Maybe you and your former band can get a therapist and film the healing....

I'm still friends with the drummer.  The singer was a good guy, the bass player was terrible.  Really poor.  And the other guitar player, well I called him the mirror master because he loved to look at himself.  Except for the drummer and me the rest of fellows in the band had been together a few years.

The rhythm section played The Faces and the rest Pearl Jam.

Some mix!

Edit: I kind of liked Pearl Jam when I first heard 'em, but compared to The Faces, it's all garbage.

The rhythm section played The Faces and the rest Pearl Jam.

That might work.  The lead guitar player played Faces and the rest of the group played Pearl Jam.  The base player tended to play one note. I'm not kidding.

Al wrote:
"I forgot to invite you?!?

Now that's two things that have deeply shamed me in this thread in the last couple of days."

Yup.

The Mighty Wha-keem forgotten,
only the myths now remain.
He tried to be funny not rotten,
but all that he'd done was in vain.

'Cause Al the Canadian wonder
could no longer remember that name.
But where Al was sitting yonder
too deep for words was his shame.

;)

Geoff wrote (to Tom really, but here I go meddling and adding opinions...):
"How important is sing-a-bility?  I suspect, based on your tastes, you place it pretty high on the list."

Regardless of WHAT type of music you're writing lyrics for, singability has to be a factor (sure music experimenting with spoken sections etc may be excused from "singability" in the strictest sense, but there still needs to be something there to work with the melody, rhythms, time, etc).  Something I kind of learned the hard way, working on occasion with a musician who writes nice pop-rock type music (and has a good voice which is always nice for a lyricist).  Normally (though not always) he writes the song first and then I either work upon lyrics with him or on my own, but there is always a set of "nonsense" lyrics at least to give a chance to absorb the song melody properly.  In the beginning of our collaborations, I unfailingly sat down and counted syllables in his nonsense lyrics and wrote my stuff after that count, which caused plenty of rewrites to reach singability in many cases.  These days I sit and listen to the song on a CDR, have the nonsense lyrics as measure before my eye, but rely much more heavily on listening to whether my new set of lyrics can be sung along with the CDR.  Regardless of whether or not anyone likes my lyrics or not (and I've obviously reached at least a few people who appreciated them), I can honestly say that I've definitely improved when it comes to singability. That type of rewrite is much smaller these days (though it was in all honesty quite a while since I last sat down and worked on that).
Ah well, enough of me...

Tom wrote (on rock inspired musicals):
"Mixed feelings.  Anything that gets people into the theatre is good, I suppose.  But the problem with rock music is that it's not THEATRICAL music.  A song must advance the plot OR give us insight into the emotional center of the character.  Generally, rock music is not complex, well-developed music -- it's usually VERY simple, both structurally and harmonically.  It takes no great skill to listen to it.  (One of the reasons cretins like Andrew Lloyd Webber are so popular amongst 'common' people, but so hated among the knowledgable.  I know that sounds elitist, but there it is.)"

Well, first off I have to 'fess up and admit that I'm very badly versed in the music of your influences, Tom. I probably know more of that music than I know of by name, but I'd still venture it's a particular musical area I've not ventured far into... as of yet.
That said I would take argument with rock music not being able to carry plot or provide insights into the emotional centre of a character, especially since I'm a big fan of progressive rock and concept albums... and the very notion of using songs for the purpose of storytelling.  And would you argue that everything theatrical is complex and requiring skill?
Anyway, I think both Jesus Christ Superstar (one of my all time retelling of the Christ story) and Chess has a lot of plot advancement and insight into emotional centres of characters.

And Geoff... you've got me curious as to how the lyrics sound when sung.
After all, the notion of singability also affects lyrics in a fashion which, at least to my mind, means that matched with the right tune, even something that may look banal on the paper can become a perfect fit.
Note 1:  of course there are levels here as well. Not every banality can be married off and saved by melody and tune, and good lyrical material tends to strengthen the latter. Though I'd argue that "good" does not HAVE to be original or complex.
Note 2:  just for the record, I am NOT saying that Geoff's lyrics are banal. I have to agree with both Al and Tom on their quality. That said, I don't find a given inherent melody in the lyrical structure, which isn't necessarily a bad thing either, but it definitely has me interested in hearing how it would sound when sung.

 I think both Jesus Christ Superstar (one of my all time retelling of the Christ story) and Chess has a lot of plot advancement and insight into emotional centres of characters.

Superstar is a fairly good album -- parts of it, I really love to sing Judas' mad scene while riding late at night in my car -- but a LOUSY show.  Lloyd Webber, as a "composer," lacks not only technical skill (his transitions and key changes go against all kinds of theory rules and practices) but there's little musical growth and development throughout the course of the piece. Mostly just ENDLESS repetitions of the same undeveloped motives. 

His strongest score is EVITA and even there, the second act drags on.  JOSEPH/DREAMCOAT is the worst kind of paste-together crap, and CATS...?  Holy crap.  What crap.

CHESS is one of my favorite compilation of songs by the ABBA boys, but they've yet to find a plot to make the show work.  They've re-written it several times.  The American version is much better than the British version, but still, the plot is dense and unclear.  There's nobody to LIKE in the show!  All four major characters are flawed and unsympathetic.

My argument, Wha-Keem, is not that rock music is incapable of advancing plot and character, just that rock music -- as a genre -- is different than theatrical music, without many of the same considerations.  That's not to say there aren't rock shows that "work," but just that choosing rock to pander to the audience is not a good choice.

Have I mentioned yet that I'm a bit of a theatre snob?

That said, I don't find a given inherent melody in the lyrical structure...

And here we get into the idea of which comes first, chicken or egg?  I'm a FIRM believer in lyrics BEFORE music!  Lyrics inspire the tune, not the other way around.  I've had composers approach me with motives -- or "hooks" -- that they're looking to fill, and that's one thing.  But to have an entirely composed piece that one "fits" lyrics to is against everything I've been taught.

I'm back....

HOORAY!  I've been wondering when you're gonna pleasure us with your presence again, Juan!  How was the trip?

...a vacations spend 99.99% of the time together.

It's that .01% that you've gotta worry about.