9 Hour Music Marathon

There was some serious music happening yesterday.

Firstly, Noah and Steven were gracious enough to let me tag along to their Beach Boys practice. Noah also brought his friend Hilary who has the most incredible voice. We did some good stuff with God Only Knows and Wouldn't It Be Nice. In a mere three hours we were able to power through two full songs weird harmony bits and all. I even went out and finally bought Pet Sounds today. You should ask us to show you some time!

Post-Pet Sounds, we did a bit of unwinding down the street at Noah and Molly's place, finally settling into the living room. We had fun playing through our original catalog and Molly, Steven and I practiced a harmony for Fireball Mail (that song I've been learning on the banjo). It turns out that the song is about one of our favorite subjects: trains. Hopefully, I haven't already abused everyone's tolerance for bluegrass and we can work on it a little more. We sounded pretty great, if I may say so myself. Thanks to Steven for arranging the harmony!

We seem to be pretty into that texture that harmony adds these days, so I'm excited that it sounds like Hilary might be interested in joining our band. And she plays cello. How perfect is that?! I've been fantasizing about having a cello in the band since day one! She also has a friend who plays accordion, which would make Ciana's departure for the big, crazy, and far away world of New York City slightly less dramatic and sad. But it's still dramatic and sad - we miss you, Ciana!

Keep sending your awesome, musically inclined friends our way!

I'll leave you with the lyrics and the chord part of Fireball Mail. For the melody/harmony, you'll have to ask Steven :)

Fireball Mail:
G
Here she comes, look at her roll
                                                D
There she goes eatin' that coal
                    G
Watch her fly huggin' the rails
                            D         G
Let her by, by, by the Fireball Mail

Let her go, look at her steam
Hear her blow, whistle and scream
Like a hound waggin' his tail
Dallas bound, bound, bound the Fireball Mail

Engineer makin' up time
Tracks are clear look at her climb
See that freight clearin' the rail
Bet she's late, late, late the Fireball Mail

Watch her swerve
Look at her sway
Get that curve out of the way
Watch her fly look at her sail

Let her by, by, by the Fireball Mail
Let her by, by, by the Fireball Mail
Let her by, by, by the Fireball Mail