Borders Mission Viejo -- 24Jan2009

Much more fun than last week, which isn't saying much, but a pretty good night. The audience started out pretty shy, but warmed up as we went along, and towards the end a foursome showed up that were so friendly that Warren assumed they must be friends of mine.

It was the first outing with my new guitar pickup, and it was a little tricky at first, but I think it's gonna work out. There are new controls to mess with, and the issues of the combination of the controls on the pickup versus the ones on the amp to work out. But it sounds quite good -- at least it doesn't have the "quack" of my old under-saddle pickup. It has two ways to boost the bass, which, even when lightly deployed, gets me bass response like I've never had before, and reminds me of James Taylor's sound (which is, obviously, a good thing). And there's an indescribable "clarity" that was both amazing and occasionally threw me off.

I'm sure I'll be able to work out a good set of settings, and get used to the sound. There is some occasional bass feedback that I'm sure I can cut if I re-insert the extra "DI" box, but I was trying to simplify. And another old related problem came back -- because I'm not using the soundhole plug (though I did try it for the last hour), I can hear my guitar, quite well, directly. This leads me to believe that it's louder than it really is from the speakers, so I end up with the guitar too quiet. Warren pointed this out, but I'm not sure how to solve it -- even if I know, intellectually, that I have to turn up more, it's hard to perform when, from my point of view, the vocal is being drowned out by the guitar. We'll have to work on that, somehow.

Daleen and I had dropped by the Irvine Spectrum last Saturday, partially to "check out the competition". The kid that was playing there had a quite big "tip jar" that was really a flower vase -- and it was plenty full. We've had a few (but not enough!) nights where the jelly jar that I use has been jammed full, so it occurred to me that it might be discouraging people from tipping, if they see that we've got "plenty of money" already. We had also gotten advice from old friend Jessica Ching that we should have a "huge tip jar", and she may be right that making the tip jar more visible would make a difference.

So I found a flower vase like the kid's, and tried it at Mission Viejo. Didn't work. We still only made 8 bucks each. And transporting a big glass vase is a hassle. But maybe I'll try it again at the next Spectrum gig (on Valentines day!), and see what happens.

Acacia happened to be hanging out with an Indian Princess friend that night, and her dad brought the girls out to Borders for a while. I only saw Acacia flit by when they got there, and wave bye-bye when they left, but it was nice to have Kevin there, clapping loudly.

There were also two young guys there, looking like shaven-headed "cholo" gangsters, though not quite so tatted up. After listening for a while, the big guy asked for "Love Me Tender" (Huh?!?), and later on, "Dream Lover" (double Huh?!?). His smaller friend was a big James Taylor fan (?!?), and asked for "More James", and then specifically "Going to Carolina" (sic), and sang along with gusto. Like Buck Owens said, "You can't never tell".

I'd recently reconnected via email with old Toshiba friend Jeffrey Friedrichs, who's "back in OC", and said he'd try to come out to see us. But unless he was disguised as a 90-year-old Chinese lady (or a cholo), I guess he couldn't make it.

One disappointment -- I had worked up "Hey, Jude" during the week before, but I was having so much fun at the end that by the time I remembered to check the clock, we were way over so I knocked out "Golden Slumbers" and we were out of there. I'm even more unsure than usual that it'll "work" in person, but I'd wanted to try it out and see how it went over. Next time, I guess.