October 22, 2002
We played another Open Mic night at the Gypsy Den in Santa Ana -- our second attempt.
Shakti was pretty OK, until she started that third "headache maker" song -- although I do have to object to folks that sing so quietly/mumbled/slurred that you can't possibly pick up any lyrics. Why write lyrics, then?
Nima was OK, too -- he does have some guitar chops going on. I get the impression that it was two songs strung together -- the repetition in the second half didn't match the repetition in the first half. Still, it was OK, and had some melodic merit, and interesting guitar parts.
But... Somebody needs to tell these amateur songwriters when to quit. Less is more. Say what you need to say and close it up. All night, it seemed that song length was in direct proportion to awfulness.
Anyway, I guess we did all right. "Water Is Wide" got (me) all messed up. I got completely lost in the bit after the guitar solo. I was making up chords, trying to get back in sync -- looked at the paper, at the wrong place, of course, and trusted it... I musta been completely wrong for two or three lines at least. Somehow I managed to just keep the vocal going, though, and found the guitar part eventually. I gotta do the whole song from memory (which I can do with no pressure, but I'm not sure how I'll react with it), or keep my eyes on the page. (It's probably partially the fault of my "left margin chords" format, too. If I get lost, finding my place is complicated by the non-coincidence of words and chords.) If I stick on the paper the whole time, I have no problems, but it's not much of a performance.
"Tennessee Waltz" went OK, though. I think the room was a little stunned to hear such an old standard. Certainly in stark contrast to the home made stuff everyone else is dragging out. Nice to have some kind of "combo" quality, though -- everyone else is strictly solo (except Shakti's inaudible bass player, I guess). I think folks liked us well enough -- they should have been hugely grateful for the insertion of some actual songs, with actual chords and actual words -- but you couldn't tell that they were, or not.
I gotta say that the feedback is more readable at Tully's than at the Den. At the Den, you get polite applause, good or bad. Not really helpful. At least at Tully's, people are listening, or they're not, and if they are, you can see their faces (and count their money). And they say "thank you" on their way out.
Not to mention the dreadful sound at the Den, and the fact that you're stuck with the worst part of the performance, i.e., the first two songs, when you're still all nervous and not-warmed-up yet. (Arguably, that's good practice, doing "the worst part" over and over again until it doesn't affect you anymore, but still...)
Anyway, it (the playing) is not all that unpleasant, but it doesn't seem to have much value, either, since there's no real feedback. I can't think of what I'd expect them to do, but "nothing" isn't quite it. It does make me appreciate the Tully's gig all the more, though.
