Jeremiad ... Soon

Happy new year

To all our friends and fans from everyone in ENRAGED, happy new year!

We also like to announce that we will be updating the blog more often than we ever did so stay tuned for many updates, rants and uploads!

Jam For Friends I

Yesterday we had our very first Jam for Friends I where we played the whole of our setlist to somebody other than ourselves in the band. It was quite a positive experience and I was happy to expose our music and our performance to other people who have the knowledge, the taste or the experience to provide with insightful feedback. Many of the critiques and the observations are going to be our focus in the upcoming jams and I am sure it will help us sound better and tighter.

Thanks to Ahmed Aboul Wafa, Ahmed Feteha, Alfy, Amr Zanaty, Saif Helmy Sherif Galal & Shung.

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!"