ThreeFold Chord

Geez, it has been almost two months since my last post. Well...much has happened in that period, most of which I would not bore you with. Kids are in baseball/softball, I got through another grad semester with two A's. Lisa got a promotion. My brother got married, so all is good. Last Sunday we were at Hurricane, this Sunday was youth worship and graduation banquet, good, good stuff.

Now, tonight there is something special in store. About 3 or 4 years ago, I picked up a guitar in Dino's dental lab and strummed it a bit. I had played a short while in HS, mainly at my friends house for fun. I learned a few bass runs that I still remembered and played them at Dino's. He had a few and I would go and play with him. Well, he got me a used Galveston guitar for my birthday and I played it for at least a year. Then, he found a very nice Fender acoustic/electric that I play mainly now. I also got a hand me down Epiphone 12 string a few months ago, so my collection is a bit bigger.

One day, he and I were playing, early on, and I began to play this strange chord I had seen on a web site guitar tab, and we liked it. We put that together with a few more chords and had a melody. Then, we started to write lyrics. They came fairly easy to us, when we worked off of each other. We wrote a song called "Rescued Me". We wrote a few more songs here and there, just for fun. I liked writing songs, working creatively, its alot of fun to me, to hear it work. Soon after that, I met Dino's sister, Alicia...she has an amazing voice and also writes. We began to write and play/sing together. I started to think of things more in that mold. I had a long talk with my mother after Easter dinner a few years ago and that turned into a song. I wrote it in a day and when I read them to Dino and Alicia, he put music to it almost instantly. It usually works out that way, a group effort. I may play a riff or something, we like it, build from it and go from there. Dino is a more technical player that I am and I usually bring a better sense of rhythm to the table. Alicia hears great word melodies, and we all three write well with each other. So, one night I came up with the name "ThreeFold Chord" for us, playing on the bible reference. The three of us, our respective talents making a chord of music. We write Christian songs almost exclusively.

About a year ago, we had about 15 songs and decided to do an open mic thing in Ashland and Thunder Bay studios. It was terrible, mainly due to me. I was ridiculously nervous for the small crowd, lights on, sweating like a mad man (I was told I looked like Robert Hays trying to steer the shuttle from the sun in "Airplane II"). The setup, stagewise was all wrong for us. I could only hear my guitar coming back to me, I was looking at Dino's back, about a foot lower. I could not hear them, and we stunk. I thought I would never do that again. I knew I would be happy just to write for fun now and again. Well, since that night things have gone better. I have noticed more confidence in my playing...Dino and I did play at his church on morning and did very well. We have at least 5 more songs, some real good ones. We had made a pretty rough CD demo at a friend's studio before the Thunder Bay debacle, and Dino plays it for people. He knows alot of people in Kentucky, and everyone really likes it. He has had a few offers for us to play, and tonight we are going to do just that.

We are "headlining" a church function in Grayson Kentucky for a regional men's retreat facility. We are on their flyer, our first recognized poster for a performance. It sometimes brings in quite a few people, from alot of different churches, as it serves many areas. I am actually excited about it, and we have been practicing for a while for it. We are only playing 5 songs, three of our own and two traditional hymns, but hey, its a gig. So, I am praying that it goes well, not so much to get new gigs, but just so we don't sound stupid in front of people. However, we have some business cards made up and will be prepared to hand them out if requested. If we do well and gain interest, that would be nice...however, its not like I would ever want to make a living going all over the place on weekends to play music. Not my bag, but, for fun, if we play a few places and play well, I think it would be pretty cool.

ThreeFold Chord rides again.