K&W at Irvine Spectrum -- 26Sept2009

Well, no repeat of last week's magic. All the knobs should have been set the same, but the sound was strange and harsh, and I couldn't get into it like last time. Halfway through, my guitar started getting distorted, and I remembered some strange sounds coming and going toward the end last time, and was thinking that the amp was going bad. (I had even brought along the Trailmates amp as a spare, just in case mine completely went out.) But Warren thought it might be the battery that's mounted up inside my guitar to power the pickup's pre-amp (which I'd completely forgotten about, and would never have thought of), and once I'd swapped that, it was all good again. And a good thing, too -- sending the amp in for (no) repair would have been a lot of trouble... Thanks, Warren!

But even when it was working, I still couldn't seem to get the sound right, and messed with it most of the night, trying to. Part of it is that the whole thing is more "complex" when Warren is there, and since we swapped the amp channels around (because of the harmony box), he's been able to be louder, and is doing so, which is throwing me some, too. But toward the end of the night, it seemed to finally get somewhere close to reasonable so I could focus on the music, and not only the sound thereof.

We didn't get a lot of response for most of the night, but finally a pair of women came and sat for a while. They both had little dogs, and one had brought her mother, too. We finally convinced them to have a look at the song list and pick a few. Oddly, there seemed to be far fewer roving packs of teens this time.

I did bring a few new songs, and with nobody listening, had ample time to try them out. I get asked for John Denver songs, and "Leaving on a Jet Plane" specifically from time to time, and since it appeared in the new hit (with geeks) TV show "Glee", I thought I ought to finally work it up. Not that it's very complicated, with its three chords. It took longer to type it than to learn it. Anyway, I thought it went OK, despite its extreme cheesiness.

I also tried out Neil Young's "Helpless", to see how the harmony box would work for the chorus. It did seem to work, but I'm not sure it's a song people really want to hear much. Seemed to be fun for Warren, though.

The third try-out was "Father and Son", which went just about as badly as I'd expected it to. The "son" verses are sung an octave above the "father" ones. At home, I can hit the low notes of the father part, but the son's high notes are pretty screechy. Once I'm on stage, my range slides up a step or two, making the low notes out of reach on the bottom, and the high notes, well, not quite as screechy. I guess I'll leave it in the book, but it'll only work on nights when my voice is working extraordinarily well.

I tried to remember to "accidentally mention" the CDs for sale, but since nobody was really listening, there was no one to mention it to. So we only sold one, to one of the dog ladies, for her grandson. Made $38 overall -- pretty low for this place, but not bad. Heck, that's nearly five bucks an hour, for each of us! Good thing we're not in it for the money...

Keith at Irvine Spectrum Center -- 19Sept2009

I was a bit worried that having two gigs in a row would only serve to show me how old I'm getting by crippling my knees and trashing my throat -- but I did OK. More than OK -- it was as if the previous night's performance was just a warmup to this one. I was singing better (and higher) than in a long time, the whole four hours. I was also somehow mentally sharper than I'm used to being -- the songs seemed easier to play than usual, and the extra apparent bandwidth let me do things that I'm usually to "busy" to attempt. I think I was just a lot more relaxed than usual, and that "throw it to the wind" feeling is amazing.

So I had a blast, feeling "invincible" somehow, even though I played to abject silence most of the night. There were plenty of people out there, and there were an occasional few that seemed to be listening, but there was scarce little interaction (clapping, requesting, etc.) But I didn't mind, oddly enough -- the sound was inexplicably clean for this notoriously noisy outdoor venue, and I was having fun just playing for myself.

I did have some little first-grade dancers for a while, but their parents were too busy with some kind of big get-together to pay much attention themselves. I played "Here Comes My Baby" and dragged out the "Twist and Shout / La Bamba" medley again. Much later I discovered that they were Spanish speakers -- I hope my accent on "La Bamba" isn't too atrocious.

But finally, after almost three and a half hours of near-total apathy, four high-school kids showed up and (re)made my night. It was just a shame that they showed up so late. I told them that I didn't have much time left, but we could play until the guys showed up to chase me out of there. They sat down and listened for a while, and then asked if I knew "any *popular* songs". I was taken aback by this sudden turn, until they clarified that they had said "Bob Dylan" not "popular". Whew!

I said that, yes, I knew "Don't Think Twice", and one of the girls said "Oh! That's my favorite song ever!", to which I said (without thinking), "Then get up here and sing it with me." She (Brianna) was flustered, but came on up and sang along, quietly, even when I leaned over so she could sing into the mic. Not choir kids, then.

So I did several songs they wanted, and while they were thinking about what to ask for next, I launched into "Don't Stop Believing", which they totally dug, and which also roped in another set of high-schoolers who were hanging out farther back, out of range. This Party was definitely Started. Unfortunately, it was getting pretty far after 10:00, but Brianna asked, at exactly the right time, for "Golden Slumbers", which wrapped it up just as the maintenance guys appeared.

(Half and hour later, as I was walking out with my guitar on my back and the amp in tow, some of the further-back girls sang out "Just a small town girl..." (from "Don't Stop Believing") at me from across the patio. Nice.)

An odd but maybe not surprising thing happened halfway through the evening. A kid, maybe 15, came up and asked how much the CDs were. I told him "Whatever you want to put in the jar", but pointed out (on mic, since it's stuck to my head) that the ones on the left are for kids, and the ones on the right are for grownups. He thought about that for a while, and took a grownup one. 10 minutes later he was back to apologize and swap it for a kids' one -- apparently he doesn't know right from left yet. But the more remarkable thing is that, clearly because of the accidental "announcement", other people started coming up to see what this was all about, and ended up buying out all the kids' CDs (OK, there were only three of them -- but I've been carrying those three around for months without selling them). I even had someone ask me if I had any more -- but they looked familiar so I told them that I'd get some more for next week, and that seemed OK with them.

I've been under the (apparently quite wrong) impression that if people can see me, they can see the table and sign, but I guess that's overly optimistic. I'll have to try to mention the CDs earlier in the night, perhaps as an "educational" announcement like this accidental one was, so that people know about them. Sales will undoubtedly go up, if this was any indication. There is a rule against "aggressive solicitation", and another about "You may not direct attention to the tip jar before, during, or after your performance", so I'll have to be careful, but I'm probably not the "aggressive solicitation" type. Maybe an unobtrusive solution is just to mention that "this song is on our CD" when I'm introducing them.

Anyway, I had a great time for some reason, and my knees were OK, and my voice was OK, and I made 47 bucks. You shoulda been there...

K&W at Borders South Coast Plaza -- 18Sept2009

Another nice but quiet night at South Coast Plaza. The highlight was the arrival of a family with a 9-year-old boy who had a wild variety of requests: Al Di Meola, "House of the Rising Sun", and the Who's "Behind Blue Eyes". He's been learning guitar himself, and these reflect what he's heard and is learning. (That's him in the bottom right corner of Warren's picture, playing "air chords".) I've played through that last one before, and half-remembered some of the chords, but even with the kid's help, couldn't get through much of it. He settled for "Puff the Magic Dragon" and "You've Got a Friend in Me", though, and his dad asked for more usual (and on-the-list) stuff, like "Old Man" and "Bus Stop".

The sound was, as always, clear and clean, helped by my trying out (at Warren's suggestion) a different (and far less obtrusive) "effect" setting on the Harmony Box. I thought the harmonies themselves were working pretty well -- partly because I've abandoned using it at all on some songs. I killed some of them because the box can't track my fancy guitar work and sings "mistakes", and others because the original recording's harmonies run *below* the melody, which was fine when the melody was up pretty high (like in Beatles songs), but since I've had to transpose them down, those lower-harmonies are more like bass lines and sound terrible. But all of these songs were do-able before I had the harmony box, so I can go back, no problem. I haven't yet started working up the harmony-required songs that I couldn't touch pre-box. Except "Cinnamon Girl", which I've been dying to play, but sounded weak without the harmony. It may not work *with* it either, but...

Later on, a nice older lady that we've seen several times before (she calls us "Sweetie") came in, and asked if I knew any songs from the 40's. Oddly, I have more from the 30's, but I played all I had of both.

Anyway, it was pleasant, and we made ten bucks each, which is quite a lot for this place.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 12Sept2009

It was quite a bit cooler than last week, so I expected more people to be out, but it was actually even worse. It was like "Borders Night" -- I played to dead silence most of the time.

Started off interestingly, though -- a little boy, maybe 7, named, apparently, Solomon, came right up while I was setting up the equipment and asked if he could sing a song. I said, "Sure, go ahead". Of course, he wanted to have a microphone, not just stand there singing, so I got the head-mic connected and put it on his head, and told him to go for it. But that wasn't good enough, either -- he wanted "music", too. I asked him what song he was gonna sing, but he didn't really know, but just wanted me to play anyway. So I set up the rest of the stuff and we started playing -- him singing something unintelligible and inaudible, and me quietly strumming a couple of chords at random. He really thought he knew what he was doing, and punctuated his singing with some vaguely karate-like stage "moves" -- and his mom was thrilled and taking movies on her camera.

We did four songs that way, but it was getting close to my actual start time, and I thought I'd better get started for real -- this was music only a mother could love. While he was waiting for me to set up he had told me that he was a "great singer, and actor, too", and that he'd been in movies, which turned out to be only the one, though he didn't know the name of it. That was actually semi-believable -- he was a darn cute little kid, and had enough "moxie" to have gotten into a movie as an extra.

The only problem was that his family (gramma and two sisters) stayed around for a long time having dinner and chatting, and he kept coming up and asking if he could sing another song. I had to keep telling him no, 'cuz, really, we'd all had plenty of it, I think.

I never really did get anything "going", though. About halfway through, three teenage boys came and were completely stoked, but they only stayed for a few (Beatle) songs. Their interest sparked a small spate of attention from some other diners, which apparently chased them off when they didn't get first crack at the requests, and which died out pretty quickly. They came back a while later, and asked me if I gave guitar lessons. I was flattered, but had to turn them down.

Geneva, Acacia and her friend came by, briefly, and I guess Geneva met some friends and went to a movie, and Acacia and her friend shopped, and came back by later on. That was nice, because I've recently learned "Come On, Get Higher", a new song that Acacia says is her favorite song ever, so I wanted to play it for her. Apparently acceptably, too. I also used her being there to try out "Don't Stop Believing" again, which went over well with lots of previously-dead-silent people, so I took a chance on "Africa" too, which, OK, not as much, though I played it a lot better than last week.

I took home a disappointing $31, though that's still, what, three times better than even a "good" Borders night, so I shouldn't complain.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 05Sept2009

I guess the heat (though it was quite nice in the evening) and the three-day weekend kept most of the people away. But I wasn't really at my best anyway, so maybe that's OK. I'm not sure why I go so brain-dead once I'm standing up there, but now, way too late, I'm pretty sure that the vocal enhancements (reverb, compression, etc.) in the harmony box were accidentally turned off the whole time. It sure sounds "flat" in the video, anyway, and I never did seem to Get Into it like I usually do. And half (or more) of what makes you feel like you're singing well is reverb – ask any karaoke fan (or don't -- I don't think they realize why they sound good (to themselves anyway) at the karaoke place (and the shower)). How I can be so clueless as to go the whole 4 hours without realizing it, is the mystery.

Anyway, I had only occasional groups tuned in, though towards the end the usual crowd of shy quiet listeners way in the back by the restaurant developed again. Maybe it's just too loud up front for the actual grown-ups...

A small group of young black kids sat down right at the front table, way too cool to acknowledge me, of course. So I played "Hey Ya", with no introduction. It was fun to watch the pretty girl in the middle as she started to realize that she knew those words from somewhere, then eventually catch on to what song it was, then whisper it to her friends.

Later on, a family was eating nearby and their little red-headed kindergartener was dancing to any and everything I played. So I started playing my most danceable stuff for her. Another mom dragged her even-smaller little boy over to dance too, and the adults in the area started to notice and watch them. She just danced and danced until I ran out of fast tunes, so I was obliged to drag out my "Twist and Shout / La Bamba" medley, though it's kind of embarrassing. It actually went over pretty well...

I had been learning two new songs all week -- the first one is "Come On Get Higher", which is a new song that I've been noticing from different directions, so I figured it might be popular enough that I could play it and a few of the younger people might know it. I played it twice, the first time when almost nobody was there, and then later on when I played it, a girl at the table behind me said "That was good!" right out loud. So I guess that one's a keeper.

The other new song is "Africa" by Toto. I'm not sure how that happened, but I was messing with the chords and they really sound great played on guitar, so I just kept hammering at it until I had something reasonable -- maybe. It's clearly not the kind of song I usually play, but the other Power Ballad I recently added (also maybe), "Don't Stop Believing" seems to amuse people, so...

I was shy about dragging it out, though, but at 9:45 I decided I had better try it anyway (although way too many people are out then), if only to satisfy my own curiosity of whether it's worth pursuing. It turned out to be way too low to sing, but the chorus is way too high. That's the problem with trying to sing songs that are sung by multiple guys by myself. I'd already capoed 2 -- I guess I'll have to go up another one and see if that works any better, 'cuz the song did seem to basically go over OK, even though I completely forgot to kick on the harmonies, and fumbled here and there. I'll keep practicing, and see how it works next week. If I can get it to where I can sing the low notes, and let the harmony box take the really high ones, it might work out.

I did clip two songs from the evening's video, and posted them at: http://www.youtube.com/user/y7alanzo Oddly, they're my only two medleys, the aforementioned "Twist and Shout / La Bamba", and "Over the Rainbow / When You Wish Upon a Star", which I did for another cute little girl who was staring at me from down front early on. Everybody says that they learned the guitar to impress girls -- I just thought I'd impress a few that were over 18...

I did OK though, even with the light crowd -- 57 bucks in the tip jar. Imagine what I could'a made with a little reverb...

Trailmates at Camp Surf, San Diego -- Aug2009

While Orange County was sweltering in a heat wave, the girls and I took off for our annual Trailmates trip to Camp Surf, an "all-inclusive" YMCA almost-resort, on the beach, 4 miles from the Mexican border.

We got there Friday evening, and went to our traditional Friday-evening restaurant with most of the other guys and girls, but they've added "Live Entertainment", in the form of a guy with a guitar. He was pretty good, and did several completely unexpected songs (like "Tainted Love"), and newer songs that I've never heard before. He played everything from memory, which impressed me, since I'm terrible at that. But his main problem was the sound of his guitar, which was one of those semi-hollow electric Fenders, but it sounded like a plastic Casper guitar.

When we got back to camp, I set up the projector and showed the movie "Silverado". Only about half the girls wanted to see a western, but the dads all liked it. It's long, though, so we were up 'til midnight.

After breakfast on Saturday, we went down to the beach, where Geneva surfed on the full-sized boards, and Acacia and friends went out on Boogie boards. The water was really cold (especially after Mazatlan 4 weeks ago), but we had wetsuits, so we were OK. They drag everybody out of the water for lunch, and afterwards the girls all crashed for a nap until the afternoon beach session.

Saturday night dinner was (as always) build-your-own Taco Bar. Then comes "Skit Night", where the camp counselors (college kids who serve as lifeguards, arts-and-crafts teachers, rock climbing and surf instructors, etc.) and the kids do skits for each other. Each of the groups that were there (us, a small Cub Scout group from Desert Hot Springs, and three Princess tribes out of Newport Beach) signed up to do a skit or two, and I usually sign up to sing some songs, too. I did "Waltzing With Bears" (of course), "Lollipop Tree", and "ended" the show with my Indian Princess-ified "Goodnight Irene". But when I finished it, all the Trailmates clamored for "The Indian Princess Song", so I guess I had an encore.

Of course, I had my new harmonizer box with me, and used it, sparingly, on each of the songs. It was especially welcome on "Goodnight Irene", which absolutely *begs* for a harmony line through the singalong chorus, and I've been wishing that somebody out there would find it, but nobody ever has. Finally, the box took care of it, to my great relief.

After the "show", we went back to our own campfire, and the girls got to singing some silly Girl Scout songs (Geneva ran one or two of those, quite well), and some of them were trying to sing pop songs, especially, for some reason, "Sweet Home Alabama". I thought it would be fun to jump in with my guitar , but as soon as I got back with the guitar, they started asking for lots of other songs. We had lots of Misses -- songs they'd suggest that I'm too old to know, and songs I'd suggest that they're too young to know -- but we found a few that they knew, and that I managed to fake, even without my Big Book: "Let It Be", "Hey, Jude", "Desperado", some others, and most fun of all, "Don't Stop Believing". And of course, ""Sweet Home Alabama" which none of us actually knew the verses to. It was really fun -- it just seemed like a weird campfire to do all those kinds of songs instead of, say, "Comin' 'Round the Mountain" and "Home on the Range". But it had been a long day, and by 11:30 everybody'd given up and gone to bed.

But between the guy playing at the restaurant on Friday, and these girls asking me for new hip songs, I'm somehow inspired to go learn some new stuff. I've been reticent because I couldn't figure out how to find recent songs that several people would know (the girls provided me with a list), and I was afraid to be "that old guy" playing "young" music. I'll remain sensitive to that, but I think learning a few new tunes might be worth a try.

On Sunday, we were glad that we'd done sufficient beach play the day before because an amazingly thick fog rolled in and they closed the beach because the lifeguards couldn't see the water from their towers. So we took it easy, did the crafts, and went home after lunch.

All in all, a great weekend.