Monday, August 27, 2012

PoorWater Update

So, It's been quite a while since I've written a PoorWater update (since April 16th)! A lot has happened since then. In May, we had our last two shows with the original members of PoorWater. Bill took some awesome pictures:

May 5th at 910 Live (Cinco de Mayo or Cinco de Drinko as it's known around Phoenix lol)



 Devin sporting the coolest combination of shirts ever.
 Rock in the awesome hat!!
 The wind was blowing up on the stage during our set, so I had a lot of fun getting the "rockstar hair" going.
What you can't tell in this picture is that James and I both had the crazy
 hat and glasses on earlier in the set lol. Mine were red. Of course!

May 19th at Crabby Don's:



 


 Nate singing some back-up.
 Gotta have a picture of the shoes!!



 I love the filter on this one. It's like Devin is playing guitar in the wild west! That's pretty awesome.


 This one is very ghostly...







In June, Nate and Rock announced their resignation from the band. We were very sad about this, but we understood that they both had different paths they wanted to take. This is something that happens frequently in bands. In order to create music together, the people in a band all have to be going in the same direction at the same time. Often times people start out going in the same direction, but circumstances in their lives change. We had a lot of fun playing music with them for the last two and half years. Rock was actually in a previous band with us before PoorWater, so I've been in a band with him for four years. Crazy! We will definitely miss them!

So. What happens next? We've spent the last couple of months figuring out. Devin, James, and I, decided to stay together as PoorWater. Initially, we spent a lot of time thinking about whether we would audition new members and continue to be a five-piece. After a lot of consideration and jamming as a three piece, we've come to the conclusion that we're going to move forward with just the three of us, and if we happen to meet someone a long the way who is the right fit for our band, we might become a four piece. 

How will we work as a three piece? Well, James plays the drums and that won't change. Devin and I are both huge fans of having a bassy, deep sound in our instruments, so the two of us have taken over the low range. I've actually turned the bass up on my cello and started using the lowest of my six strings, E, more often. I never really used it much before because it's so low that it interferes when we play with a bass player. Devin is now playing through both a guitar amp and a bass cab. It sounds pretty cool in my opinion. We are also both still playing in our high ranges too. Devin sang before on some of our songs and will be doing most of the singing now. I've also started singing back up. My voice has finally come back after a year off of teaching music. I'm really happy about that!  

It's definitely been fun to experiment around with creating a new sound. We've written three new songs already. The soul of PoorWater is definitely still there, but we've started to bring in some darker, heavier elements as well. Playing with three members has allowed us a lot of flexibility in our sound and dynamic range. I can't to wait to have some of the new songs recorded so we can post them up! In the meantime, you can hear some of our new music at our upcoming shows:

This show is happening on Thursday. Rock has been able to join us for this show and we have found a bass player to fill in, so we will be playing several favorites from Harvesting Habits. This is a farewell show to Rock. We can't think of a better way to celebrate than to play an awesome show with some of our favorite local prog bands and an awesome group touring from Canada! We will also be debuting two of our new songs as a three piece. This should be an exciting show!

This will be our first show as the new formation of PoorWater. We're playing some new songs and some new covers. It will be awesome!