-Here’s a little glimpse of what happens at a CAROLINE BLUE rehearsal (Wed. 3/18/09)….and one thing that normally DOESN’T happen 🙂

-On the weekdays the band usually practice at night. Doc & Joe (along with Art-the guy the band rents the room from) are the 1st to arrive. WWJ is always the last to arrive-mainly cause he’s coming out of where he works and the distance involved. On Wednesday nights the band usually goes over songs that have been added to their set list & any “problem” songs. Then-if they have a show that weekend, they load up all their gear into Doc’s van. CB’s practices are-for the most part-closed rehearsals so more work can get done. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have a good time though. There are quite a lot of jokes being made-usually at Drummer Joe Boyle’s expense :). And what happened on this particular rehearsal will not help 🙂

-On this night, the guys were going over the set list for their show at Boneshakers Tavern in Ogdensburg, NY on 3/21/09. Basically working on the pacing of the show and tightening things up. Things were sounding great….until…..

-The band had just launched into the song “Slave to the Hourglass” when suddenly-and loudly-everyone heard over the PA…. “STOP!!!!….I have to go out and stretch for a moment!” Now, before we continue, we have to set this up. Joe is a great guy , but he seems to have this habit of injuring himself on his drums. It’s not uncommon-for example-to hear an “OW!” and find out that Joe accidentally hit himself in the head with one of his sticks. Or that his hand hit a cymbal or something. It’s all part of his playing style-the caveman within him :).

-This night took things to a whole different level. What was initially a cause of concern quickly turned into a horde of laughter. (after making sure Joe was OK of course). What Joe had done was hold one of his sticks a little higher up than normal-resulting in part of the stick going below his hand. When he came down to hit the snare-and because he was sitting so close to the snare-the exposed part of the stick slammed him right in the balls! That’s gotta hurt! So Joe had a quick choice to make-continue playing the song and take the pain or stop immediately. Any guy reading this knows that pain in that area can be pretty intense and the Joe quickly chose the later.

-Course, after making sure he was OK, Joe was ragged on a lot since he’d taken his self-mutilation on the drums to a whole different level. But don’t think the band was being uncaring. In fact, because of this, the band will soon be opening up a new fund for Joe. This will be the Joe Boyle Testicular Recovery Fund. All donations will be most appreciated & accepted. Testicle donations will also be accepted but subject to approval by Mr. Boyle 🙂