is tough. So at times, he used his tamborine and made do with that while singing. His vocals are strong, I can assure you that. Of course, what would make any jamming session sweeter is the sound of drums. =)
We tried 'Collide' by Howie Day as well, and it turned out pretty good too. As I found out later on, andy had only just started listening to john mayer, and starting from 'Room For Squares', his first official album. (Although, for me, I think 'Inside Wants Out' deserves to be called his actual first.) The bassist had more exposure though, so he was pretty cosy with most of the songs. I was surprised he had not listened to 'John Mayer Trio' yet. Dude, you won't want to miss it.
So there goes my first official jamming session with them. "Don't worry, we'll definitely meet up more in future" were the last few words of andy when we left. It turns out that this was not andy's band, just people gathered for the first time to try things out. The result? Pretty good. I need to improve much more from now on. Oh, and I need to get myself that damn Fender Stratocaster. Argh!
Daena, yes, Captain Planet and me can be the best of buds, but never better than us. Haha. You and your imagination have been really running wild huh? I hope you're reading this, because it's been so long since I last had a chatting session with you. How do I describe this feeling? Hmm. It's like me losing that precious pebble stone you gave me on my 15/16th birthday which you so blatantly told me you picked up from the front of the general office because you suddenly remembered in the wee hours of the morning that it's my birthday, but I still treasure it because I think it's the most wonderful gift a person has ever given me and it's still holding a big space in my room as if it was the elixir of life. That's how I feel. Haha. Hope you've been doing well, and I can't help but wait for your return here in Singapore. I wonder if you know this already, but eileen's already in the US right now. She's doing fine. Ah, so many things to fill you in on, yet time has a way of stealing the details as it goes by. Hope I don't forget what I want to share with you. =)
I notice I've not been blogging for quite some time now, and I do apologise for that. It's just that, there have been so many distractions and obstructions for me to do this. And I wonder, just to how many people does this message stretch to? Sometimes I wonder, am I apologising to the people reading this, or am I apologising to the blog for not doing so? Haha. I don't know. I treat non-living things the way I treat living things. Respect.
It's about four more weeks to my next driving test. Hmmm.
9:43 PM