Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 23Jan2010

Wow. It was really, really, cold. There were some people out at "dinner time", presumably because the inside area was all full, but it got pretty thin after that. At least it wasn't raining, like the previous five days of storms. But at times, I was playing to nothing but empty tables and a trio of spitting turtle statues. Of course, I've played to stone silence before...

I thought about calling Maintenance and asking them to bring me a heater, but afterwards I was talking to the guys and they said that the heaters are all out being repaired, so they couldn't have brought one anyway. So I stood there in my longjohns, shirt, wooly vest, leather jacket, overcoat, and fingerless gloves, shivering and trying to read the chord sheets through the clouds of my breath.

Fortunately, my brother and his wife came by, and he loaned me his "London cabbie" hat. That helped, generally, but it's still pretty hard to play with frozen-stiff fingers.

But it was still fun. Even a bad night playing still beats watching TV. There were several groups of somewhat appreciative teenagers, early on, and a cute little toddler girl trying to dance, so I knocked out "Twist and Shout" for her. And it's always great to have my brother there. He even got up and sang "Love Has No Pride". And later, a pretty college girl came by and told me I have a "very lovely" voice. I said that that was just the electronics, but she insisted that, no, she's A Singer, and she Knows. Can't argue with that. Won't, anyway.

It was the first outing for my new, super-sturdy music stand, which did great -- it's nice to be able to flip through The Book without the stand threatening to collapse. And also the first outing for the harmony-box button-pusher I built out of some scrap Pergo last weekend. It gives me far bigger targets to step on, so I don't have to look down at the box to click the harmonies on and off. And no accidental volume-knob step-spinning, either. Worked great. Gave me the courage to try my newly developed, way-too-elaborate, three-harmony-mode "Here Comes the Sun", which I mostly got away with.

Just before they left, my brother asked for James Taylor's "You Can Close Your Eyes", which I really should play more often. It came out pretty well on the video, despite my frozen fingers, so I put it up on the YouTube -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5vkjGP1DYE

For the record, I only made $20, but that was actually unexpectedly good, considering how few people were out. The weather report shows cold again, with rain likely for next Saturday. I think it's just trying to show me that it coulda been worse...

K&W at Borders Mission Viejo -- 16Jan2010

What a great night! The café started out about half full, and never really filled up. (A year or two ago, this place was standing room only from the time we got there right up to closing. Down economy, or three-day weekend?) But most of the people there were very friendly and actually responded when I asked if there were any requests. And once a few people had done it, the rest decided it was OK, so they joined in. It was definitely the highest ratio of requesters per capita that we've ever had.

A young couple were there right at the beginning, with a already-bought CD and songlist on the table, clearly waiting for us to finish setting up and get to work. When I asked her for a request, she immediately said "Waltzing with Bears". She wasn't young enough to be an ex-Indian Princess, so I asked where she had heard that song before, and she said that they'd heard us before. Wow -- actual fans. Not that they'd sought us out to hear us, but they did consider themselves lucky to have chanced upon us again. That's *almost* as flattering...

Later on, we had a very sweet and appreciative Hawaiian lady who sat at the back, requesting songs and just beaming the whole time. She had just happened by, liked the sound, and sat down and stayed all the way until closing. She really wanted us to play "White Bird", but I didn't know it, no matter how many times she asked.

When we were done, I went back to give her a business card so she could check our website schedule to maybe come see us again, and she asked what we do "for real". I told her I was in Marketing at Cisco, and that Warren was -- and I just made this up off the top of my head -- a "technical editor", though he'd been (not so) recently laid off. She said that that was funny, 'cuz *she's* a technical editor, too. That seemed bizarre since I had just made that job title up to be "close enough" for layman's conversation, but it seems to have worked, and she said that she'd keep her ears open for him. Wow.

Anyway, it was a great, and way too short, night. The sound was good (of course, *anyplace's* sound is good when you're used to playing outside by a fountain, like I am), and the people were friendly and polite. And we made $27 each -- huge for a Borders, though $20 of it was from the nice Hawaiian lady. I was pretty close to writing off Borders, or at least that particular Borders, after our last terrible night there. This pretty much reverses that notion.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 09Jan2010

A pretty quiet night. Not as many people as last week, for some reason. Maybe everyone has all their gifts exchanged by now.

They managed to get the stage relocated (after my loud email whining last week), but not quite to where I thought we were talking about. The "other side of the candle shop" location we'd agreed on would have been directly in front of one of the two entrances to the inside seating area of the food court, so I understand why they decided against it.

Instead, it was 50 feet straight out from there, pretty much up against the tables at the north end of the plaza. Interesting. A bit better, fountain-wise, especially audience visibility-wise (and not being in the "splash zone"-wise). I wasn't too much farther away from it, but it was far less noisy/distracting from the new place. Also, either I was farther from the speakers, or they got it turned further down, so the "House Music" wasn't an issue this time, either. Afterwards, I talked to the maintenance guy, and he asked if it was OK, and said that this was where it's gonna be "from now on".

I guess that's OK -- it's just a little weird to be right in amongst the tables. At the old place, there was an 8-10 foot passageway between the stage and the first of the tables. Now, there's only 3 feet. Various sets of people sat at those up-front tables through the evening (most of them to eat), but they had to be pretty brave (or deaf) to do so. I ended up standing farther back on the stage itself, just to get a bit out of their faces.

It's also right in front of the new Ice Cream Bar shop. I had gone in to talk to the dudes (and I mean *duuudes*) before I started -- just to explain/apologize in advance, but they were cool with it. And when I went in after to ask if I'd been a nuisance, they were still cool, and even gave me a free one.

The shocker was that, when I got all set up and hit the power, my harmony box wouldn't power up. Turns out that, although the box itself is built like a battleship, the AC adapters are ultra cheap, and the wire had just broken where it enters the adapter. I managed to prop it up just right, and tape the wire to the floor, to get it to work -- mostly. It only cut out 2 or 3 times, and since both the guitar and voice go through that box, when it goes out, I get instant dead silence. Embarrassing, but it started to fail pretty late, so there weren't many people left. (I emailed to complain and they've heard it before, and are finding a new vendor, and are sending me another (still lame) one.)

But, other than that, there was some fun to be had. I got two or three groups of teens that asked for some songs, Beatles and the new Jason Mraz song I just learned, etc. The burly guy who runs the Australian Surf Jewelry and Persian Fortune Telling shop (!?) came over and stared at my list for a while, then asked "Know any Sinatra?" First time I've gotten that one. But I kind of do -- Ol' Frank (along with everyone else) did "The Way You Look Tonight", so I played that one for him.

And it was the first public airing of "Here Comes the Sun", which I've been literally playing nothing but, all week. The first time through was pretty rough, but the second time I was less petrified (though more (fingers) frozen-stiff), and I played it pretty well. I've been heavily focussed on getting the guitar part down, and whether or not I could sing at the same time. Turns out, the main issue (for me, anyway), wasn't inability to play or sing it, but that the vocal itself sounded really weak. Not sure why, and it's not the kind of thing that I usually notice in my own singing, so I was baffled. Maybe I just need to get used to hearing me instead of George...

The most fun was a young family came by who had been there the week before and picked up my "Waltzing With Bears" CD. The mom brought the little 2-year-old up to the stage and told her to "Tell him what song you want". She popped out "Lollipop!" [Tree], so of course, I played it. She was completely thrilled, wiggling uncontrollably, dancing, crashing herself into her mom's shoulder to hide her face in glee. A few songs later, we all repeated the routine when she came back up and said, "Bears!". Too cute -- and made my night. Well, that and the 40 bucks.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 02Jan2010

I was expecting a dead night, but when I got there, the parking structure was full! First time that happened! I had to park way down next to the Target, just about as far away from the Food Court as it's possible to be. Quite a trek, lugging all that equipment.

And when I made it to the Food Court, the stage was set up next to the turtle fountain again, and the House Music was quieter than at Christmas, but still pretty loud -- especially the piercing tambourine sounds. All this despite assurances from the Booking Lady that the stage would be back over by the entrance, and the music would be off. Grrr. But, no real choice -- I dragged the stage back 6 or 8 feet to get out of range of the water spray, and set up anyway.

But really, it's an unacceptable setup. With a cyclical wall of water between me and the main "audience" area, I'm invisible and inaudible half the time. Kinda hard to get any kind of rapport going...

Still, occasionally some people come by and sit at the big planter-box benches over at each side. They still can't hear half the time, but at least they can see me (and me, them). The highlight of the evening was a little pack of Woo Girls (shown). They sat and listened, and requested, and screamed out "Woooo!" at the end of every song. I wished they'd'a stayed longer.

But they were replaced after a while by three high school girls from OCHSA, (and one of them knew Acacia). They also listened, requested, and sang along for some songs, and were also gone too soon, to catch their movie.

About 8 o'clock, an elderly but spry lady came right up to me while I was tuning my guitar and exclaimed, "You've got a pretty tough act to follow!" I said, "Really? Why is that?", and she said, "The guy before you was really good!" I said, genuinely confused, "When was that? I've been here since six." It was her turn to be confused, and it became evident that she was thinking that "the other guy" was more recent than that. She looked pretty embarrassed as she realized that I was the same guy she'd heard earlier and was comparing me to, and she sort of backed off mumbling, and wandered away. Fortunately for me, it's not too hard to play as good as "the other guy", when the other guy is you.

At (only) one point, I had a pretty good crowd going, all seated around the planter-boxes. But that's pretty limited seating, and still too-well covered up by the acoustic onslaught of the fountain. Most of the night, I played for the turtles, and a stony silent response from the rest of the audience. At least the turtles, being stone, have an excuse...

The more it went on, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got about the pointlessness of the situation -- playing into the wall of white noise. But when I got home and counted the tips -- $72.46 -- I got a little less angry. Apparently, being out in the traffic has some advantages, but I still think I'd prefer to be audible. Not to mention that since The Hat Incident, I'm all paranoid about having people milling around behind me. I'm not wearing the hat anymore, but that feeling of vulnerability won't go away. Who knows what the next joker will want to try?

Still, I'm not exactly prepared to quit playing there altogether (not having any better options), but I'm definitely gonna have to have a little talk with Booking Lady.