About The Learned Project
For the better part of the year, Vince Learned’s tiny little house in the Russian Bottoms has hosted weekly rehearsals for The Learned Project. The dogs get locked in the bedroom as we pack the two main rooms with bodies, gear and enthusiasm. At times the little house holds three or four of us. Other times we’ve got the full compliment of seven players. It’s cramped. It’s dark. It’s creative. It’s bliss.
During these sessions we gather around Vince’s piano, with some sheet music or hand-written charts. We joke around. We make some suggestions for arrangements. Then we pick a song and play it. Sometimes we make it all the way through the song on our first attempt, sometimes there’s a train wreck that makes us start over. But somewhere during those first run-throughs, we fasten on to the essence of the song and make it sound like us. That’s when the magic happens. That’s when we look around the room smiling and say, “damn… that doesn’t suck!” These are the moments we want to share with our audience. We bring this same excitement and raw energy to our performances, as if we have invited the audience into Vince’s living room.
So what do we play? Primarily rock and roll, although we’ll frequently dip into other genres. We gravitate towards danceable music, but balance it out with some slower tempo songs. Our tastes are skewed towards classic rock, but make sure we pull some contemporary music into our repertoire. Sometimes we pick the obvious hits, but often prefer the deep cuts. There’s no regular formula for picking songs, except that it must feel like a VLP tune. Oh yeah, and for each gig, we try to play 60 minutes of music we’ve never done before. Come see us play. We can’t guarantee what you’ll hear on any given night, but we can guarantee it will be interesting, creative, adventurous and exhilarating.
Most Frequently Asked Question ~ If the name of your band is The Learned Project, why the hell do you call yourselves VLP?!?
Cause it sounds cooler than TLP. That sounds like an abbreviation for toilet paper or something. While VLP just sounds better.
