K&W at Borders South Coast Plaza -- 19Dec2008

Quiet, but fun. We played to a lot of dead silence, but it was nice to get a chance to play the Christmas music indoors. Unfortunately, the air conditioner was apparently stuck on full-blast cold, so my hope of playing, after two weeks outdoors, in a warm place were dashed. We were freezing in there!

Anyway, when it's quiet like that, I take the opportunity to play through my newer stuff, including my *finally* workable arrangement of "The Christmas Song" (aka "Chestnuts Roasting..."). I've been trying to find a set of chords that "work" for me, or my style, or my limitations, or something, for 15 or 20 years now, but I finally crunched some pieces of several kinda-working chord sets into one that I can play, and that sounds mostly like the actual song. And it's pretty much in my singing range, too. I set up my iPod to record the night, and you can check it out here.

I came home the other night and the kids were watching "Across the Universe", a movie that kind of chronicles the 60's and 70's, amid a backdrop of all Beatles songs. The main love-interest girl sings "If I Fell", against a very simple guitar part, and without the vocal harmony that's so prominent in the Beatles' version, which they get away with because the harmony line is cleverly carried by the guitar. I thought, "Hey, I can do that -- maybe". So I worked on it, trying to find a key that I can sing it in, and play it in, and also could work the harmony line into the guitar part in. Found one, too. Wanna hear it? It's not a terribly good recording, and I'm not bringing out the harmony very clearly yet, but click here. Either it wasn't as hard to do as it sounded, or I'm getting pretty good at this...

Anyway, overall, a pretty good night. Even Warren, who normally doesn't much care for the Christmas tunes, didn't seem to mind playing 'em, just this once.