Stephen's New Band!

Yep, we have only lived here for six months and Stephen already has a new band put together. He's been working on this one ever since our first week in Athens, when a guitarist named Robin answered an ad Stephen put on craigslist, and they've been playing together ever since. Stephen and Robin have been through a couple of bassists and drummers that didn't quite work, but now they've found an awesome rhythm section that seem perfect-- I think this band is complete! Yesterday I went to a practice for the first time since the new members joined, and they sounded great. I'm really excited for Stephen! He has more than 10 original finished songs now, and his new band members are really interested in them. In fact, they haven't worked up a single cover song yet, they have just been focusing on Stephen's originals. I hear these pieces from their conception, when they are just a few chords and words put together, and it's always really fun to see how they evolve once drums, bass, and guitars are fused together. I can't wait to see what the new band does with them! Athens is supposed to be a great town for music, so we'll see what happens there. And if anything does happen, hopefully it won't be too hard to convince the grandparents to come out and babysit so we can make this thing work...



The drummer is hidden behind a support beam, and the bassist didn't make it into the frame... (Sorry for the crappy angle, I was sitting in the one available chair and was not about to get my pregnant butt up to take better pictures!) But are you seeing all this awesome equipment?! We're finding that one of the advantages of getting older is that people finally have money to spend on their music equipment. These boys can make some real music with all this great equipment! All the guys in the band are thirty-somethings (except Stephen) and that is an advantage too. They are all married with young children of their own (this means no practices that go late into the night! Yay!), with nine-to-five jobs and college degrees, and are mature, dependable, stable people (a very nice change from some of the younger musicians Stephen has played with!).



30 weeks at the Georgia State Botanical Gardens, a real Athens gem we discovered this weekend. I can't wait to see how beautiful it will be in the spring and summer, when we can take baby pictures there!