So right now my eager and wonderful friend has rounded up a bunch of his musical buddies in the interest of creating an amazing Yacht Rock band. To be honest, I love the music of the genre (as I define it, which matches the creator of the web series’ take), for the most part, and this is very exciting to me. The people involved seem absolutely awesome, and our first rehearsal/hangout is this coming Wednesday. There are a few things on the list that I don’t really think belong, but they’re close enough in vibe to fit, so I don’t object to their inclusion. Unfortunately it’s been an extremely rough go for me trying to get the parts together. I haven’t had much time with other responsibilities, and honestly, my confidence as a guitarist is nonexistent right now.

As long-time readers of this humble little blog know, I generally only play guitar at home, and not nearly as often as I like. That doesn’t translate into having chops that really make you feel like you can handle Steely Dan songs or the complicated changes of many of these Yacht Rock songs, which were performed by the best studio musicians in the world when they were recorded. Your humble servant feels like his hands are made of plaster covered in molasses. And though I’m close to getting all the chords down (which is AWESOME) – trying to come up with a means to perform the little ornamental guitar parts in “Peg” is an exercise in futility. I mean, I fudge them reasonably nicely, but I don’t want to fudge with this band. To fuel the fear even more, it’s the first time I’m really playing with ANYONE involved – I’ve played precisely one show with one member of the band, and that was a last-minute shit show covering for people who have no sense of organization. Just pure “get through it” – not actually really knowing anything or having a chance to truly connect or hear what the other is capable of when you play together.

I’m fairly certain my eager and wonderful friend will read this blog (he’s a regular reader as well as a wonderful blogger in his own right), and I’m sure we’ll talk about my fears and misgivings, as we’re both that sort of person, but at the moment I just really feel like I don’t have a chance of succeeding here, and it’s bumming me out. We haven’t even STARTED doing anything – there’s no plans for gigs yet, not a single note of music has been played together, and I’m scared shitless that I’ll walk in there and everyone’s going to go (hopefully to themselves), “ha ha – you fucking suck” and I’ll embarrass my eager and wonderful friend since he brought me in (everyone else in the band has experience playing together).

I just haven’t had the energy or confidence to think I have much of a chance of getting anything right. But I’m working on it, because pushing through is sometimes the only way to do it. I just spent the past few hours working on the songs and some parts are pretty easy. Some songs I’ve listened to hundreds if not thousands of times so I know them in my head but have never really put them into my hands, and that’s been surprisingly tricky. Others I’d never heard before in my life that I could remember (and honestly, I wasn’t missing anything).

So consider this a whine/vent/worry blog. I’m going to keep at it in the limited time I have before the first rehearsal, and maybe I’ll surprise myself. I just have to pretend I can do it until I actually can. Easier said than done sometimes.

Have a great weekend and I apologize for missing a week – it’s been hectic around here and I just haven’t had much to say. Thanks for reading and peace be the journey!

TMS