Keith in Laguna Beach -- Friday, 05Apr2013

I was hoping that Greeter's Corner would be open when I got there, and it was! Mysteriously, Sanchez was set up on the gallery corner across the street -- probably Tom had been blocking him, and had only recently left. But even more mysteriously, Sanchez was playing *really* quietly. I didn't really have a theory about that -- "He's learned some manners" didn't seem likely...

Anyway, I set up and started playing, enjoying the relative quiet. But after an hour or so, a lady came out of the gallery, and just interrupted me in the middle of a song, asking me if I would "turn it down. It's even louder than the music in our store!" Well, that was pretty unlikely, since I was already quieter than I usually play, so as not to annoy Sanchez when he was being courteous for once. But I politely told her, "Sure", and did so.

But aha! This explained Sanchez's low volume -- clearly his grating sound, right outside their doors, had finally broken the camel's back, and they had come out and told him to turn down, and were now also hyper-sensitive to even my mellow songs and volume. It also explained Sanchez's even deeper than usual scowl...

And then, to make it worse, two minutes later a cop car pulled up, and the cop came over and asked me to turn it down because they'd "had complaints from local businesses". Gee, I wonder who that could be? I told him that the lady had already asked me to, and that I already had. He then asked me if there was another guy somewhere. I told him that had been a guy across the street that had just stepped away (I think he went to buy more batteries again), but he had been playing quieter than he ever had. As annoying as Sanchez is, I still didn't want to throw him under the paddy wagon...

After the cop left, it occurred to me that he'd never said anything about "*no* amp", only "turn it down". So I actually feel pretty good about the whole thing -- the cops (or this cop, anyway) don't seem to be liable to try to enforce the non-existent "no amps" law, but they are available to the shop owners if the music gets annoying enough. Maybe Sanchez will take the hint and quit coming. Or at least play a bit quieter, so as not to incur the gallery ladies' wrath again (though he did turn it back up as soon as they closed the shop, so maybe not).

The rest of the night went pretty well. I had some good little crowds, and made decent tips ($59). I really shouldn't have been out there anyway, since I had two gigs pending the next day, but with Spring Break and all the people out, it's just too tempting.