Early, Early, Early Doors

I've decided to turn my blog into more of blog, and in doing this I'm going to write about what has really became a key theme in my life, being the drummer in the band The Excuses. I'll still write some short stories and abstract stuff from time to time, but for now this just makes more sense.

I'll start off with a very brief history of the band. We formed early in 2010, practiced and wrote a fair bit, began gigging in April and haven't really stopped since, playing venues like The Button Factory, Crawdaddy, Andrews Lane Theatre in Dublin and last but not least, the dearest Harbour Bar in Bray!

The earliest thing I remember about the band is our first practice in our first practice place, a born-again Christian warehouse turned youth club in Little Bray on a very cold, very dark Wednesday in November 2009. Paul and I had talked about jamming for a few months and had put off actually starting for 4 or 5 weeks, so long in fact that the guy who opened the warehouse for us and let us practice probably wouldn't have ever let us start if we postponed it even a week longer, my 5th consecutive cancelling of our Wednesday night slot had clearly irked him. In any case, with our future lead guitarist and husky vocalist David in his sick bed in a terrible state, whinier singer/rhythm guitarist Paul and his bass slapping brother Alan and I went to practice. We instantly weren't a hit with the crowd who frequented the place, with their first impression of Paul ending with him cursing his "shitty old guitar," I should have told him they don't like swearing. As we walked onto the stage in the back room of the warehouse which was occasionally used to throw gigs, Paul asked if we should run through Evil by Interpol just to see where we all stood. I had learned this in the few weeks previous since it was the flagship song of the guys older band, Las Armas.

So the first song we ever played was just the three of us, we produced a very bare and very rough cover of this brilliant song. I'd known Alan from around for years but never had anything close to a relationship with him (oh how that would change!) unlike with Paul as we had always been in the same close group of friends but just never been very close ourselves (change, change, change!). I'll forever remember what Alan said directly after the song though "I didn't know you were actually a good drummer!" How wrong he was! I'm not great now by any stretch of the imagination, but back then I spent weeks struggling to learn Hang Me Up To Dry and Evil because I simply didn't have the ability to play them. I'd been drumming for years but never had any extended practice and was really, really awful!

The rest of the practice went surprisingly well, for a lot of failed tries I'd never actually jammed with what could have been a real band before. This practice is also when we first played Don't Drop Me. The Doran's had written this song acoustically and been playing it for probably a year or so but this was the first time it would have drums to it. The drums were originally a very simplified version of the beat from Where I End And You Begin by Radiohead. I never usually take beats directly from a song but this track is special, I've listened to it thousands and thousands of times, no exaggeration at all. Its easily my favourite song of all time, its alternate title is what this blog is named in honour of and this drumbeat is the one that inspired me to learn the instrument which I love so much now, it was only fitting that the first song I ever crafted drums to was in the mould of the brilliant Phil Selway. All this being said, since the song has evolved over the months the drums have actually become much changed to what they originally were.

We finished the practice and went for a pint down in the old Harbour Bar. If anyone had have herd the music we were playing they would have acknowledged that it was complete shambles, but much like the first practice in The Commitments, it was definitely a start. Plus it was the first time we'd played two of our current mainstays, Hang Me Up To Dry and Don't Drop Me (Here is a live performance of Don't Drop Me and Hang Me Up To Dry @ The Button Factory last month)

The same time the following week we were to have our first practice with David O'Rourke, oh how I didn't realise how much this would change my life as the man who I barely knew at that time is now one of my dearest friends and one of the few people who make me hold on to what little faith I have in humanity! But thats something that I'll write about another day.

Great God!
Shelbs