K&W at Borders South Coast Plaza -- Fri, 15Apr2011

We had the usual uninterested group of studying college kids for most of the night. After many frustrating gigs' worth of trying to reach them, this time I just decided that I'd forego that and just play what I wanted to play since it gets the same (non)reaction either way.

And that made it a pretty fun time. We ran through some obscure stuff (e.g. "Waiting"), and some neglected old tunes (e.g. "Down On Yourself"), and some "experimental" stuff (notably Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing", which I've been poking at to see if there might be some way to pull it off in "my style", with so-far limited success). That one really gives Warren something to sink his teeth into.

We did have a guy come right up front with his little daughter (22 months old), who he claimed "loves music". After a song or two, he asked if we knew "I'm Yours", "her favorite song". You could have fooled me, since her china-doll-cute but accusingly baffled expression didn't change a bit, before or after the song. Still, they gave us a reason to be there for a while.

I've had reason to believe that people can't find the little table with the tip jar on it when I put it over to the side, so this time I put it right in the middle of the room. Unfortunately, that appears to have had no effect whatsoever, since we made exactly two dollars. Made the split-math pretty easy, though.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Sun, 10Apr2011

Nicer weather than last Sunday afternoon, but fewer people. Maybe it was *too* nice, and they were all at the beach.

Started off really well, with a bunch of Persian kids, led by brash and bold 8-year-old ("I'm the oldest one here!") Samantha and her twin-brother cousins, jumping right in. She had lots of requests right off, which is nice, for a while, but she ended up trying to hijack the whole show. After a while, she was requesting songs she'd never heard of, just to be the one in charge. Pretty young to be such a control freak already -- I'd give this one a wide berth, 8-year-old boys.

I did assemble a pretty good group of young dancers, and a few moms camped out right in front on blankets -- glad to have their kids distracted so they could get into some serious mom-talk. Samantha, not being a dancer herself, kept trying to steer me into some non-dance tunes (chosen at random), but her feminine wiles were wasted on me.

After it cooled down and the Sunday Afternoon Family Outing crowd left, it was pretty empty, except for the occasional group passing through and getting caught up in one of my songs and hanging out for a while. Ended up with $50 and some change in the jar, but that was only because a guy came through with two small daughters and dropped a twenty in, before I had even really gotten started. They didn't even stay long enough to hear a song, much less request one, or pick up a CD. Thanks, dude, but what was that about?

As I was packing up, a young woman came up and told me that I had "sounded really good", and then asked if I took checks, or only cash. Um, what? Then it occurred to me that she wanted to buy a CD, not leave a tip, so I told her to just take one. She did, and a card, and then asked me how much I charge for a gig. Taken by surprise (again), and wondering if she meant "this one" or if she intended to hire me, I decided the latter and managed to say "about two hundred", and she said she'd "shoot me an email". That probably won't happen of course, but it's flattering anyway.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Sun, 03Apr2011

Turns out that there's a Sunday evening shift available at Spectrum that I didn't even know about until recently, and since I couldn't get in on Friday or Saturday, and the Springtime weather has been bringing lots of people out, I thought I'd give it a try.

And it was pretty good. Lots of people out, but it seemed like they were more "busy" and less "cruising" than the usual Saturday night crowd. It was a little tougher to drag people in, but I did OK. Less groups of teens, too. I thought I'd get more young families on a Sunday afternoon (I played 4-8, when the shops close), but didn't really. But it was the first weekend of Spring Break, so maybe that had an effect.

Inspired by Acacia's "Just Dance" game, I decided to learn "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", due to its almost universal "get up and bounce around" appeal. I figure that a lot of parents of young kids would have been teens in the 80's, and this song will go over with them. And I had a chance to try it out when a young girl wanted to dance (aka "get swung around in a circle") with her mom and aunt, and kept saying "Play another one!" after every dance song I'd play for her. Unfortunately, I completely choked, and played it worse than I've ever played any song in public, ever. I guess it's actually trickier than one day's worth of poking at it qualified me for.

Daleen came by with the dogs and stayed almost the whole night. Her parents showed up, too, and my brother with wife. I just wish I'd'a had a chance to run through a couple of the new songs the day before, but couldn't with all the birthday party setup and teardown. I botched the first half of "Amie" pretty much, but mostly pulled off "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes".

It was interesting playing in the beating down sun, after freezing for so many gigs in a row. But then the sun went down and it got pretty cold up there, as usual. Who says we don't have "weather"?

Anyway, it was fun, and a definite "better than nothing" on weekends when I can't do a Friday or Saturday night. Apparently no one signs up for Sundays (or knows about 'em), so I can probably get in almost anytime. And I made $79, on top of the fun of it, so, yeah, I'll definitely do it again.