Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 29May2010

Nice and warm, finally, and well-attended. Unfortunately, the warmer it gets, the longer I have to endure the screaming kids that parents bring to play in the fountain. It's really becoming what we had as the "city pool" when I was a kid. I don't begrudge them getting to "play int he sprinklers" on a warm summer evening, but I wish it wasn't so close to where I'm trying to play.

I did have some friendly people, and some definite admirers. One Persian family was there almost the whole night -- they were there when I got there, and left around 9:00. They didn't interact with me much, but the kids asked for a few songs later on. The ancient gramma, with her walker and brought-along camp chair (so she wouldn't have to sit on the metal ones), had the dad ask me to play Lionel Richie's 80-s hit, "Hello". I only just learned that one (because of it's showing up in "Glee"), so it's not even on the list. They musta heard it two weekends ago, but it was still quite a surprise to get it requested by 90-year-old gramma.

A guy came up and asked if I knew any "Bad Company", but settled for "Hotel California". And another Farsi-lady asked if I knew any "Bee Gees", and settled for "Lucy In the Sky". At least I'm not *entirely* disappointing.

I set up 5 cameras this time, so when one failed (my fault -- forgot to put a memory card in it), I had 4 streams. This time, my mistake was not pointing the lights at myself (it was too hot when I switched them on!), so I'm just a silhouette against the ice cream store's lights. That's OK, I wasn't terribly inspired anyway, and this saves me a lot of time with the video editing software, not having to create any videos. I still have one or two to finish from last week at South Coast Plaza...

K&W at Borders South Coast Plaza -- 21May2010

A pretty good night -- not a lot of overt audience response (as is usual for this place), but some good performances for the cameras, and we sold all 6 CDs that I put out and took home $14 each, so someone must have liked what they were hearing.

The video equipment malfunction trend continued with my not being able to find the memory chips I needed (I found them later -- they fell out of my jeans pocket in the closet), so I had to use the low-capacity spares, which meant more trouble and less video. And I carefully set one of the cameras perfectly straight, but with its adjustable-angle lens inadvertently tilted at 15% off of horizontal. I'm just gonna pretend that it's "artistic", and not a screw up.

The others were in pretty good spots, with pretty good framing and zoom levels, so there's something to work with there, except that the backdrop is a white porous window shade, facing west into the sunset. The first half of the night is radically backlit, so we're little more than silhouettes. This may also explain why no one would look at us until the last half hour...

But I got some decent stuff in the later parts, so I'll be working those up into multi-camera videos this week.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 15May2010

Unexpectedly low turnout, compared to recent weeks. I think it was the weather, which was warm and sunny in the day but turned chilly and windy, forcing inadvertently inappropriately dressed shoppers to go home early.

And those that did show up were unusually subdued. And a lot fewer teens than usual -- Prom season? I played to a lot of dead silence, but there were patches of enthusiastic people, and somehow there was almost $50 in the jar, so I must have sounded good to somebody, sometime.

I put up 4 video cameras this time, and caught some decent footage in several of them. Unfortunately, now that the experiment of "Can I do it?" (meaning, cut several cameras' footage into one, more interesting, video) is over, I'm left wondering "Why am I doing it?"

I suppose each one I've done is a little better than the last, since I'm getting beyond just making it work and into making it "pretty". And I'm getting bolder with the zooming and panning effects, as I see that they really do work. Of course, now I'm probably pushing them too far...

Anyway, I guess each one I do can be a replacement for previous ones, if they are a better performance or video take/edit. I'm compiling them onto a sub-page of my home page, where they could be an "audition page" if some venue would ever deign to enter the modern age and accept a URL instead of a physical CD. So far that's never happened, but someday...

Check out some new videos here.

K&W at Borders Mission Viejo -- 08May2010

Fun, but short! It was the usual (these days) half-full coffeeshop, but we had several friendly faces out there. But after a while, long-lost cousin Vanessa (and family) came by, and really gave us someone to play for. And not too long later, my brother also arrived, upping the ante even more!

I was torn between playing for her and visiting with her, but she had to leave at 9:00, so we reluctantly took a break at quarter 'til. By the time she broke loose and we started up again, we only had time left for 3 songs, 'cuz they close at 10, and it takes at least 20 minutes to tear down. With the early closing time and the rare "break", I think that's the least I've played in years.

Still, all the attention (from Vanessa's family and Roy) had roped some other people who were left wanting more when we had to quit. They asked about the price of the CDs, and were beside themselves when I told them "Whatever you want to put in the jar" -- this was far too good a deal for the Jewish Mothers Club to pass up! I made Vanessa take a pair of CDs, plus a specially-made "Tribute to My Dad" CD that I'd brought for her, but we sold 4 more, presumably a pair to each of the Moms. And did pretty well in the jar, accordingly.

I'd brought a stack of video cameras, and set three of them up to try to catch some decent footage if there happened to be any decent performances. And did, it turned out. My new cutting between several camera approach really makes the videos more fun to watch (if 10 times the work to produce), but it really shows the difference in quality between different brands of cameras! When it cuts from one camera's output to another, you can really see the color and sharpness differences -- although I can minimize it some in the software.

Anyway, you can check some of the new videos out on my webpage. Click the "Videos" tab. The "Hallelujah" and "Let It Be" takes at the bottom are from this outing.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 01May2010

It was a nice warm day, and I had a big "dinner crowd" to play for. And with my voice almost completely cleared up, I had a great run for a while there. But when it started to get dark, a cold wind came up and it was pretty empty for the mid section. And then, again, the "night owls" start to show up at 9:30 and I'm bummed to get cut off at 10.

During the empty gap, I fired up three of the cameras I'd brought, but both Flip cameras flaked out on me entirely. I think one of them had a legitimate excuse, 'cuz I'd neglected to delete any of the old videos and it was full (though I sure thought it would hold more than what was on there). The other one is clearly just broken, 'cuz it records for a while and then just hangs. Last time it got (and then lost) 35 minutes' worth, this time it hung in only a minute and a half. Good thing I (a) didn't pay for them, and (b) know the Product Manager, who'll be getting quite an email later today.

So instead, I ended up running my very short recording time camera which puts proportionately more pressure on me to "get it right", which, of course, causes proportionately more non-rightness. I'm gonna have to abandon that approach, 'cuz I end up with no video anyway, and a bad performance to go with it. If there were no cameras at all, I'd have the same amount of video (none) but at least I'd'a had a decent night for the people in the house.

Anyway, I had fun, as always, impressed a few people, and made 32 bucks -- not bad for a cold, windy night. And I might be able to squeeze one halfway decent song video out of the footage I managed to get.