K&W at SCP - 05Aug2006

Another surprising evening. The usual contingent of Asian students inexplicably weren't there, and the place was moderately filled with Regular People, who were reading, but also paying some at-least-partial attention.

I was really hoping to get some clean, flub-free, songs recorded for the Live CD project, even if it meant doing the same songs more than once. Fortunately, the audience was uncharacteristically fluid -- people coming and going -- so I was able to repeat the target songs without subjecting the same people to them over and over. That was lucky.

But, the notebook I've been using to record these long sessions finally (and predictably) ran out of hard drive space, without so much as an error message. At the end of the gig, I thought I'd saved the file like always, but when I got home the machine was hung. So I had to crash it off, losing any data that was still in the program. Fortunately, there's a way to recover and reassemble the zillion tiny temp files the program was making, so I was able to get the first 2 hours (of 3) back. Unfortunately, I was definitely at my best in that final hour, so most of the good stuff is lost.

Still, we did get some good takes, though not all of the songs I would like to get onto the CD. So, we're gonna have to wait until at least one more gig (Costa Mesa on the 26th) to finish the CD. This gives me time to edit and finalize the songs we do have, and to figure out which ones we need (or need better renditions of) to try to snag in CM.

Other than all that, it was a really good gig. We got a lot of attention from the rotating audience, and a lot of people stuck around to the bitter end and came up to say nice things. Just as I was starting to announce that we had to pack up, a nice lady (and apparent repeat-customer) raised her hand and called for an "encore" of "Waltzing With Bears". Despite already being late to start the tear-down, how could I refuse?

Lots of people seem to have noticed the tip jar this time, and we made $62 (!), an almost-record, and certainly a record for that place. That was partially explained by the sale of 9 CDs, including one lady who brought one up to me as we were packing up to ask how much they cost. I gave her my standard "Whatever they're worth to you" line, and sent her back towards the tip jar. I guess she wanted to make sure I knew how much she thought it was worth, 'cuz she came back over to me a while later and forced a twenty into my hand. Maybe she didn't have anything smaller...