Jam Management

Time management is crucial to what makes or breaks a successful jam. For those of us who don't jam in their homes or whose band members' time schedule is as tight as a pigeon's ass (yet one wonders how they stuff it with all this rice), we don't have the luxury to simply lay back and go about playing some random riffs, showing off, chit chatting and socializing with each other. That is how many of our jams were reduced to and we had to figure out a way to deal with it. So recently I came up with a system that tries to maximize efficiency to make the best out of jams.

1- Monitor Your Wiring

Wiring could be a huge time waster! By the time you get your gear out, plug it, tune it, show your band mates that you can play the first riff of that Dream Theater song that has been mind fucking you for days, talk about your latest conquest @ free porn websites etc... Before you could notice; a good 20 minutes may just fly by. When we first timed our wiring it took us around 20 minutes and with little discipline and practice; wiring at one point only took 5 minutes! That is 15 more minutes of practice! Since we jam twice a week that actually makes up for one extra jam session per month! So .. Zip it!

2- Breaking Down the Setlist

Through weeks of practice you will notice that your band doesn't play all the song equally as good. Sometimes that is for apparent reasons where a member or more are struggling with a particular technique, the band has some synchronizing issues or for non apparent reasons such as one or more of your members are just psychotic and don't seem to get THAT FUCKING LINE NO MATTER WHAT!!!! IT'S BEEN A YEAR ALREADY GOD DAMN IT!!!!!

ermmmm... Anyway; here is what we do. I divide the songs into two basic categories. Songs that are "In the Closet" and those are the songs that we can play 100% even if we are blind (Usually we play those once just to make sure) as well as songs that are almost done and don't have major issues such as lack of tightness or extremely poor output (Usually we play those two consecutive times).

Other songs that are new to the setlist or that require a lot more work are included in the other category, "In the Works". These are songs that require special attention and since El Tekrar ye3alim Al 7omar; I usually pick two songs that are In the Works and play them until we fucking hate them! It's important to keep taking notes, recording your performance (with a good mobile or a camera just to keep track) and discussing the issues with the tracks. Once you feel comfortable with a particular track promote to the In the Closet category and celebrate!

Conclusion

One wishes that he had the luxury to practice all day whenever the mood is right but the facts are; jam sessions are the allocated time all band members agree is dedicated to, first and foremost, getting things done! We don't have our own studios and we don't have a lot of money. Remember that when you see those bands that perform soooo fucking good live it's due not only to skill but also to hard work and practice. These bands are professional musicians who give a lot of more time and dedication to practice than we could possibly afford and that is why in the little time that you have (we jam only 5 hours a week), you must make the best out of it. You mustn't, however, forget why you are there which is often a challenge. Remember to enjoy yourself and the Music. That is what it's all about for us, right?

Jam and Home Session

We had a busy week end with a jam and a home session. We plan to play 10 tracks in our upcoming live event and we're almost done. I expect us to play around 50 minutes. We have enough time to add more songs but we decided not to throw all the new material out and save something for the other live shows. So far it's going really good but we still have some issues with particular songs. We really want you to enjoy the music as we intend it to be and we are focusing on every single detail (Output, patches, tightness, performance, presentation etc...) Of the 10 tracks we intend to play there are 7 that will be played for the very first time.
In our home session we've worked with particular riffs from a couple of songs and worked primarily on synchronizing our playing. It's very important to get that out of the way because it helps a lot when we focus with Tefa (drummer).

I'll post soon how we organize our jams. I think there maybe some helpful tips.

p.s Ramadan Karim!

ENRAGED Jam and Recording for press kit + Cosmic Revelation # 1

So as I've said earlier we are working on our band press kit and we wanted to include videos from our jam sessions. A huge deal of our jam time was lost because Diab and Tefa thought that the day light savings have started due to Facebook rumors, thank you very much! However, we had enough time to jam on our "In the Closet" tracks (will talk about this on a separate entry) as well as recording two videos of Ma'at and Hypatia! We also worked a bit on our latest track Pseudoglioma. Check the youtube link below and give us your feedback.

Now as far as recording videos for audition goes; I highly discourag

e doing that if you have access to real time auditions at least unless you can record a high quality video. Usually the ones looking at the videos (say from El Sakkiah) has no clue that the sound quality goes down the drench in most practice videos. They will, however, assess you based on that. The first time we've applies for El Sakkiah we sent a video and we were rejected. Two weeks later we auditioned in the River Hall and played the exact same songs and got accepted. So if your band is still in the making consider doing auditions right away.

Finally without keeping you waiting any longer! The first official cosmic revelation by Tefa!

Ready?

Al Yabaneyat Gamdeen Fel Sex!!! (Japanese Chicks are awesome in sex!)

1 Yen for whoever can guess the number of Tefa's experience with Japanese girls!

=P

Meelo's Lullaby!

When your puppy won't get to sleep late at night and decide it's fun time when you're drolling over yourself out of lack of sleep and the inconvenience of sleeping disorders, being a musician could help! Yes indeed; I played to him a Lullaby that I invented for myself but didn't work. It didn't seem to work at first ... He hasn't slept yet but at least he has settled down; and so I shall dub it "Meelo's Lullaby!"

Making a press kit!

In places where music actually means something, musicians and bands make press kits to promote for themselves. The press kit is usually is a pack that includes a biography, back line, band photo, demo CD etc... Of course in our beautiful country Egypt; press kits hardly make any sense since there isn't even a handful of venues that accept rock and metal bands. We, nevertheless, thought to challenge this idea and make a band press kit and send it to whoever may require one. El Sakkiah has already demanded bands to write down a biography and what not (which is probably just routine) but we thought of it as an opportunity to get one ready anyway just in case. We will fish out for places that are looking for bands and we will just send it.

We started today by writing down everything on a word document (legal copy of course *coughs*) and bought the necessary tools from a stationary store. The whole production won't cost more than 15-20 pounds but I think it is useful to have one even as reference for oneself.

That is our check list

Biography (x)

Back line & Equipment (x)

Repertoire (x)

Band Photo 6x8 ( )

Demo songs (x)

Video of Jam Session ( )

Lyrics - Exclusive to El Sakkiah's demand! (x)

I'll keep you posted how the final production looks like! We should record our jam on Friday and I'll probably upload the videos on Youtube so stay tuned!

Muhammad El Sawy meeting with Rock and Metal bands

Yesterday Rasha and I have gone to the meeting organised by Amr Hassan of Andromida with Mr. El Sawy. Lately El Sakkiah set new rules for metal and rock bands participating in El Sakkiah. Members from other bands such as Karma, Varden, Medic, Beyond East, Egoz as well as musicians and fans gathered to voice their concerns and problems they face in El Sakkiah. The meeting was quite fruitful and El Sawy was very understanding of the issues presented to him. The following are the points that we've reached with El Sawy

1- El Sakkiah will increase the invitations per band to help bring in "better" audience.
2- El Sakkiah will be more careful to prepare the necessary functioning equipment as agreed upon on the contract without delay so that the sound check starts exactly at the time agreed on rather than setting up the stage and having to start late (and get fined) or reduce down the setlist to save the day. If a delay should happen due to El Sakkiah's failure to provide its equipment, the band will be compensated with the time wasted.
3- The bands have the option whether or not to take a role in applying the Sakkiah rules on the audience. So if you don't want to bother yourself with asking people not to smoke and that kind of things, you don't have to and no one should ask you to anyway.

4- The Sakkiah will be careful with the security techniques specifically when searching the audience for drugs/alcohol/weapons etc... Ya3ny hayb2a el mawdoo3 be sheyaka and he said they'll consider bringing it a metal detector.
5- El Sakkiah will not refuse lyrics that are open to interpretation and only restrict lyrics that are vulgar or are clearly insulting to religions/deities/figures etc...
6- El Sakkiah will be open to accept any genre (including extreme metal) so as long as the band respects the rules of El Sakkiah.
7- There can still be 4 band gigs. Nothing has changed. I am not sure though if the 2 hours rule would still apply. I doubt it.