Speaking of Movies

Dominic has been putting Matt’s film “The Band Practice” back together. It was the 70s and I still had long hair. It’s heart breaking but most of the audio has been lost.

The film opened with Dominic performing his song “Listen To Me” with an acoustic guitar. He had to replace it with the band’s recording. He was correct when he said it’s my favorite song by him. I think that version was his demo for the rest of us to learn the song.

We ended up recording it in a small studio in the middle of the woods in Southern Illinois. I played an out of tune grand piano. For some reason it seemed better than recording it on my electric piano. At first I was unhappy with the sound but the piano’s tuning gradually grew on me. It has a very emotional, fragility the song deserves. It also features some of my favorite drumming by Benet. He was using mallets and I think his playing was absolutely inspired in those days.

I remember playing that song for my ex girl friend Jill. We were in the studio at Magic Masters and there was a piano. I even sang it to her. She liked it. We ended up recording the flexi-disc insert for Carrie Lindsey’s “Noisey Paper” down there.

Dominic has been sliding old recordings of the band in and overdubbing narration where he could read his own lips to restore Matt’s film.

There been a lot of email to each other about it and it seems Matt likes what Dom has been doing.

We all lived in Soulard back then. This was before it had a bar scene or even any rehabbing. Matt said it reminded him of the Beatles Liverpool. It always did to me too, even back then.

Of the 4 clips he put on YouTube, number 3 is my fave. Lora and I were seeing each other at the time. She’s the blond with the long hair. Our road crew and friends were always hanging out and there’s a great shot of them playing pool. Moe is the long haired gentle giant with the cue.

We were in the basement of a F.O.E.s hall we rented for rehearsals. The dream bit on clip 4 was upstairs in the hall. They would let us have parties up there as long as it wasn’t their card night.

The bar across the street where Dominic is pouring a beer used to give us half-barrels on credit for the parties.

The hall was at Compton and Meramec and it’s a bank now. All things must pass.

The audio is poor but we know what’s there. It’s a piece of history for us. I only wish we could have passed it on in tact for our kids.

 

http://dominicschaeffer.blogspot.com/2009/01/listen-to-me.html

http://dominicschaeffer.blogspot.com/2009/01/band-practice-pt-2.html

http://dominicschaeffer.blogspot.com/2009/01/band-practice-pt-3.html

http://dominicschaeffer.blogspot.com/2009/01/band-practice-pt-4_10.html

Riverfront Times review was after we changed the band's name and added Fojammi. Publicity shot was in the F.O.E. hall. Hey I just noticed, Tony wrote the review!!!