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...
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