K&W at SCP - 21Apr2006

Same old sleepy South Coast Plaza. Mostly Asian kids studying again, but we did have a familiar return customer family with a little girl. Unfortunately, she pretty much tuned us out when she got involved in a book she was reading. Then again, good for her.

And my old boss, and Warren's old acquaintance, Tim, stopped by, and seemed to enjoy himself. Stayed for a good while anyway. Obviously woulda rather been playing than listening, but I have that problem, too.

The recording turned out pretty good again, though a bit overblown so the loud songs may be too badly clipped. But I think we may have turned in some decent performances, so we'll see what's useable.

Next weekend is my full-length "Kids' Concert", which has never been attempted before. I've tried to re-work-up the kids' songs in the book, 'cuz, since they shut down RSM for music, we haven't had much call to play 'em. Odds are, though, that I won't have many people there to worry about anyway. Stay tuned...

Disneyland!

We finally broke down and bought our Disneyland Annual Passes, but it was really crowded so we didn't get to do much. So we came back on Sunday, and it was really crowded again. Starting to wonder about my investment, there.

But, it was right around Spring Break, so it's probably not representative of the rest of the year. Our idea is to go over there a bunch of times after work on weekday evenings. The best part about an Annual Pass is that you don't have to "get your money's worth" every time. And you can enjoy the littler things, 'cuz you'll have other chances to get to the "E ticket" stuff.

We did manage to get on "Indiana Jones" on Sunday, and it was Acacia's first time. No problem. It's really kind of too rough, and too fast, and you don't really get a chance to figure out what you should be afraid of before it's gone anyway. They need to learn some subtlety in there.

We also saw the "White Witch" from Narnia. She's the quintessential "Ice Queen", and, amazingly, Disneyland didn't dilute that by making her a Nice Lady, "Here, sit on my lap." The lady they have playing her looks great, moves all "regally", and only barely tolerates her "visitors". There are some pages that are advising the people in line how they'd better act, so she doesn't "get mad" at them. It's quite a hoot.

K&W - CM 08Apr2006

Good night, sedate audience. That Costa Mesa store tends to be pretty quiet, but I had some fun with a few people. The best part was that my voice was working *really* well -- I was doing stuff that I usually can't manage, and hitting notes with ease that usually come out strained. Don't know why, but it's *so* cool when that happens. I usually attribute it to being warmed up, but I hadn't had much chance to sing all week, so I guess it was just the phase of the moon...

Got some more good recordings for the Live Album, too, which I guess I've come to think of as inevitable. Sometimes I wish it were even *more* quiet in the joint, so the recordings don't have chatting, grinders, water running, dishes clattering, or whatever in the background. It's reasonably rare that I'm singing well, and not making glaring guitar mistakes -- it's a shame when some background noise messes up the take. Oh, well.

And there were some new "Borders Coming Events" flyers there, with only the Orange County stores represented -- mostly the book signings and Story Times listed, but filling the remaining space with some small percentage of the bands that will be playing. There were copies of both March and April's flyers, and we were listed in both of them -- one of our several gigs, apparently chosen at random, in each. And in one of them, they printed our "publicity picture", though only our mothers would recognize us in that half-toned postage-stamp sized shot. Still, there were lots of bands that didn't get a mention at all, so somebody must like us, somewhere.

Geneva Made It!

We got the Official Letter from the Orange County High School of the Arts yesterday, and Geneva got in. She was accepted in both of the Conservatories that she tried out for, Creative Writing and Integrated Arts. That’s great for her, and also good news for Acacia, since she’ll be going for Integrated Arts next year for Junior High, and if Geneva’s resume was sufficient, Acacia should be OK, too.

You can’t have a “double major” of course, so Geneva will choose Creative Writing. This will be *so* great for her!

K&W - CM and MV 31Mar and 01Apr2006

Double Header weekend. It was our first time back at Costa Mesa/Newport for a long time. I think they stopped having music, and just started up again. The layout is a bit problematic, facing in to the café, with our backs to the store, but it’s like that at Mission Viejo so we’re used to it.

The sound was pretty good, and I finally got a decent rig to record the live shows with so the recording came out really good. I still don’t know *why* I’m trying so hard to record these sessions, but now that we have both of these nights with decent sound and some decent performances, we’re thinking of putting together a “K&W Live” CD. The sound won’t be as good as the studio CD, but it’s pretty close, and we’re better than we were back in April 2004. Not to mention that we have some new songs that deserve to be on a CD somewhere.

Unexpectedly, my in-laws showed up, as did my brother and his wife. That was nice. There are several songs I carry around in the book, just for my brother to hear, but I tend to lose my ability to remember stuff like that when I’m Up There, so I didn’t play them. Next time for sure...

Mission Viejo was unusually nice this time. There were none of The Regulars there, so we didn’t have to compete with their social club for sonic space. And we always play so much better when we’ve just had a “dress rehearsal” the night before. Unfortunately, I’m also tired in fingers and voice, so I only play better for the first half, and then I fall apart for the second. And, having just set the gear up the night before, we were faster roadies than usual, so we were ready to go early, and played from 7 sharp to 10:30. Looong set. We usually clock 42-44 songs in a night -- this time was 53.