K&W in Laguna Beach -- Wednesday, 17Apr2013

Tuesday night was too cold, so we went down on Wednesday when it was supposed to be warmer. And it was, but it was also windy! Not constantly (or I'd'a just gone home), but gusty. I had to keep turning my head sideways to block the wind from the mic so it wouldn't make that wuff-wuff noise. And early on, it blew my tall cylindrical tip jar over, sending dollar bills flying. Fortunately, some guys were there listening at that time, and they helped me round 'em up.

So I looked around for something heavy to put in the jar, but all I could come up with were my keys. That worked for a while, until a gust came from the opposite direction and blew the jar, head first, right into the trashcan! Fortunately, it was pretty clean in there, and the jar landed against a paper bag that kept most of the money contained. Had to dig for my car keys, though.

I got there just as Tom was packing up to leave Greeter's Corner -- perfect timing. Not nearly as many people out as the last few weeks, so it's clearly not anybody's Spring Break anymore.

But we still made 48 bucks, partly due to a guy who came up with his girlfriend quite early, and while she read through the request list, he pulled out a stack of bills which turned out to be all twenties. He asked if he could make change out of the jar, and I said, "Sure, but I don't know how much is in there." There's always at least ten that I leave in there as "starter", but it seemed like there was only about three more, so far. He dug around and found ten ones, somehow, and seemed satisfied (for a ten dollar tip, and he hadn't even heard us play yet!) -- and then proceeded to put several of those back in the jar as his girlfriend asked for songs. We need more guys like him!

I've been trying to learn "God Only Knows", 'cuz it's a great song, and also 'cuz I figure I ought to have at least one Beach Boys song, here with summer coming up and playing in Laguna Beach so much. The "normal" part of the song is working out pretty well, despite the somewhat odd chords, but I can't do (a) the orchestral "stings" that transition to the (b) Ba-ba-pa keychange verse, nor (c) the final rondo chorus with several overlapping singers at once.

But I can never tell how a song's going to work in Real Life until I actually try it. So I played what I've got so far, and it seems OK, even with all that stuff kind of faked over. I'll keep on it, and see what I can do.