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Itching so bad to play - excerpt from Daily News Article |
Local musicians ready to return to live shows after getting creative in the year of the pandemic
By Brandon Schreur | on June 07, 2021
By Brandon Schreur | on June 07, 2021
For Duane Weed and the other three members of Howard City-based Jus Jammin — Mike Nulph, Dan Salas and Bill VanOss — their quarantine experience looked a little different from some bands.
For the past couple of years, Jus Jammin has regularly posted a series of songs onto a Facebook page called “Welcome to my Basement.”
“Three of us in the band have been playing for a couple of years now, with the Jus Jammin in the basement type of thing,” Weed said. “We had the fourth guy join us right at the time of COVID. What we are doing, we record a bunch of songs in our basement and then we post them onto this (Welcome to my Basement’s Facebook page). If you go and look, you’ll see everything from ‘Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room’ to ZZ Top and some Bob Seger.
“We’ve all been in bands before and have done a lot of things,” Weed added. “This particular group of four people has not played out (at a live venue), yet. Right before COVID, that’s what we were aiming for. Every place we were going to look at had to shut their doors, just like everyone else.”
Weed said the band used quarantine to continue doing recordings in a basement so that their Facebook page could essentially become Jus Jammin’s demo reel.
“We took a two-month break, but we started to come back even during quarantines,” Weed said. “We were practicing outdoors at that time. We wanted to protect each other, but we were also itching so bad to play.
“At one point, we recorded a song called ‘Coronavirus Blues.’ This was like three months into quarantine. It talks about being in quarantine and how we can’t wait to get out and start doing these things again. That was the one recording session we did outside, but we were still doing all the practices outside.”
“We want to play. Don’t get me wrong, we want to play. We also want to make sure we’re safe and the places that we’re playing are safe,” he said. “This is music therapy. This whole thing started off as music therapy. It’s just musicians getting together and playing.”
For the past couple of years, Jus Jammin has regularly posted a series of songs onto a Facebook page called “Welcome to my Basement.”
“Three of us in the band have been playing for a couple of years now, with the Jus Jammin in the basement type of thing,” Weed said. “We had the fourth guy join us right at the time of COVID. What we are doing, we record a bunch of songs in our basement and then we post them onto this (Welcome to my Basement’s Facebook page). If you go and look, you’ll see everything from ‘Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room’ to ZZ Top and some Bob Seger.
“We’ve all been in bands before and have done a lot of things,” Weed added. “This particular group of four people has not played out (at a live venue), yet. Right before COVID, that’s what we were aiming for. Every place we were going to look at had to shut their doors, just like everyone else.”
Weed said the band used quarantine to continue doing recordings in a basement so that their Facebook page could essentially become Jus Jammin’s demo reel.
“We took a two-month break, but we started to come back even during quarantines,” Weed said. “We were practicing outdoors at that time. We wanted to protect each other, but we were also itching so bad to play.
“At one point, we recorded a song called ‘Coronavirus Blues.’ This was like three months into quarantine. It talks about being in quarantine and how we can’t wait to get out and start doing these things again. That was the one recording session we did outside, but we were still doing all the practices outside.”
“We want to play. Don’t get me wrong, we want to play. We also want to make sure we’re safe and the places that we’re playing are safe,” he said. “This is music therapy. This whole thing started off as music therapy. It’s just musicians getting together and playing.”
