"Blatz Reunion" performance evaluation

I couldn't really tell how anything went, with the lights so bright in my eyes and all. I really thought I was singing unusually badly, because of the cold, and extra nervousness. The bass player was also throwing me off on the songs he played on, since he blew it pretty badly, especially on "South of the Border", which sounds easy, but the changes aren't as obvious as you'd think (and he thought).

Anyway, it was darn fun. I don't know how we missed doing "Let it Be", and I was hoping to get to "Hey, Mister", re-worked up just for the nostalgia value, especially for my Aunt Sharon. But I reckon she went away pretty happy with what we did manage to get done.

My old roommate Kendall is (still) a mechanical monster on the guitar. His fingering is so precise, and he insists on getting every note exactly right. It's funny (and amazing) to me that he still dissects every James Taylor album, decrypting every new trick that James picks up. But having Kendall as a roommate definitely brought me up from being a three-chord-strummer to being able to play with some class. And every James song I do came directly from Kendall, or from the James-sensing-capability I developed from Kendall's tutoring. I'd sure like to sit with him for 6 or 8 hours sometime and learn some more tricks...

Christmas Tunes

A lot of the Xmas songs are trivial, especially the kids' ones: Frosty, Rudolph, Housetop. But the old-time jazz standard types are a lot more interesting than most current (and by that, I mean "20 year old") pop tunes. Working those out is what got me to the level that I can do things like "You Don't Know Me", "Someone to Watch..." etc. (whether or not that's a good thing).

I'd be tempted to do only the jazz classics at Moxie Java: "Have Yourself...", "I'll be Home...", and maybe (if I can pull it off), that Eagles "Please Come Home for Christmas" blues tune. Seems like I learned two Elvis tunes: " Santa Claus is Back in Town" and "I'll Have a Blue Christmas" last year, as a joke, but they both worked pretty good. I'd expected to be embarrassed to do them, but they sound good, so I wasn't.

I guess I'd want to have the lamer songs handy, just for the kids, if any, by request -- that always bumps up the tipping.

I've had a spurt of new song learning this week (already) -- "Homeward Bound", "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" (in D, I think), "Mister Postman" (haven't settled on a key yet -- maybe C (i.e., C, Am, F, G, all the way through)), and "All I Have To Do Is Dream" (in C (hey, it's C, Am, F, G, too!)).

The latter three are all trivial, but I thought they might be fun, in the vein of "Standing There". But "Homeward" is deceptively tough. Maybe I'm trying to play two guitars (and the bass) at the same time, but the chorus is hard (and fast). The verses are easy, at least half of the way through. But that intro/outro riff has to be right on the first try, which will take some practice, and luck. The original is too high, of course -- it's in G, capoed three, but if I just leave the capo off, I think I'll be OK.

Borders -- It's Working Out!

Last night I went by Borders RSM to drop off some posters, which I augmented by taping a copy of the "Round the Rancho" newspaper article to the bottom, with the "You could find a treat at Borders tonight" modified by "X-ing" out the "to" in "tonight" and writing "Saturday" above it, in red Sharpie. I don't know if anyone will read the whole article, but it might help to have the endorsement of an authority, an Actual Newspaper.

Cidne wasn't there, but I handed them over to Tom (the "event manager"), who very gladly put them both up immediately -- one taped to the window by the front door, and the other installed in a pre-made poster-frame that's up on a pillar in the middle of the store, pre-empting a "Something Percent Off Sale" poster (!). He said something like, "It's nice to finally get some *good* music in here", which was pretty nice of him. He also wanted me to bring posters in for the next one (Nov 26) when we come in on Saturday, and he'll put them up, too.

He showed me the November Borders Official Newsletter, which has, as he put it, "a pretty nice write up". I had to admit that it's "pretty nice" because we wrote it ourselves, but it prominently occupies the whole middle column of the three column page -- they used our "release" in its entirety. I suppose it helped that, because of the holiday, there are few events, so they needed to fill some space...

Thoughts About Playing at Borders

I was feeling intimidated by Russian-born, Hollywood-store playing, multiple Real (looking) Album recording, gorgeous, "Marina V", and noticed that she was playing at, of all places, RSM on Friday, so I stopped by. She sings pretty well, plays a big electronic piano and has a guy playing guitar along but mostly inaudibly. Writes her own songs -- I listened to 4 or 5, and they all sound pretty alike. I wonder if it's because they *are* alike, or if it's because the "sound" (her voice and the piano) is the same, or if it's because they're all songs I've never heard so they just run together. Mostly, they're all very earnest, very serious, very somber. She introduces each song with a little story about it ('cuz she wrote 'em), and they all have some very serious Meaning to her ("I wrote this song while thinking about my little brother, back in Russia, who I miss very much..."). I was hard pressed not to shout "Lighten up!" at her. The place was very sparsely populated -- probably only 4 or 5 people in the coffeeshop itself (and one guy was clearly working on some kind of chemistry term paper on his laptop). I think she essentially sombers people right out of the room.

She did commandeer a table at the "back" of the coffeeshop (by the magazines) (which she could afford to do, since there was almost nobody using them), and had a little display of CDs, a tip jar, some small posters, and a little sign: "Marina V CDs, only $10". I guess this allowed people to just serve themselves. It looked a little better than a table dedicated to holding just a tip jar (as our analog would be). I'd be very surprised if she'd sold any, though. Or made any tips, for that matter.

I think it points up the strong symbiosis between venue/audience-type and band/music-type. K&W and RSM "match". Marina V and RSM don't. Perhaps she's a big hit at, say, the Hollywood store. We may be completely humiliated in Hollywood tomorrow night. But, hey, it'll be a story to tell, whichever way it goes.

Name That Tune

This is pretty cool...

http://www.name-this-tune.com/

a.k.a. "Musipedia" (.org)

It's a music encyclopedia, built on-the-fly by its users, on the Wikipedia model. Uses a clever tune searching method called "Parsons code", where a tune is described only by its changes, up, down, or repeated. Seems to work -- I found "Over the Rainbow" with it. The tune was detail-described by another notation method called "Lilypond", which had the tune, but sans rhythm, so in the spirit of public interest, I figured Lilypond out and went ahead and put some rhythm cues in.

Good fun, and potentially useful someday -- check it out.

P.S. Here's the Parsons Code for "Rainbow", just to get you jump started:

*UDDUUUDUD

K&W - South Coast Plaza - 08Aug04

Inexplicably, the South Coast Plaza Borders has their music on Sunday afternoon. We were greeted by a room full of intensely studying Asian college kids, some of whom had earplugs in even before we got there. Since virtually all of them were (a) too young, and (b) from another culture, the response was, shall we say, underwhelming. On top of that, the Muzak wouldn't stay off -- we had to keep asking them to kill it, and it would reappear 10 minutes later. It was a pretty big waste of time, but I always say, "A bad day playin' is still better'n a good day watchin' TV". (And certainly better'n waxin' the car!)

A year or two ago, I'd'a been deeply annoyed, probably, but these days I'm pretty confident that we're Good, and the lack of response just felt like their *inability* to respond, not our lack of talent. So, it wasn't really painful, just surreal. What's hard to imagine is who decided that Sunday afternoons was The Time to do that -- both being Insanely Wrong, and bucking the rest-of-stores trend of doing music on Friday and Saturday evenings. I imagine that, even at that store, the vibe is completely different on weekend evenings than on Sunday afternoons.

Clearly, although it was amusing once, I'd rather not repeat the experience, but that store isn't even on the September listing, so there's no danger there. And none of the other gigs are afternoons, either, so hopefully we won't encounter that kind of environment again. And, clearly, we've learned another lesson -- stand staring at the Manager until the Muzak demonstrably goes off. They need to know that if the Muzak don't go off, the Band don't play.

In retrospect, and without the pressure of actually standing there, I think I might have been a bit more aggressive, too. That's easy to say now... At the time, it seemed prudent to be a even swap for the Muzak. Along the lines of a string quartet at a garden party -- just music wafting by. I figured the kids couldn't have more issue with us than they'd already have had with the speakers. At least three of them were wearing earplugs even before we got there. Still, even if I had been *able* to dislodge the kids from their books, I'm not sure that that would be doing any of them a favor. Even kids that would have rather been listening to music were probably aware that what they *ought* to be doing is knuckling down. So I felt better just fading back, and letting them be OK with ignoring me.

Anyway, however a gig goes, it makes for at least one good story. This one yielded two -- the "Day of the Dead" gig itself, and the skimpily-clad college cutie who sat right in front of me and leeeeaaaaned over, multiple times, to get into her book bag -- all while I was trying to play "You've Got a Friend" -- probably the most concentration-challenging song I play. That there was a Test sent by the Devil hisself!

JT Night?

I took Geneva over to Del Lago on Sunday morning to check out the "Neil Diamond Tribute" karaoke. It's not "come up and sing" karaoke -- it's a guy with all the Neil Diamond karaoke CDs and a system, and (only) he sings. He's actually pretty good, and the old ladies were groovin' to it. He doesn't really "imitate" Neil, but he sings a lot like him, and wears a fancy shirt and gold chain. He's probably 55 or so himself, pretty close to Neil's current age, I'd guess.

Counting us, there were probably a dozen people there at the peak (all *not* his wife and friends). The interesting part is that he got people out there (and his "steak house in Dana Point" gig, and a private party in the condo complex across the street later that day) on the strength of his "come hear Neil Diamond songs" promo. If the poster had said "guy singing along with karaoke box", nobody would have been there. But these folks showed up 'cuz they knew what to expect.

Makes me wonder about, at least, the Marketing/wording on our "poster", and, at most, possibly doing something similar but with a James Taylor spin.

To start with, I can replace "Family-friendly classic pop" on the poster with something more specific, like a list of Featured Artists. Sorting the List by artist yields clumps of James Taylor, Beatles, Paul Simon, and Willie Nelson. I'm willing to leave Willie off the list, since although I think people like his songs (or these few, anyway), most folks around here probably don't think of themselves as Willie Nelson Fans. Maybe something like " James Taylor, Beatles, Paul Simon, and many more". Maybe stick Chris Isaak in there, for the young(er) ones.

Or, more extreme, we could do some kind of "James Taylor Night". On the Long List, there are 15 JT songs, some of which we don't *really* do, but which I can kinda do, and might could be worked up better (Mexico, Sarah Maria, Daddy's Baby). And I can probably work up a batch of the easy but not compelling (to me) ones. We could advertise a "Tribute", do all the JT songs in one "set", and see if the folks roped-in thereby (if any) would hang out a little longer for some non-James-but-along-the-same-lines tunes. That JT hook sure seems to work on coffee shop owners, as an intro line...

Autoharp Progress Report

I finished the chordbars, but haven't built any buttons yet. I've tried two temporary solutions, and actually my first-try little yellow buttons were better than the current bigger green ones. It also sucks that I labeled the sticks on the stick, not the button (with little peel-and-stick labels). If the buttons are the labels, it's obvious which label applies to which button (duh), but you have to lift your fingers to see the labels. This way you can see the labels all the time, but it's hard to correlate which is which. Dilemma. I think the original machine's solution is that the labels are on the (slanted) front surface of the (quite tall) buttons. I think I like that approach, but it won't work with the "T-shaped" buttons I'm thinking of -- unless I'm significantly cleverer with the table saw than I think I am...

I was thinking that the buttons are typically way taller than they need to be, as evidenced by the mighty-thin yellow ones I made. But now I'm starting to think, conversely, that really tall buttons my relieve some of the wrist-tweak problems. You can rest the heel of your hand on the "deck" of the bank of chord bars, and if the buttons are, say, 3/4" tall, your wrist won't be so bent to push 'em. I'll have to experiment with that before I start cutting wood.

Autoharp Remodel

Well, over the long weekend, I had time to build the new chord bars for my autoharp. It took longer than I thought it would, 'cuz although they're "just sticks", they need to be (reasonably) *accurate* sticks. Also, since I lowered the "action" (a lot), it mattered that the bass end strings ride higher than the treble end (because they're wound and really thick) -- so I had to taper the sticks to compensate.

Anyway, I ended up using "fun foam", which is a 1/16" thick, really cheap, "Arts-n-Crafts" material -- basically a modern equivalent of Construction Paper for kids to make flowers and butterflies with. It's about the right softness, though I'd have liked it to be a bit thicker. It seems to be working at least as well as the original felt.

Of course, I suddenly couldn't play with the theory anymore, I had to "cut bait", so I decided on a final (for now) layout. I moved the "long row" (8 buttons) to the "bottom" (as seen by the incoming left hand, when the 'harp is held upright), and the "short row" (7 buttons) to the top. This is opposite to default, but it put the 2m and 6m under the thumb when the 4, 1, 5 are under the three strong fingers. The 6m is a bit tucked under the index finger (on the 4 chord), but it's easily workable, having (now) tried it. The picture makes it pretty clear (but discount the apparent location of the pinky -- that's accidental, the pinky isn't used except for long leaps to "accidental" chords).

Building the chords themselves wasn't hard -- I had just glued a slab of Fun Foam to a chunk of wood, and sawed the whole thing up into sticks, with the Foam already on 'em. I just had to trim little "V"s out of the Foam where I wanted a string to sound. The chords worked out OK, except the G#m is pretty weak. The two top octaves are "complete", but the bass octave is missing the D#, G# and A#. This leaves the G# chord without not only a Bass 1, but also a bass 5. I cut it anyway, and figured it'd be OK since it's not used much. But I'm thinking that if, in fact, it's not used much, I might decide to replace it with, say, D#dim or something. Or, maybe, C/b -- though those are pretty far-fetched, too. I do have three spare un-notched sticks, so I can experiment.

But my two bigger concerns at this point are (1) I don't have any push buttons -- the ShopSmith burned through a belt just as I finished the sticks, so I couldn't build the button stock. As an interim solution, I used little rectangles of peel-and-stick (bright yellow) Fun Foam (!), which, since my action is so low, work pretty well, despite being only 1/16" "tall". I also just wrote the chord names on 'em with fine-point Sharpie, so that was handy.

The second problem is inherent in Autoharp design -- it seems to be perfectly designed as a carpal-tunnel-syndrome generator. The left hand reaches around the thing, cranks 90 degrees at the wrist, and tries to push the buttons, hard. Worst possible thing you can do to your hand/wrist. And it hurts, too, even before you get any permanent damage. Not sure what to do about that -- possibly better positioning across the chest, maybe hold the left elbow out from the body? With a small pillow? (At the risk of making people think you have some soft of bagpipe-autoharp hybrid...)

Final layout

More Thoughts On Autoharp layouts

Despite my sister's adherence to "old" autoharps, presumably with 15 bars (as opposed to the really old 12s), the Real autoharpers all seem to use the 21s, though seemingly always modified for better chords and chord layout. Unfortunately, there seems to be as many "correct" layouts as there are guys to opine on the topic. Part of the attachment to 21-bar harps is, obviously, more chords, but also the bars are narrower, so the buttons are closer together, and there are three rows of buttons, rather than the 15-bar harp's two.

So, I'm tempted to try a three row layout on my 15-bar Chromaharp (which showed up on Friday) -- though the rationale seems to be Majors in one row, Minors in another, and the 7th in the third. Since I won't have any 7ths, that doesn't necessarily make sense for me.

What worries me now is the matter of playability when it's laid on a table versus held up against the chest. Upright leaves the right (strum) hand in the same place, but reverses the incoming direction of the left. Apparently the idea is to be able to use the fingers and thumb (oops -- didn't think of that!) to chord, with "touch type-ability". I think this means that I'll have the Majors on the top row, so the 1, 4, and 5 are under middle, index and ring finger, and the Minors in the bottom row where my shorter thumb can reach 'em -- and shifted right so the 2m and 6m are *under* the thumb, not necessarily "near" the 1. Or maybe that won't work out 'cuz it throws a lot of the minor chords off the end of the rack...

On further thought, I don't think three rows makes any sense for my scheme, since I won't have any 7ths. The real hang-up now is this left-hand coming in from the top, or bottom, problem. I talked to my sister this morning and she said that she Never plays it laying flat (lap or table). She distains the crossed-over wrists thing you get when it's flat (though that's the way it's pictured in the booklet that came with my ChromAharP). This might explain why the playing position is never mentioned in the FAQ -- it's Presumed Upright by all the Regulars. But it obviously makes a big difference if you're gonna lock your three main fingers on 1, 4, and 5 -- where your thumb ends up (to the left or right of that), is gonna determine where you want to put 2m and 6m. I suppose I'll build it "right" (i.e., meant to be held upright), and my daughters will figure out that it works better that way soon enough. It is, mainly, for them -- but I want it to "bring 'em up right" chord-relationship-wise, so I want to put in the logical chord bars before I let 'em play it much. I can picture them playing along with me on some of my guitar songs, once the requisite chords are available.

Thoughts On Autoharp chords

Well, I tried a lot of chord layouts, but logic brought me inexorably to the good ol' Circle O' Fifths. But does the Way Music Works drag you to the Circle, or does the Circle make music work?

There are little pockets of logic in the Oscar Schmidt autoharp layout, but they evaporate pretty quickly. I can only presume that Oscar thought that nobody cared what key they were actually in (i.e., no one ever played with anyone else on a different instrument), and so being able to shift over and play in, say, Ab, seemed like a great idea. This is even more prevalent on the 21 chord model. And clearly, 7th chords were a lot more fashionable in the Olden Days than they are with me, now.

But, if you're gonna play with other people (or, maybe more importantly (to me), use other people's sheet music), you only need to aim at reasonable guitar keys and chords. My layout is gonna let me play in C, G, D, A, and E, with all the normally required chords available. I can't play in any flat or sharp keys, nor in F or B, but I'm pretty sure I can live with that <grin>. Even if my kids need to transpose a song to put it in their singing range, E is close enough to F, and C to B.

That said, it's true that since I'm not gonna use B as a I or IV, it can be a 7th chord. I can at least give it a high-octave 7, and maybe the middle one, too. Seems like the chords towards the left and right edges of the layout are "not gonna be I" chords, and can be 7ths -- like the Dm, too, perhaps. Still, I'm always a lot happier to leave a 7th out than to have one in that doesn't belong. Maybe they all can receive the high-octave-7th-only treatment, just in case. At the least, maybe I should re-scan a stack of songs to see which appears more often, B or B7, Dm or Dm7, C#m or C#m7, etc.

Bought an Autoharp

Whoops. Up and bought an autoharp on eBay. It's actually a "ChromAharP" (pretty wacky capitalization!)

While I wait for it to arrive, I got to mess with my mother-in-law's (real) Autoharp. It's a new one, with the plastic box covering the 21 chord bars. I tuned it (it was a half-step off near the top -- obviously not getting much use) and messed with it a little. No Bm! No F#m! 21 chords and I can't play any songs that are in D (which is *lots* of 'em)! E7, but no E! No C#s! Who dreamed this thing up?

I was starting to think that since they've built a few million of 'em, they must work for somebody, so maybe I could live with the native set up. But even on the 21 chord model, there's no black-key chords except for Bb7 and Ab. Huh?

So, clearly, I'll have to rebuild the chord bars. Not sure how I'll re-label 'em, but that's the least of my worries. First, to find suitable "felt". I wonder if some alternate material would work on the chord bars: some dense foam like flip-flops, or artificial chamois, or something. I also don't know if I'll rebuild the existing bars, or just replace them with duplicates -- might seem safer, and let me do some experimentation without doing any permanent damage. For one thing, I did layouts with three and even four "rows" of buttons (like the way the 21-chord boxes have three rows of 7). And to make matters worse, I read some guy talking about re-tuning some strings, as well! Turns out the low-end is non-complete, and he wanted a low G# to fatten up the E chord he was adding. More options to worry about! (Personally, I'm not terribly attracted to adding a low third to a chord...)

Chordie.com

What an Amazing Thing this is! These guys find tab/chord sheets in text format on any/all Internet sites, analyze it, and format it *on the fly* into that clever x-by-2 line table format to keep the chords where they belong! Who even thought it would be possible!?! An amazing parsing job, considering how many nearly-randomly-formatted chord files are out there.

And just for fun, since they've auto-detected the chords versus the words, they put little chord diagrams on the right. And on top of that, they do on-the-fly chord transposition, too. I am totally impressed.

They even "extra format" any found-in-the-text, 6-number, chord "diagrams", with the little string numbers over the fret numbers. Careful, though, it's still all the "OLGA-quality" (oxymoron alert!) files that are being presented. Just 'cuz the format's nice doesn't mean that the chords/words are right. Cool, anyway.

http://www.chordie.com/index.php

Tully's Dead

The manager at Tully's (where we've been playing nearly every Saturday night, for two years, for free) called and asked us not to come back, citing "customer complaints" about not being able to study while we're there.

Sounds like a pretty lame excuse to me, though. We weren't bogarting any "study" tables. "... not enough table space"?!? Isn't that an architectural/furnishing problem, and doesn't it imply that the place is full, and isn't that a good thing? I suppose we were deleting the use of two chairs, but they weren't "study chairs", since they didn't have any writing area anyway.

I guess I could buy the argument that we were too noisy to do group study around. But how many study groups come down there on Saturday nights, anyway? And do students that showed up and were chased away by the awful racket then return in the daytime, ask for the manager, and complain? Hard to imagine...

But, whatever -- whether it's a bogus excuse or a real one, we're out of a job. I wonder if, after a week or three, he were to get several complaints from people who had shown up hoping to hear some music, and were disappointed, whether he might reconsider. Of course, that would require the Music Fans to have the same determination as the study-fiend Philistines -- they'd have to show up on Sunday morning expressing their disappointment to Dave in person, since it's unlikely that any "Hey, where's the band?" complaints would be accurately and diligently relayed by the Saturday night staff.

But, frankly, as much as Tully's is (was) the highlight of my whole week, this just makes me angry.

I guess we'll get an occasional gig at Del Lago, and we could (and should) get back in touch with Jill at Moxie and see if she wants us to do a Friday (paid, and attended) night over there once in a while. And we can send another CD in to Diedrich, possibly with material recorded on Saturday -- though they seem a long shot to me now. (I did listen to a tiny bit of Saturday's file, and it sounded really "boomy" -- possibly not usable at all).

Or maybe I'll just have some Saturdays at home with the family for a while.

"Ring of Fire" notes

There's some real rhythmic weirdness in this song...

Discounting the pickup notes, there are 4 strong beats of mariachi trumpets, then 3(!) beats of guitar vamp, then the second line, same thing each a set of 7.

(Actually, listening to the bass notes from the guitar, maybe it's really 3 and 4 (not 4 and 3). He seems to do 1-1-5, 1-5-1-5.)

Then the singing starts -- 4 beats of singing, 4 beats of trumpets, 3 beats of vamp, for 11 total beats, and into the next singing line. There is no trumpets after the fourth sung line of the verse ("I fell into..."), but we go straight into the chorus which is mercifully but jarringly straight-four.

After the chorus, the second verse is like the first, 11 beats per line, *except* for the third line, on which, apparently just by mistake, the trumpets come in a beat late, so that line gets a more normal 12 beats.

Really wacky! Now I know why I'm having trouble figuring out when to come back in with the vocal after each line of the verse -- something in me is trying to hit a "normal" rhythm pattern. I'm probably vamping one beat too long, just to get it into 12 beats.

I'd love to see the sheet music for this thing. You don't see many country songs changing meters every measure...

"You Were On My Mind"

I worked up the "We Five" hit "You Were On My Mind" lately. The lead singer is a girl, singing (at first) way down low (for her). I had to transpose it for my range, and it's working surprisingly well.

The original was probably in E, but that was even way higher than the usual tenor-based song. I kept dropping it until I found a pair of keys that were first-position playable: G and A. I have a hard time imagining someone deliberately modulating into F# (from E), but if that's not how they did it, I'm mystified. I suppose it could be capoed, what, 9? (so G would sound in E), but that's very unlikely. Maybe it was C and D, capo 5. There's a prominent sus4 chord, which is B4 when the key is E, which seems unlikely to work, too. I thought I'd eventually find a "natural" place to play it, but I'm not convinced I have.

Anyway, it's a favorite of mine (even if this isn't the "right" way to play it). I was surprised (and pleased) to find that it was playable at all, and didn't sound terrible without the pervasive vocal harmonies. I guess I'll aim at capo 3, unless I end up straining "in situ". I can never tell at home, except just by the actual pitches involved, which seem attainable. It definitely had that "jingle jangle" Byrds-like guitar sound -- maybe Warren's guitar can sound like that, given proper knob-tweaking.

It's good because I need more fast(er) songs. I guess my problem with them comes from various sources. One is that I'm lame at strumming, which comes from a combination of my not doing it much ('cuz I'm lame at it, 'cuz I don't do it much...), and that my guitar doesn't really strum well. Turns out when I use my old only-6-strings-on-it 12-string, I strum pretty OK. Not sure what the difference is -- the string spacing would seem to be part of it, but it can't be that much different. I've considered hauling it in to the coffee shops, for just the strummers, but can't bear the thought of the hassle -- both of bringing it in, and changing guitars back and forth all night.

The other problem is that I feel like most rock songs, even simple pop-rock, really require a bass and drums, and I feel like a Guy-Who-Doesn't-Know-Any-Better when I play 'em anyway (sans bass and drums). The softer, slower stuff (e.g., James Taylor) features far less prominent bass and drums, and I feel like my rendition is closer to what they "ought" to sound like. (An exception is "I Saw Her Standing There", but I'm doing that "as" a blues tune (with, in fact, a far blues-ier bass line than the original), and pretending that it's no longer a "rock" song.

"You Were On My Mind", though, and a few more, are fast, without relying on the bass and drummer to drive it. So it sounds just fine to me, played by me.

Del Lago -- booked!

I got us a second booking at "Café Vista Del Lago" on the Mission Viejo lake! We played once before, and the owner agreed in principle to book us again, but hadn't given a date. I tried to coax one out of him by email, but that wasn't working, so I dropped by in person. A band called "Roland and Etienne" were playing to a packed house (about 35 people). I asked Jose (the owner) how many he thought were "fan club" and how many were "come by to hear (whatever) music", and he thought the former were only 7.

Later, I was talking to his wife, Lorelei, outside, and she said "We gotta get you guys back in here.", and I said I had e-mailed Jose but hadn't gotten any reply. She apologized for him, and asked my to just call her on Sunday, and she'd make him write us in -- which I did, and they did: April 10, 7-10pm.

Anyway, Lorelei didn't mention money, nor did I. We'll see how that goes, again. Presumably, they'll assume we cost the same as last time. It's hard for me to imagine that "Roland and Etienne" do this for $40. Alex, maybe, assuming he doesn't pay the "accessory" boys. If, in fact, the place fills on Saturdays (already) without the band's needing (much of) a fan club, we may have the advantage of being their most cost effective Saturday solution. I guess the question would be, even if we were free, and the place fills of its own accord, would they want us every, or every other, Saturday, or will they want to keep a "variety" thing going (since they have access to at least 4 other bands), just to keep it from going stale. I don't know how to call that one -- I don't even know what I'd do if I owned the place.

But, I think I've figured out what's going on -- there's a big Retirement apartment/condo beehive across the street. It's pretty upscale, on account of being on the lake. I think Jose's managed to coax a bunch of those people into the place -- the "non-fan club" people in there were pretty well along. This is a huge upside for us, based on The List. In fact, a white-haired lady that saw us the first time was there, again, and I talked to her for a while with Lorelei. She remembered us. If Jose's managed to turn his place into a viable social gathering place for the retirement complex, it's gonna really work for him -- and us.

I'll work up an e-mail for all the usual suspects, relatives and friends, urging them to come out and make a big showing. I'm a little afraid of that backfiring -- if they all come the first time, we'll not get anyone out the (presumed) second time. But, considering how hard it is to drag folks out, I guess I'll risk it, just to get some people there at all.

Lorelei agreed with my idea of putting some song lists out as advertisements. Both she and Jose had instantly gotten interested in having us the first time, solely by reading the list, so I suggested that it might help them to hype us to day-time customers. I guess I'll do a custom version with their shop logo on top, and make it more flyer-like, date, time, location, pictures, *and* the list. I had thought that she'd want them the week running up to the gig, but she said to bring 'em in as soon as possible, so I'd better get on it.

Songs To Play At Del Lago

My impression is that the crowd at Del Lago are mostly adults, but it's not Leisure World. The complex across the street are just apartments (or condos), not "assisted living", or a nursing home. Some people are there with their school-age kids, but I think most are 50-something -- adult, with grown-up kids so they don't have to stay at home every night anymore.

When I saw Roland and Etienne lately, they were doing a lot more pop stuff (versus the All Torch Song set I'd heard before). The ones I remember are "Twist and Shout", "I've Just Seen a Face" (!), and a cheesy "You've Got a Friend / Somebody To Lean On" medley. Etienne introduced a very large Latino woman who sang a Mexican love (?) song along with Roland on classical guitar, and then a quite passable "Crazy" with Roland back on "honky-tonk" piano. (I'm beginning to think that Roland is a Really Good piano player, and very versatile. Etienne, on the other hand, is way too cheesy for me -- she thinks she's on Broadway, and it's a little much.)

I think the clientele is up for the middle-years songs we have going -- Beatles and James. Even my mom, at 70, is a big James Taylor fan -- she's not looking to hear "Someone To Watch Over Me" all the time. I didn't really learn those songs to have some age-matched songs for people of that bracket -- I learned 'em like Willie and Linda Ronstadt did, 'cuz they're classics, and fun to re-interpret. I would never learn 'em on cheesy jazz piano and try to do/be (no pun intended) Sinatra with 'em. (And, yes, I know that if I'm not *in* the cheese, I can reach out and touch it with "Crying", and some others, but sometimes you just gotta push that edge.)

Anyway, I think it'll be a lot easier to pass our late-60s-to-70s-heavy song list off on 50-somethings than on the 20-somethings we'd be getting at Diedrich.

"Somewhere"

I've always been impressed by Tom Waits' heart-rending version of "Somewhere" from "West Side Story". It's an amazing thing, but it's all lush orchestra chords -- impossible to decipher. But, I found a MIDI file, and analyzed the bass line, and worked out the chords -- not too hard after all. Amazing writing: there's at least one of every "letter" in there; D, E, F, F#m, G, A, Bb, Bm, and C. It's in D, I guess. Not sure I'll try to do it in public, but it's nice to have finally cracked it.

Tully's solo - 06Mar04

Interesting weekend...

I played at Tully's, solo, 'cuz Warren was busy. It went moderately well. When I got there, there were 4 kids playing cards, sans paid-for drinks, in the "area". I stalled a while, since there was (nearly) no one else in there, but finally Barista Brian asked them to move, which they did. I set up and played some guitar, and they decided to adjourn to somebody's house. I played a few new songs, for practice, to the now-empty shop. Finally, another set of kids came in (5). They were friendly, and apparently into music themselves, and asked for some tunes. An exotic-looking girl asked if I knew "Wicked Game", and professed to know it herself. I said, "Come on up then", which bluff she called! Guitar, mic and all, she launched into it, not too badly. Her friends put money in *my* jar, although I was telling them their mistake there.

Anyway, I got back up and did a few more for 'em. Apparently they had something else to get to (movie?) and left at 8:40. I practiced a little more, and packed up.

Went past "It's a Grind" to see if they were open later than Tully's, and they were. Or at least, still were -- I didn't find an hours sign, but there were 4 couples in there (more than I'd seen at Tully's all night). And not all, or even predominantly Asian. But, it's just too small to play in. Next-next door is a Tea place that was also nearly full, and 8 or 10 people out on the canvas-roofed patio, owing to the nice weather. Might turn into a possible summer place to play.

From there, I went to Del Lago, about 9:30. It was nearly packed! Alex was playing, with a bass player, bongo-guy, and flutist. There were at least 20 people there, and 8 or 10 more outside with over-active children. Jose was thrilled to see me (!), professing to having wanted to call me, but lost my number. Apparently his wife, Lorelei, had just been asking after us a day or two before. I, amazed at the turnout (which did *not* seem to be entirely Alex's fan club), told 'em that we're hip to play there whenever they're open. Jose said he'd check the calendar and give me a call -- I left a card with my numbers on the back.

I listened to Alex for a while. He's OK, and likable, but (to me anyway) the stuff is kinda generic. Strumming and mostly unintelligible singing. I was struck/annoyed that he somehow fills places, and I don't. I'm apparently charisma-impaired. There's an Event Calendar posted, and Jose's got the place booked nearly every Saturday: Alex, Roland and Etienne, Mark Madison, Linda Barbarino (the lady I saw at Moxie Java). I was suddenly *very* frustrated -- I think we're at least as good as any of these, and better than some, but we're consigned to accepting 6 to 10 people in a night and thinking we did pretty good.

I can only surmise that the "play songs people know" strategy is flawed. No one seems to be taking this tack, and everyone is doing better than we are -- including getting call-backs from Diedrich. I'm not sure what to do -- giving it up is one option. Another would be to learn a bunch of obscure songs, based on, apparently, no criteria at all. Best would be to get a night at Del Lago and fill the place. I know how to do the first half of that...

Horseback Riding in Hollywood

We had a great time on Sunday. The stable is at the north end of a street that dead-ends into the Hollywood Hills. You drive right past the original offices of the Hollywoodland Realty company that put the original Hollywood(land) sign up, and the stable is only a few hundred yards from the sign itself, and most of the way up the mountain. You ride west through a gate, and you're in Griffith Park. After going up a while to the top, you wind down the other side, winding up in Burbank, at the 134 and Forest Lawn Drive. There's the Los Angeles Equestrian Center there, next door to a Mexican Restaurant, so they tied up the horses, and we had lunch. After lunch, it was back on the horses, and another two-hour ride back to the stable. We rode out at 11, and got back at 4.

And, yes, I'm really sore. The worst was my bottom, what with the horse insisting on trotting a lot of the time, so I was bouncing on that seat -- and I don't have much padding between the leather and my bones. Especially on the way home, he pretty much insisted on trotting, so I got pretty good at detecting the little half-step that indicated he was about to shift into trot-mode, and pulling him back down into a walk. Too late, though, I guess. My bottom is better now, but my back is still pretty stiff.

We did have a near-tragedy -- about 5 minutes from getting back to the stable, our 'expert' rider dad somehow managed to get his horse's back feet off the edge of the trail, a 45 degree slope. The horse was digging in from a reared-up, Hi-ho Silver position, and Roger fell off. The horse scrambled back to the trail, but kicked him two or three places in the process. Fortunately, it was just his calf, and a small ding to the forehead. The rangers got him out of there (somehow -- we kept going on to the stable), and the paramedics took him to the hospital. They did X-rays and CT scanned his head, and he's OK. Not a good thing for his daughter to have to watch, though. Fortunately, by the time he was loaded into the ambulance, he was past some of the pain and joking around, so his daughter was able to see he was OK. That ol' Roger always has to be the center of attention. I told him it was pretty nice of him to throw himself under the horse to cushion his fall.

Anyway, naturally, on Monday, on their long walk to school, Geneva started the campaign to get a horse. Of course, Daleen, having owned a horse herself already, won't hear a word of it. Even Geneva had to admit that 'maybe I shouldn't have gone on that ride.' She is 'working' down at the Camp Cookie stable for their Girl Scout project, so that helps. Unfortunately, they're supposed to be cleaning and repairing the stable, not playing with the horses, but it's hard to get Geneva to remember that...

Jimi Hendrix's guitars

It's reasonably well-documented that Jimi played a right-handed Strat, strung upside down so it would be "normal" to him -- bass strings at the top. The only "hard" mods would be to reverse the nut, and put the strap button on the "wrong" horn.

This puts the pickups in a strange "shape" for the strings they refer to, and the tremolo bar under Jimi's elbow, which you can see him working in performances. There's also some people who think that the long gap from nut to tuner on the bass strings in this configuration (rather than the treble strings) makes some difference to the sound.

Still, people labor under the belief that the nut-to-tuner gap, and the odd pickup angles (especially the closest-to-saddle pickup, which is strongly angled -- presumably to compensate for something, but in the Jimi-arrangement is now doubly-wrongly compensating) contributed to Jimi's sound, and they want it, too. So Fender makes (made?) the "Voodoo" model -- a not-exactly mirror image white Strat, so right-handed players can upside-down string a left-handed guitar, becoming, I suppose, the Bizzaro-Jimi. Actually, the neck and pickups are backwards, but the "horns", controls and tremolo bar are in the conventional spots. I guess it's more of a right-handed body (with "wrongly" placed pickups) and a left-handed neck. This avoids Jimi's problem of the deeper cutaway being on the wrong side, too.

Thoughts about an audition CD

Warren wants to put "Take Me to the River" first thing on the CD. I'd'a put it last, or not on there at all -- partly because I don't think it's Representative, and partly because I don't think I do it well. I guess we're agreed that for the audition CD, being Representative is optional, but I'm still pretty embarrassed by doing the song in the first place. (It remains a mystery why I worked it up at all. I guess I like the song too much, and hoped for the best.) Part of it is that I don't think of myself as a "rocker" (singing *or* playing), part is that it's (supposed to be) so drum and bass intensive, and we have neither (which is why I tried to add that MIDI part once), and part is that I'm singing it an octave down.

I guess every song I play has a little story to go with it. "Let It Be" is a favorite lately because I think I sing it well, and I feel like it's one song that I'm not really "imitating the original" so much. I don't sound like Paul the way I sound like James, and the guitar part is clearly not Paul's piano, so I guess I like to fantasize that it's (at least a little bit) a re-interpretation, rather than an imitation, which makes me feel cool. Unlike, say, "Fire and Rain" where I'm playing as exactly like James as I can, though I've tried to back down on the sounding-like-James vocally, and sing it a bit more like me instead.

The story on "Five O'Clock World" is that I heard it done by Hal Ketchum, and am imitating his version. I like the yodeling in it, mostly because it's so "out there" -- even more scary to do in public than normal singing. I like doing it, early and often -- and because of the "edge", it's what I chose to do at The Gypsy Den. But then it came to my attention that every "young and hip" listener associates it *only* with the Drew Carey show -- and now I'm mostly embarrassed to do it, 'cuz of the lame cultural reference. When older people are in the house, I think it sounds as I intended it, but with a younger audience, my sincere reading juxtaposed with Drew Carey's ironic comedic take = embarrassing. "Who's the geek up there singing that Joke Song like it was Mozart?"

And if you can bear another story, "A Whole New World" is probably just a mistake. There's a great, soft country version on the "Best of Country Sing the Best of Disney" album, by Collin Raye, a reasonably famous country star. (A) I'm not pulling off the country feel he (and his band) does, and (B) despite it being the Big Song from a relatively recent Disney hit, none of the little kids actually seem to recognize it.

Venue Troubles

We're gonna try to keep Tully's open as an option, or even back again as a residency (barring other Better Offers). I wish Dave had put the hours back to 10:00, not just 9, but you can't have everything.

It's clear that Moxie is Not Gonna Work Out, at least not in the short run. This last weekend was encouraging -- it was way up from the all-time low of Exactly Nobody the weekend before. I'd'a said that two more Saturdays of "near nobody" would have fulfilled our obligation to Jill. Admittedly, apparently everywhere was Really Slow through the holidays, and the grocery strike is still ongoing, so many of the "chances" that Moxie had to "show us the audience" were unfairly stacked against poor Jill and her little cardboard sign.

I don't want to get off on a rant, but my problems with Tully's are (a) short hours and (b) lack of support. Even if they back down on the open resentment, the fact that Manager Dave won't even put a stinkin' sign in the window bugs me. Moxie at least put up The Sign and some of my little posters, and Del Lago put up signs *and* handed us some cash. Dave won't do either -- and for the first oh, three months, that was understandable. But after a year of free Saturdays, you'd think he'd have thrown us a bone. "Live music Saturdays" written across the bottom of the whiteboard standing outside would have been a start.

Still, it's better'n nothin'. Even if the management and staff treat us like a scourge, the customers tend to be mostly nice.