On Saturday afternoon, we took the dogs down there just to check it out and it encouraged me to go back on Sunday with my guitar -- but mindful of the city law against amplification without a permit, just acoustic -- no amp or harmony box. To make it even easier to carry, I zip-tied my tip jar to a light music stand, and made a "poster" slipped into the pockets of the songbook binder. A stack of cards fit into the lid of the tip jar, and I could throw a few songlists down. Everything (plus a bottle of Dew) fit into a backpack, with my guitar (without the case) over my other shoulder.
But when I got there about 4:00, a locally famous lady named April was belting out her 40's tunes in "Acoustic Alley" (an enclosed foot corridor that focuses sound, making it essentially the only place where a quiet instrument (like a guitar or voice) can be heard), and a guy was making a go of strumming on J&W's corner.
I went down PCH to try out some of the other spots I noted the day before, but since I've never seen anyone else play any of those places, I was afraid to. I experimentally strummed a little bit in one of the courtyards, but there was nobody coming in anyway, so I gave up. It was becoming clear that even if I got permission to play somewhere, I was completely inaudible.
So after a while I wandered back to the main street, but April was still in the Alley, and Steven was still on the corner. You'd think that in the whole of Laguna Beach, there'd be more than two places to play street music, but it really does boil down to those two places.
Anyway, I went down the street a ways and played inaudibly on a sidewalk bench for a spell. I didn't get the stuff out of the bag though, so it was just an experiment in what songs I could do from memory. After a while of that, it was coming on 6:00, so I decided to just go on home, but on one last check, April was gone from the Alley. I quickly moved in and stayed the rest of the night.
It's an interesting challenge. Unlike normal amplified gigs, the zone where you can be heard is very small. And since everyone is walking by, you have a very limited time, maybe 5 seconds, to make an impression or you've lost them. It definitely behooves you to (a) sound good, (b) be singing, not flipping pages, tuning, or playing the instrumental verse, and (c) play songs that everybody can recognize from any tiny snippet at any given point in the song.
These rules were pretty easy to figure out since I was playing off to the side of the walkway, and people either would, or would not, turn their heads to look at me, depending on their immediate 1-second impression. The tendency is to just keep looking forward and just go by -- it took *something* to turn their heads.
After figuring that out, getting that instant and anywhere-in-the-song recognition factor narrowed my already-narrowed "Street Songs" list to about 4: "Hotel California", "Hey Jude", "Country Roads", and the clear winner, "Over the Rainbow". Of course I played other songs anyway, just for my own entertainment ("I'm Yours" works for the younger kids and a lot of people remember "The Boxer"), but the really deeply-well-known songs are the ones that make people reach for their wallets. And it's so satisfying to overhear someone tell their friend, "Oh! I love this song!", and even better if they stop to hear it to the end.
I played from about 6 until 9, when it was getting pretty thin, and I was getting pretty hungry. Surprisingly, there was 32 bucks in the jar, almost as much as a winter night at Spectrum, and enough to interest me in doing it again sometime. With school letting out soon, I think even weekday evenings might be fun, but only if I can get into the Alley. (Or if I get brave enough to build a small, camouflaged, and battery-powered rig...)
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Keith at Laguna Beach -- 28May2012
With the shutdown of my main gig at the Food Court, I'm suddenly interested in "diversifying my portfolio" -- i.e., having more places to play. Jim & Warren seem to be enjoying their twice-weekly attacks on Laguna Beach, so I thought I'd give that another go.
On Saturday afternoon, we took the dogs down there just to check it out and it encouraged me to go back on Sunday with my guitar -- but mindful of the city law against amplification without a permit, just acoustic -- no amp or harmony box. To make it even easier to carry, I zip-tied my tip jar to a light music stand, and made a "poster" slipped into the pockets of the songbook binder. A stack of cards fit into the lid of the tip jar, and I could throw a few songlists down. Everything (plus a bottle of Dew) fit into a backpack, with my guitar (without the case) over my other shoulder.
But when I got there about 4:00, a locally famous lady named April was belting out her 40's tunes in "Acoustic Alley" (an enclosed foot corridor that focuses sound, making it essentially the only place where a quiet instrument (like a guitar or voice) can be heard), and a guy was making a go of strumming on J&W's corner.
I went down PCH to try out some of the other spots I noted the day before, but since I've never seen anyone else play any of those places, I was afraid to. I experimentally strummed a little bit in one of the courtyards, but there was nobody coming in anyway, so I gave up. It was becoming clear that even if I got permission to play somewhere, I was completely inaudible.
So after a while I wandered back to the main street, but April was still in the Alley, and Steven was still on the corner. You'd think that in the whole of Laguna Beach, there'd be more than two places to play street music, but it really does boil down to those two places.
Anyway, I went down the street a ways and played inaudibly on a sidewalk bench for a spell. I didn't get the stuff out of the bag though, so it was just an experiment in what songs I could do from memory. After a while of that, it was coming on 6:00, so I decided to just go on home, but on one last check, April was gone from the Alley. I quickly moved in and stayed the rest of the night.
It's an interesting challenge. Unlike normal amplified gigs, the zone where you can be heard is very small. And since everyone is walking by, you have a very limited time, maybe 5 seconds, to make an impression or you've lost them. It definitely behooves you to (a) sound good, (b) be singing, not flipping pages, tuning, or playing the instrumental verse, and (c) play songs that everybody can recognize from any tiny snippet at any given point in the song.
These rules were pretty easy to figure out since I was playing off to the side of the walkway, and people either would, or would not, turn their heads to look at me, depending on their immediate 1-second impression. The tendency is to just keep looking forward and just go by -- it took *something* to turn their heads.
After figuring that out, getting that instant and anywhere-in-the-song recognition factor narrowed my already-narrowed "Street Songs" list to about 4: "Hotel California", "Hey Jude", "Country Roads", and the clear winner, "Over the Rainbow". Of course I played other songs anyway, just for my own entertainment ("I'm Yours" works for the younger kids and a lot of people remember "The Boxer"), but the really deeply-well-known songs are the ones that make people reach for their wallets. And it's so satisfying to overhear someone tell their friend, "Oh! I love this song!", and even better if they stop to hear it to the end.
I played from about 6 until 9, when it was getting pretty thin, and I was getting pretty hungry. Surprisingly, there was 32 bucks in the jar, almost as much as a winter night at Spectrum, and enough to interest me in doing it again sometime. With school letting out soon, I think even weekday evenings might be fun, but only if I can get into the Alley. (Or if I get brave enough to build a small, camouflaged, and battery-powered rig...)
On Saturday afternoon, we took the dogs down there just to check it out and it encouraged me to go back on Sunday with my guitar -- but mindful of the city law against amplification without a permit, just acoustic -- no amp or harmony box. To make it even easier to carry, I zip-tied my tip jar to a light music stand, and made a "poster" slipped into the pockets of the songbook binder. A stack of cards fit into the lid of the tip jar, and I could throw a few songlists down. Everything (plus a bottle of Dew) fit into a backpack, with my guitar (without the case) over my other shoulder.
But when I got there about 4:00, a locally famous lady named April was belting out her 40's tunes in "Acoustic Alley" (an enclosed foot corridor that focuses sound, making it essentially the only place where a quiet instrument (like a guitar or voice) can be heard), and a guy was making a go of strumming on J&W's corner.
I went down PCH to try out some of the other spots I noted the day before, but since I've never seen anyone else play any of those places, I was afraid to. I experimentally strummed a little bit in one of the courtyards, but there was nobody coming in anyway, so I gave up. It was becoming clear that even if I got permission to play somewhere, I was completely inaudible.
So after a while I wandered back to the main street, but April was still in the Alley, and Steven was still on the corner. You'd think that in the whole of Laguna Beach, there'd be more than two places to play street music, but it really does boil down to those two places.
Anyway, I went down the street a ways and played inaudibly on a sidewalk bench for a spell. I didn't get the stuff out of the bag though, so it was just an experiment in what songs I could do from memory. After a while of that, it was coming on 6:00, so I decided to just go on home, but on one last check, April was gone from the Alley. I quickly moved in and stayed the rest of the night.
It's an interesting challenge. Unlike normal amplified gigs, the zone where you can be heard is very small. And since everyone is walking by, you have a very limited time, maybe 5 seconds, to make an impression or you've lost them. It definitely behooves you to (a) sound good, (b) be singing, not flipping pages, tuning, or playing the instrumental verse, and (c) play songs that everybody can recognize from any tiny snippet at any given point in the song.
These rules were pretty easy to figure out since I was playing off to the side of the walkway, and people either would, or would not, turn their heads to look at me, depending on their immediate 1-second impression. The tendency is to just keep looking forward and just go by -- it took *something* to turn their heads.
After figuring that out, getting that instant and anywhere-in-the-song recognition factor narrowed my already-narrowed "Street Songs" list to about 4: "Hotel California", "Hey Jude", "Country Roads", and the clear winner, "Over the Rainbow". Of course I played other songs anyway, just for my own entertainment ("I'm Yours" works for the younger kids and a lot of people remember "The Boxer"), but the really deeply-well-known songs are the ones that make people reach for their wallets. And it's so satisfying to overhear someone tell their friend, "Oh! I love this song!", and even better if they stop to hear it to the end.
I played from about 6 until 9, when it was getting pretty thin, and I was getting pretty hungry. Surprisingly, there was 32 bucks in the jar, almost as much as a winter night at Spectrum, and enough to interest me in doing it again sometime. With school letting out soon, I think even weekday evenings might be fun, but only if I can get into the Alley. (Or if I get brave enough to build a small, camouflaged, and battery-powered rig...)
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1 comment:
Nice work... and $32 is quite impressive... We're lucky to pull down $6-10. Lucky thing We're Not In It For The Money... but you almost could be...!
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