Practice makes .... noise

Being in a band is like playing on a sports team - you have to practice to be any good.

Actually, that's not true. Fielder never practices. Never. They just get up there and jam and it sounds great. That's a rare gift.

Warren and Jason from SevenD2 tell me they never practice either, but they play every weekend, and nothing beats actually playing in front of people.

But The Funions can't get away with that. And fortunately the band likes to practice, which hasn't always been true with previous incarnations.

What I've found is that if you are prepared and have stuff to work on, practice is more fun and you get more out of it. With this particular group of guys, the challenge is to find songs that work for us and that feel right.

I've brought great songs to practice but when the band plays them, they just fall flat. Then I've taken half-baked ideas and they've flourished, for whatever reason.

We are working on getting ready for a big birthday party show at The Elks Jan. 3, so tonight we learned four songs and polished up a few others. Practice is hard work but it's fun, and that's the way it should be with a band.

Then Mark, Pat and I went to the Paradise Bar at 10th and Hampshire to hoot and holler at Warren's open mic night and it was a blast ... until we broke poor Warren's PA. I just left and Pat was crawling around back of the mixing board trying to figure out what went wrong.

Maybe it was our playing ....