Now that I’m finally settling down into our job, I at last have time to play tunes on the weekends with our friends.
I play guitars and a little bit of keyboards, but the 5 of us all cover the various bases to form a traditional band with drums, bass, guitar, keys, and saxophone.
The bassist and lead keyboardist are both vocalists, but our bass player is usually the lead while the latter sings backup. Back before the pandemic the two of us would rent the practice room at our local Guitar Center, but these were closed nationwide when lockdown orders went into effect. I kept calling them throughout the pandemic to see if there was an ETA on when they would open again, but I’m still getting conflicting information whenever I call the local store or business headquarters. Every one of us had to find a bizarre location in which to practice as a band, and this wasn’t simple. At first the two of us tried to pitch in cash to play at a traditional practice studio, but this proved to be way too expensive for our budget. That’s when the two of us agreed to throw in the cash needed to rent a small space in a warehouse building. Unluckyly, the lack of air conditioner was a strenuous impasse at first. Every one of us almost threw in the towel until I thought about putting a small window a/c in the single window connected to the unit. This offered us with the little bit of cool air the two of us needed to stay comfortable while playing tunes together. And the window a/c only increased the electricity bill by a moderately small amount.