Ever hear "What Makes You Think You're The One" (off the Fleetwood Mac Tusk album?). It's one of those songs that's primarily a collaboration between Buckingham and Fleetwood, the early 70s folky turned mid-70s arena rocker now galvanized by new wave and/or aspects of punk, with one of the most powerful, melodic, drum parts ever put into a simple pop song structure. Not long ago, Royce Seader had this urge to play the song "Tusk" (which I dutifully tried to learn on trumpet), and Chris Johnson, of Drunk Horse fame, and Royce were playing drums simultaneously, which got into all kinds of cool polyrhythms, but then I said how about this other song from that album---and Chris started playing an almost perfect imitation of what Fleetwood did. It opened up all kinds of doors for me about the possibility of utilizing my strengths, the simple melopdic song, a voice that sounds better when it doesn't have to strain over a loud noise guitar, but yet still rock in a minimalist way. Yeah, the drummer/keyboard duo often nowadays gets called the "White Stripes thing" or the "Quasi thing," but here was a new (old) take on it.
Other shared covers we bonded on included "All Sold Out" (67 era Rolling Stones) and "Sexy Sadie" and "Cry Baby Cry," and wow I started thinking about how much of my sense of piano rock actually comes from Lennon. It's werid that I never thought too much of that before, partially because Lennon did so many other things and isn't thought of as primarily a piano player (nowadays of course "Sexy Sadie" could be called The "Karma Police" thing)...Chris Johnson also excelled on a forceful version of "Get Ready" (Smokey Robinson; hit: Temptations) So, we'll see where it goes...
Hopefully we can get bassist (maybe Caitlin) on board, and I'm still thinking Rik Murray on guitar could work, but I could see this being a three piece (with maybe the ocassional melodic guest).

Because my portable electric keyboard has an awful piano sound though (it sounds muddy), I'm trying to figure out which sounds work best. I tend to find that, in playing originals, Chris and I come up with a better groove when I use the harpsichord sound. Now, I don't wanna overuse it, but it is kinda cool. Some originals that seem to work
well so far include "In Between Or No Way Out," "Abstract Halfway House," the "Ab Thing" (no title yet), "Not In Relation," "I Don't Care/Spit It Out" "In Time Just To Set" "I Break For Scaffoldings," my feeling is the slower, quieter, songs, or the more country-inflected ones ain't gonna work so well with this lineup, but if I can get another lineup together that focuses on that stuff, I won't mind so much. Also, depending on whether a guitar can jell in this situation, my dream that I could never realize with previous Continuous Peasant lineups of doing some freak-out art-rock jams like Velvet Underground's "The Gift" (spoken word before that phrase became silly) or No Trend's "Teen Love," now seems within reach. It would be cool to rock again, and Chris is definitely one of the best drummers I've worked with so far.