K&W at Mission Viejo - 31May2008

We set up in the corner again, where the sound is better, if not strictly "good". Pretty friendly crowd, in general.

I recently discovered a firmware hack for my camera that lets it take video for longer than the ridiculous Canon-imposed 1 minute. With that installed I can fit 84 minutes, at kinda-low frame size and frame rate, on the 2-gig card. I set the camera up over at the side so it's edge-on and can see both of us, without being so far away. The sound is a little flattened (probably by high- and low-pass filters on the audio in the camera (or a cheap mic)), and the video is necessarily low-quality, but it's still fun to have. I posted three songs that turned out pretty well, here.

I guess I'll try to get more video in coming weeks. With familiarity, I should be able to forget that it's there, and turn in some decent performances -- as opposed to my usual completely screwing up the evening just because there's a camera pointed at me.

Keith solo at Costa Mesa - 24May2008

I've been dreading Costa Mesa gigs lately, because it's usually just a bunch of older men there, but this time was pretty OK. I had a nice little family come by and listen for a few tunes, and then there was a cute young Asian girl, apparently there to study some pretty elementary English, who seemed very appreciative. Maybe she was just smiling and nodding in total incomprehension...

Anyway, the sound seemed better than usual for this place, and I was playing pretty well, and my SuperFan didn't show up, so it was a pretty good night.

K&W at Java Joe's -- 22May2008

Well, that was disappointing. Last time we played a Thursday, there were 8-10 people and we had a blast (or I did, anyway) and made $54. I was hoping that this time would build on that, since we played the Open Mic (3 songs) there two nights before to a packed room, and passed out a bunch of mini-flyers, which seemed to be well-received.

But, the place was essentially empty. Jean, a hard-core Regular was there as she always is, playing Scrabble with owner-Chuck, and a disinterested family were there to chat and watch the basketball game, but that was it. Jean's really nice, and she was half listening and asked for a few tunes, but it wasn't really enough reason to drive all the way out there.

The sound was pretty good -- we had our own equipment and it was my favorite sonic environment: total silence, but I prefer it when the silence is broken now and again by some applause...

Still, since we were there anyway, I kind of enjoyed playing, 'cuz it's just fun to play -- especially with the amp and reverb and all. And Chuck snuck a $20 into the tip jar while I wasn't looking, 'cuz he's like that. But Warren is discouraged by how hard it is to do a weeknight gig in the first place, and it's certainly not worth it to either of us if nobody shows. It may have been the threatening rain, or that it was Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, but who knows?

So, we're lined up for one more gig there, on a Friday, which, according to Chuck, will be "jammed". We're pretty obligated, according to Chuck's plan, to play the Tuesday Open Mic before that date, too. Warren's also frustrated by the Open Mics, because the sound is so terrible that he can't tell what he's doing. And those nights are essentially big parties, and only pretty-hard rock penetrates the group, and I don' play dat. This elevates Warren's frustration even more, 'cuz he wants us to play rock all the time, and while that doesn't really work at "real" coffeeshops, it's probably required for this place (which is really, at night, a (wine) bar), on Tuesdays at least, and, no doubt, on Fridays too.

Which means that we're in trouble for that Friday gig. I will, of course, give it a try, and play all my "hardest" songs, but we run out of those pretty quick. They aren't my strength, and not really my interest, and my guitar just doesn't "work" for strumming, and, for that matter, they aren't really appropriate in a bookstore coffeeshop, so I just don't bother to learn that kind of song. Even if I did learn some, I've got no place to practice "pulling them off" in a real-life setting. There's a big difference between my bedroom and a crowded bar...

Naturally, I prefer not to view all this as a shortcoming of mine, but as a mismatch in my capabilities and a gig we probably shouldn't have signed up for. (By horrible coincidence, this is sounding all too much like my work situation of late, where I'm being asked to do things I don't know how to do, and have no interest in doing or learning how to do.) I am pretty worried by it, though, which is odd because I played a pretty big party a few weeks ago in Long Beach, and it seemed to go well, despite my lack of rock-and-roll.

Anyway, we'll give it a shot, and see if we can persuade the audience to want to hear what we've got to play. It may be a disaster, and we'll quit playing weekends there, but maybe there'll be an opportunity to play on weekends (probably solo) when the mood is more mellow.

K&W at Java Joe's, open mic -- 20May2008

Just as we were walking up to the shop from the parking lot, we heard our names announced as "up next!" Whoops! So we scrambled our gear up there and got plugged in, and did our three tunes: "With a Little Help From My Friends", "Homeward Bound", and, despite not knowing it very well, "Mexico".

I made the expected mistakes on the tricky intro, and screwed up some on the other songs, just from losing focus, but the sound was the best we've ever had on one of these Open Mics using Scott's equipment, so I actually felt pretty good about my performance. I was able to hear, and with no time to get nervous, I relaxed into it and "let 'er fly" from time to time during the songs.

We stuck around to watch some of the other guys play, of course. Most are pretty good; some, not so much. After a while, an older (than me!) guy got up and was playing some classic blues stuff on a Dobro, not too well, with unintelligible vocals (partially due to the bad mix). Three women with haircuts and miniskirts that would have looked better on their daughters got up and started dancing with each other up in front of the stage. They were probably in their late 30's, but the wine was telling them that they were 18.

Everybody was pretty amused and/or scandalized, especially the guy's wife who was standing in the back next to me. She didn't know whether to be mad or to laugh, though she figured that her husband would be "loving it". I was jealous, myself -- where were the drunk groupie dancing lesbians when *I* was up there? I guess we just got there too early. Maybe next time...

Keith plays an Art Show -- 18May2008

Well, that was completely different. A lady who saw me play at the Costa Mesa Borders hired me to play her "Art Show", which really turned out to be a big patio party for all her friends and family. The place was a "décor" shop in Long Beach, which sells mostly home trinkets: wind chimes, sun catchers, pewter gee-gaws -- built out of an old bungalow. Laura had 10 or 12 of her paintings up in the various rooms, and set me up on the "patio" which was really the one-car driveway that used to let the car get from the street to the backyard garage.

That put me in the middle of a long narrow space, between the block wall and the house, which made for a pretty loud, echo-ey space. Laura specifically told me that I should play loud -- she wanted people in the house to be able to hear me, and come out to find the party. So, I cranked up pretty loud (for me), and played -- at first to nearly nobody, but people arrived, and only a few left, so it got pretty crowded after a while. There was lots of food, and sangria and wine, and it got to be a full-on party.

Nobody was really paying attention to me, so I just played -- even though it was really loud in there. People were standing right in front of the speakers, shouting their conversations, but they didn't seem to resent me for it. I figured that if I were a boombox, I wouldn't "care" that I was being obnoxious, so I just kept playing, party-style: loud music, shouting people.

But since nobody was paying attention, I didn't do any talking between songs, and nobody was asking for requests, either. This meant that I played almost the whole time, with hardly any time between songs. I even strung the with-capo songs together (since it didn't matter which songs I played when), and that kept the pauses for tuning down.

Which all meant that I played almost solid for the 3 hours she had me booked for, and, since the party wasn't really over at 7, a half hour more than that. I played almost every song in the book, and some of them twice. My fingers were just about dead, and my brain was starting to rebel too, towards the end -- I kind of felt bleary, like I'd just woken up or something, and was staring at the music and doing stuff nearly at random, in spite of what was right in front of me.

Anyway, Laura noticed that I was over-time and told me to quit. I had some of the food that was left, and she told me how perfect it was, and how all the guests loved the music, and she handed me an envelope. We had agreed on $250 for the gig, but when I opened it, there were 3 hundred-dollar bills in it.

It was pretty strange to play against such a wall of sound, but apparently it was "as expected" for the people there. I certainly prefer quieter places where I can tell what I'm doing, and people who actually listen, but for $300, I can make an exception.

K&W at Mission Viejo -- 10May2008

We tried a new location within the store this time -- over in the "corner" of the café, near the magazine racks. This made the sound reflections different (better?) and got us at least a little further from the grinders. I thought it was a bit better anyway, though it made it more crowded for the two of us. When we play in the middle of the side wall, the sound there is almost unbearable.

Anyway, we played for an hour, and then Warren had to leave to join another guy at The Spectrum. This was both "a better offer" for him (he's played with me dozens of times already), and a scouting mission to see if we might fit in and/or be able to play there. No report on that part of it yet, though.

I kept playing solo, and was getting some pretty good connections going towards the end there. After I'd packed most of my gear and was going around collecting the song sheets up, I fell into talking with an older couple who really seemed to like my stuff, and were somewhat educated about music, having some friends that play at various places. That was kind of nice. They really thought I should go down and try to get a job at some of the restaurant/bars down in Newport. Interesting thought...

Keith solo at Yorba Linda -- 03May2008

Pretty standard, quiet night. Polite applause most of the time, and a few people tuned in some of the time. Got some requests from the Asian study girls who seemed to be having fun.

Great sound, though. I love it when it's quiet and I can really hear myself.

K&W at Java Joes, full gig -- 01May2008

Encouraging. When we got there, there were already two groups of four people who had apparently turned out specifically to see either "us", or "whatever band Chuck's got tonight" -- probably the latter. There were a few other scattered people, but they were clearly there for the coffee, not the band.

It started off kinda slow, they were chatting amongst themselves, of course, but after a while they seemed to realize that "these guys are pretty good", and started asking for some tunes off the list. Having gotten good results from that, they got up and put some money in the tip bucket. As time went on, and their wine bottles got emptier, they asked for more and more songs, got more and more friendly, and then started going "off list", asking for random songs that they thought I might be able to do. Some of those were ridiculous, but some of them were tangent to songs that I did have (like an alternative Bob Dylan song).

But even the ridiculous requests indicated that we were getting to be pals, and somewhere along the line another lady showed up who was partying with one of the groups. They had apparently fallen into a discussion about their first records, and the new (blonde) lady, who was feeling pretty happy, said that her first record was "Red Rubber Ball", which everyone else found very very funny. Chuck, the owner, shouted out, "Hey Keith, do you know 'Red Rubber Ball'?" As it turns out, I *do* know it -- I learned it years ago as a classic pop song, and it's still in the book under "Kids Songs", although it's not on the list. So I played it, which brought on uproarious laughter, and another round of throwing money in the tip bucket.

I found out later that the blonde lady is Chuck's wife. That's why she knows everybody, and feels comfortable getting pretty deep into the wine, and laughing louder than anyone else. Coming through with "Red Rubber Ball" for one of the guests was a pretty good move, but coming through with it for the owner's wife was an even better one.

Anyway, we played *way* past the scheduled closing time, but everybody was having fun, including us, and the owner, so on we went. When we finally quit at 10:30 or so, there was $54 in the bucket. From about 9 people. Not bad. I can't wait to play a fuller room there.