I used to love band practice.

There were two distinct phases of enjoyment. The first was when we first started developing as a band, because this meant that we had a number of successes. "Successes" means things as small as getting the hard part of a song right, things as big as getting paid after our first paying gig (honestly, we thought that getting *paid* to do what we enjoyed was a myth, and that we wouldn't actually get any money), and everything in between.

The second was a period about three-quarters through the band's history. In hindsight, I can see it was the period when the band begun to stagnate but we hadn't realised it yet. Anyway, because we were playing the same songs over and over, and because we'd already mastered them (I use that term loosely), we didn't actually do much rehearsing; we spent lots of time sitting around in the lounge thinking up stupid band names and eating fish'n'chips. It was great fun.

I often wonder: If we had spent our practices learning new stuff and working to get better as musicians, no doubt we would have made better music, but would I be writing a post on an internet forum almost two decades later saying "I used to love band practice"?

band practise is magical. there's not many things better than coming along with the early embryo of a song, and just jamming it out and it magically forms before your eyes/ears thanks to the groovy telepathic people steering the jugganaut with you. fracking awesome. that and recording: completely awesome.