K&W at Mission Viejo -- 21Jun2008

That went really well -- best I can remember at Mission Viejo, probably only because the sound, which is usually terrible there, was inexplicably quite good. We were in the corner again, but we did that last time, and it didn't help all that much. I think it was just that there were fewer conversations shouting over us (or is it vice versa?).

We'd played almost 5 hours the night before at Java Joe's, so I expected to be trashed, finger- and voice-wise, but, not so bad. We started at 7:00, and had negotiated a 10:00 ending time (as opposed to the mandated 9:00) with our pal the manager, Sally, but although my fingers and voice were holding up, 'round about 9:30 I was getting light-headed from plain ol' tiredness, and the crowd had thinned down pretty bad anyway, so I called it quits. First time I can remember that I voluntarily stopped playing (unless you count the night before at Joe's when I quit at midnight, but that was just craziness). I'm gettin' too old for this.

Sally told us that Mike, the Borders District Manager had been laid off. This is worrisome only because whenever the guy who does the booking, Bob, makes a mistake (reasonably frequently), Mike is our "court of appeals". But, we got a (mistake-free, this time) schedule for July from Bob, two weeks after Mike was gone, so the system is still chugging along -- although it seems weird that Bob, a volunteer, is booking all us volunteer bands into the Borders stores with no apparent supervision from Borders. Sally heard something about a woman named Leta who may or may not be taking over for Mike. I guess we'll see what happens.

Anyway, with the good sound, and a pretty nice audience, it was a good night -- and we made pretty decent tips, too. Sally had wanted to come up and sing "Rainbow Connection", but apparently got too busy (or chicken). Maybe next time -- I'm there again solo in two weeks.

K&W at Java Joe's -- 20Jun2008

It was our first "weekend" gig at Java Joe's, after two previous (pretty empty) Thursdays. We were both afraid that we'd be expected to be a rock'n'roll Party Band, but the Party never materialized, for better or worse. We had a dozen or so people at the peak, and small groups moving in and out all night, but it was never even half full. The upside was that we could just play our standard "mellow coffeeshop" stuff, so we did. And did, and did. We somehow ended up playing, without a break, from 7:15 to midnight. I guess "closing time" is when owner Chuck leaves, and he didn't seem like he had any intention to, so I just "called it" at midnight. My fingers, knees, and back had had enough, and I was starving.

Anyway, it was fun, if anticlimactic after all the anticipation/dread (and practice!) of the preceding week. Fun enough for me, anyway, but Warren is getting pretty discouraged at our lack of audience there. We were expecting to crash and burn in front of a huge party crowd. Instead, we did just fine, in front of a small turnout. The former would have been disastrous, but the latter is just boring. Actually, I guess when or if we try again is a moot point, since Warren doesn't want to bother with any more empty Thursdays, and there are no free weekend dates until December.

Still, I may go in solo for another Thursday or two as a solo, and see if I can get something going. We had about 8 people the first time, and essentially none the second. Chuck keeps apologizing, saying "I don't know what happened!", but I think it's just 'cuz we just don't have a following of any kind. I'm guessing that Chuck really can't tell the difference between people who come to see, a popular local band, and people who come just to see whoever's there. He thinks his crowds on the weekends are the latter, but I think we've proven that it's more of the former, alas.

But I'm not sure I can afford to keep doing both the Tuesday Open Mics and playing on Thursdays, at $13 in gas for the round trip. On the other hand, the Tuesdays are pretty big fun, despite only getting to do three (or two!) songs. I'm getting to know, and be known by, the other musicians, and am probably on the verge of having some of them join in on some harmony and/or percussion, and that'd be fun.

Or, this coming Sunday afternoon, there's gonna be a new kind of Open Mic there where the organizer wants people to try to group-up, so more people get to play, longer. I'll try to go to that, and see if anybody wants to play/sing along to some of my James Taylor stuff.

Keith at Java Joe's Open Mic -- 17Jun2008

We're playing at Joe's on Friday (our first "weekend night"), so we were obliged to come to the Open Mic to (theoretically) spark interest. Unfortunately, it was Warren's son's birthday, so I had to go solo. I play solo a lot, so it shoulda been no problem -- emphasis on "shoulda".

The owner, Chuck, booked us for Friday (and two previous Thursdays "sight unseen", and since then we've been getting the distinct impression that weekends (and Tuesday Open Mics, for that matter) are more "party" than "concert". We're not really a "party band", but we're already booked, so we'll give it what we got, and try to play what passes for "harder" songs that I'm willing to play.

Accordingly, the idea was to try to show that off on this Tuesday thing, but without Warren, that's even more unlikely. Still, I decided to go with "Mother Goose", "Carolina In My Mind" (I know, not very "hard"), and "Five O'Clock World". "Goose" to be my "rock cred" tune here, despite it being notoriously hard to get right. So, I practiced the heck out of it on my two 20-minute walks (with the electric guitar), and at home on the acoustic, got it down pretty well, and thought I might actually have a chance.

Emphasis on "thought". I have plenty of excuses -- the sound system, as noted here before, sucks, though last time it was tolerable. This time was the worst ever. I had forgotten that we'd learned that a big part of what's wrong is that my (and Warren's) guitar come out through the monitor speaker, but, for some reason, my head-mic does not. Other times, it was bad, but I could hear myself, somehow, enough that it wasn't obvious that the vocal was completely missing from the monitor. This time, *very* obvious. My guitar was coming through almost hard enough to knock me over, but I couldn't hear the voice at all. Scott the sound guy assured me that it was working, and I asked the audience if they could hear me, and they said they could, so I just had to go for it.

So I'm trying to play "Mother Goose", and instinctively holding back on the volume of my strumming, which screws up my ability to strum at all (which is tenuous under *good* conditions). The Intro/Interlude that's so hard (for me) to play goes bad, but not too bad. The rest of the song goes OK I guess, but I couldn't hear it, so what do I know?

Oh, to make matters worse, although Chuck usually puts us on the sign-up list fairly early, this time I was very late. Late enough, in fact, that you don't get three songs anymore, you get two. Of course, they told me that on my way to the stage, so I had to decide quickly which song to delete. It was tempting to scratch "Goose", since I was afraid to play it, but that was the very reason I decided to keep it and scratch "Five O'Clock" instead.

So I launch into "Carolina", chosen because it's got a cool "hard" guitar part, which I've played so much I can do it in my sleep, so I figured I could redeem the fiasco that "Goose" was likely to be. Emphasis on "figured", but I figured wrong. I got through most of it OK, but totally lost my place on the sheet (got cocky, no doubt), and stumbled through a big, and I mean big, chunk of the song. Kept singing, but was just fumbling with the guitar. You'd think (and I thought) that if you just play an "in this song somewhere" chord of some kind, you'd eventually come to a part that it fits to. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, right? No such luck, though. Somehow, eventually, I found where I was again, but what a disaster.

The cool part was that Scott, the soundman and frequent background singer with other guys in "the club", and Sandy, who usually plays mean fiddle with various guys, were standing off to the side, singing harmony. They didn't get on a mic, though, probably 'cuz they don't know me that well yet -- and I couldn't figure out a way to tell 'em it was OK while I was in the middle of the song. Come to think of it, that may have been the distraction that threw me... I complained vaguely after the song that they should have gotten on a mic, so maybe next time they won't be so shy.

Anyway, afterwards, several of the other musicians told me it "sounded good". Either they were being generous, or the mistakes weren't as obvious as I thought, or maybe they were just referring to the non-mistakey parts, but that was nice to hear. I think it really did impress some of those guys that I was playing "Mother Goose" -- that's not standard Old-Guy-Folk-Rock repertoire. And some of those guys are scary-good, so it's nice to get their attention.

As for the "we're not a party band" concern, as I was leaving, I said to Chuck, "See you on Friday, but, you know, we're not a party band". He was totally, "Oh, you guys will be great", and started telling the guy he was talking to when I walked up that we'd played 'til 11 the last time, and they had a great time playing "Stump the band", which, by his recollection, was "impossible". I remember them asking for lots of songs that I didn't know, but apparently, being able to pull "Red Rubber Ball" off deleted all the "don't knows" from his memory. He's really looking forward to Friday. Me too, I guess.

K&W at the Santa Ana Zoo -- 14Jun2008

Quite nice. This was our third time at the zoo (the second time "out front") and we at least broke the Santa Ana Winds curse. Nice breeze, and set up in the shade. The equipment was "out" this time when I got there, but the too-helpful guy had set it all up in the wrong place. Had to drag the stage platforms to the right place and basically re-rig the whole sound system. Not too bad.

We had plenty, if not lots, of kids'n'parents. Warren likes a few (only) of our kid's songs -- the ones that are written like "real" songs -- and kept hoping that we'd be able to play half for kids, and half for adults. Unfortunately, it's clear that no adults come to the zoo without their kids, so any adults that are nearby are only there for the kids. They don't want us to play to them, they want us to play to their kids. So, I tried to play adult songs, but really couldn't get away with it much. Warren admits that it's inevitable, so if/when I play there again, it'll be just me.

But, I'm not really sure that I want to, either. There were plenty of kids, but they were all really young kids, stroller age up to maybe 3 or 4. My theory is that the older kids know that they're at a zoo, and won't let Mom sit around at the picnic tables -- but the younger ones just do whatever's happening. They don't know enough to know that they ought to be complaining about that.

Anyway, it's pretty hard to play for kids that small -- they don't know any real songs yet. I faced this problem in Princesses, when I wanted to write a Princess song to a tune they'd already know. I went with "Puff, the Magic Dragon", because it's widely known, but also because it's incredibly repetitive, so if you don't know it at the start, you'll know it by the middle.

So, I played my kid's songs, but I don't think that such little kids actually "get it". But, I suppose their parents appreciate it anyway. It's just not as fun for me to play to kids' blank stares. I like playing for Princess age kids that understand and like my stuff for the content.

Playing there again may be a moot point, though. I can't play there if I have a gig at Borders on the same weekend -- the zoo playing time is right between where Friday and Saturday night Borders gigs are, and I just can't play two gigs so close together. I have one no-Borders weekend in July, but I think I might want to keep it free to do family stuff. We'll see.

Anyway, it was pretty fun. We had at least some kids there, all the way through. Played all the kid songs I have, several of 'em twice. I took video again, which looks like it turned out OK, but I haven't had time to clip it up into separate songs yet. The parents almost always stuff a buck in the kid's hand and send them over to drop it in the guitar case, so we did all right. And most of the parents are pretty attentive, and even the blank stares of the toddlers are pretty cute. Maybe I'll go back after all...

Keith solo at Yorba Linda -- 07Jun2008

Yet another quiet night at Yorba Linda. I'm beginning to wonder why I like playing there so much. I guess I like the nice open space, and the quiet environment. I also like it when the little girl behind the coffee counter squeals with delight when she spots me coming in -- apparently, I'm her favorite band.

I also like it when the lady at the front sales counter makes a point to catch me on my way out to tell me that lots of people mentioned how much they liked the music when they came up to buy their books. She's done that twice now. I don't know how many people "lots" is, but just her taking the trouble to come tell me makes my night.

I tried to take some more video, but the camera does its auto-focus thing as you start it up, and since I wasn't in the frame it focused on the back wall, so the whole video is blurry. Well, *I'm* blurry, the wall behind me is crystal sharp.

K&W at South Coast Plaza -- 06Jun2008

Mostly quiet and uneventful, which was OK because I had brought my newly-hacked digital camera (it can now do hour-long (instead of minute-long) videos), to take advantage of the always-good sound, and usually-good performances, there. I set it off to the side, so it fits both of us in a frame without the big gap between us, and it looks pretty good.

I clipped 11 good-take songs out of the footage I got, and put 'em up (here) on YouTube. It's kind of funny to look at the thumbnails and watch the backlight from the windows diminish over time (since the videos are posted in (reverse) time-order), so that we become more and more viewable as the lighting gets less harsh.