Practice Practice Practice

The Reign from left, Gene (Geno) Heliker, Bob Baker, Howard Holland, Me (sitting), Doug (Shad) heatherington, Craig (Cac) Chastain

Ok So We of The Reign have held two practice sessions since deciding to throw our fate to the wind and play this October 20 gig and the results are in. We still fucking rock. Sure, we might be 40 pounds heavier and wear bifocals to see the chord charts on the music stands before us, which most of us sit at in a comfortable chair, wearing sensible shoes. But the heart of a rocker still beats strong in each of us.

The highlight of our second session, which was held last evening, was that one of our former drummers,  Howard Holland, who will likely not perform at the gig, was kind enough to drive up to Portland from Salem to help us out, give us a solid back beat while we rehearse. Howard is one awesome cat. Howard, (pictured above), was with us during the time we recorded at Capitol Records, and is just an excellent rock drummer. Heavy handed as hell, like Keith Moon. And just about as wild as Keith Moon too. Howard has made his mark with a popular and interesting Auto Body business, Howard's Backyard Auto Body and Videos.

Sitting there with these dudes, working out the tunes, the dynamic is just exactly what it used to be. Musically, we take a lot of direction from Geno, cuz he is our brilliant and handsome musical guru. Then we just do the tunes, over and over, till it starts to sound like something. Looking over at each of my buddy's familiar faces, as I sing and bang on my cowbell, though many years older and all wrinkled up and shit, is completely awesome. Talk about de jevu all over again!

We have been enjoying picking tunes to rehearse that we might actually be able to shape into a listenable experience for our future audience. Cac provided the following list which was the repertoire from our last gig together at John John's in Seattle, 1970. Some of them are in code, but you get the idea.

HOUR 1

Lodi

Workin on a Groovy Thing

Here’s A Ride

Have Mercy Baby

Street

Fly Away

Born on the Bayou

He Ain’t Heavy

Evil Ways

HOUR 2

Wilson Picket medley

You Got Me Hummin’

Hard to Handle

Higher

Easy to be hard

CTA

Proud Mary

Can you dance to it

Something

Nobody

HOUR 3

Soul Shake

Domino

Wrap It up

Cold Sweat

Anyway that you want me

Green River

Mustang Sally

Can’t turn it loose

HOUR 4

Higher

Hold On I’m Comin/Knock on Wood

God Bless the Child

My Baby Specializes

Limousine Driver

Freedom Blues

Just Like a woman

Gimme some lovin’

TNUC

So we have been using old lists and other stuff to come up with the tunes we are rehearsing. But it's still a secret which songs we are gonna do at the gig. Stay tuned.

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