Ready for Takeoff.

We've stopped counting Orli's bad luck moments quite some time ago, but that man is a hardened stoic. Latest news was him finally getting time off for a few days at the seaside, when his car broke down. He called immediately, but not for help. He called to let us know he may not make it for rehearsal next Tuesday. In a very calm and upbeat tone of voice. Let's all be Orli and not let things breaking down ruin our vacation or turn us into a less good person.

With Rebel Rebel around the corner, the rehearsal schedule intensified. Unfortunately, life allows us very few rehearsals in full attendance. Last Wednesday was actually our last full gathering. So we ran through the set. Oldies, but goodies are stable and concert-ready. So we focused on the details in the new songs. There was a long discussion on the harmonies in a song codenamed "My Final Game". Is it a dark new wave song? Or more of a poppy, springy feel-good one? I think we've settled on it being both, and the truth is that its character naturally demands it. Song is king, and we its obedient servants. This means it will be another ALI-fied start one way, and in another type of piece.

There's a song called "Happiness" which we just barely couldn't finish producing for the INTROVERSE album. We've played it live several times, but not consistently. Mainly because it's very fickle and requires tonal precision. This means that we need to re-learn and to a certain extent re-imagine it. We dove into the details about half-steps, harmony changes, cleaning up messy sounding parts, simplifying to make room for the character and the epic. A few iterations and rehearsals later we feel confident about it and will include it in the set.

We had a quite a few rehearsals recently where one of the instruments was missing. First of all, we have workaround since we record most of our rehearsals and can fill in by playing a recorded tracking - this is greatly useful. What's best about instruments missing is that you can clearly hear the instruments that aren't missing. If there's no drums - you can hear everything in the guitars, since it's not masked by their natural enemy - the cymbals. If there's a guitar missing, we can focus on nailing the heartbeat and backbone of any song - the rhythm section. If the vocal missing, you focus on tightness. If bass is missing... Well, it's not easy when the bass is missing, because you lack harmonics and half of the rhythm. Not to mention Kalo's keen ear and aesthetic sensitivity. Overall, each shortcoming is also an opportunity. It's all about the baby steps and not giving up in face of adversity, but embracing it fully until it becomes a friend.

You know it by now, but last week was also about launching this build-in-the-open blog/journal thing. I'd say there were three components to it:

What do we want to say? The answer is showing that having a career, a family and a life outside the band doesn't and shouldn't keep you away from chasing a crazy dream, like being in a band. Sharing that with everyone openly.

Building up the discipline of regularly creating content. We tried before with photos and videos, but we failed. Writing you don't need to do at the moment of something noteworthy happening, so here we are. We decided we're ready to launch because for a while we've been able to create these posts. Making notes daily, sitting down at least once per week to write this and sharing it. Doing your best to avoid typos, then realize you failed when it's a bit too late. And that's fine, we're all human.

Where do you post this? We've known for a while that posting anything resembling meaningful self-promotion on your social media account gets filtered by the algorithm. You post a photo with an "innocent" caption - that's fine. Engagement abound. But post about launching a blog - 10-15 engagements. So, it's very difficult to get to the people who want to know about the important stuff. Sure, you can pay - but paying to push yourself into the feed of unsuspecting folks isn't the friendliest and most organic way. We never paid for clicks, listens, plays, etc. We may be naive. Anyhow, step three was setting up multiple channels where followers, once subscribed, would get unfiltered, exclusive and timely content not always available at the public social media outlets. This way we have a direct, intimate setting just for us and the fans where no once can get between us.

So, please join us backstage for the sweat and the tears and subscribe to our Viber/WhatsApp/Instagram channels (any one would do) or this blog directly.

Finally, it was the week of Radiohead announcing their tour and opening the registration for the ticket lottery. We're aiming for Bologna. Keep your fingers crossed. Radiohead have aged well even when playing separately, so it will be something special to see them all back together again.