Keith in Laguna Beach -- Monday, 27May2013

Since I don't bar-be-que, I had nothing else going on for Memorial Day, so I went down to Laguna. I was worried that all the other musicians would be out, and that I'd probably not even be able to find a parking space, but I was wrong on both counts. As I got there at 3:00, Tom & Tommie were packing up to leave, so I got the Ice Cream corner, and there were inexplicably no other musicians out playing at all, even though there were lots of people to play for.

I got a way better response than the day before from the tourists and beach people, and pulled in a very respectable $60 for a three hour shift -- at least I'm finally beating minimum wage! There was almost always somebody sitting on the bench, though admittedly, most of them were there to eat their ice cream. Still, with the ice cream as a catalyst, most of them seemed to end up at least a little bit involved with the music before they wandered off.

All in all, a fine way to spend Memorial Day, and I'm glad I went.

K&W in Laguna Beach -- Sunday, 26May2013

Me and Warren, reflected in the gallery window

It was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, so we figured there would be lots of people out, and since everyone would have Monday off, a "virtual Saturday". We went down at 5:00, and found Tom and Tommie (a father-daughter duo) on the Ice Cream corner, so we set up across the street on the Fingerhut Gallery side.

Lots of beach people came by, but not many stopped to listen. I'm not sure why, but it seemed like a lot of girl-girl couples came by, and they did tend to stop. Sometimes Laguna seems like a town from the past with its small-town feel and friendliness, and sometimes it seems like the town of the future, with its easy and open attitudes toward people's proclivities. I love it.

But Silly Patty came by, so even when nobody else would stop, she was there to sing to. Unfortunately, the whole thing was cut short (at two hours and only 26 bucks) when the batteries in the amplifier went dead. They seem OK now, so I guess they just weren't fully charged.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Saturday, 25May2013

Nice summer weather, and the Saturday of a long weekend -- pretty much perfect conditions. After I had only played a few songs, as guy came over and bought one of each CD. I don't think that's ever happened before...

I got several kids' parties started. For the first one (always "Mister Postman"), I did my usual "Mashed Potato" lesson, and then the kids stood in a perfectly straight line and dutifully tried to do the dance like I'd showed them. I felt bad that they seemed to take it as a requirement, not a fun suggestion, so for the next Dance Song I made sure to tell them to do whatever they wanted. In Soviet Russia, dance does you!

Other than that, it was pretty normal. I did have a lady decide that I sounded like I could do Gordon Lightfoot songs well, so I confirmed her suspicions by singing "If I Could Read Your Mind".

And then, very late, a lady came by and sat down, and then in the middle of the next song, she got up and stood in front of me and made huge scooping/pulling arm gestures at me.

Since I wasn't in the throes of a baby delivery, I decided that she was trying to tell me to put more oomph into it, which I accordingly tried to do. She seemed somewhat satisfied by this, and looked at the list and chose "Love Hurts". She was thinking of the Anthrax version, but I do it in the original Everly Brothers style, and told her so. She wanted to hear it anyway, "as long as it's done with *passion*", so I fired it up -- with passion, or something like it.

Now, I'll fully cop to my normal performance style being more on the mechanical side than the passionate one. I'm quite concerned with getting the notes right, and delivering an accurate portrayal of the song. My sense of perfectionism requires that much, as a minimum. But it's definitely more fun when I can tell that someone is listening, and that's when I start to "work it", and put something more into it. This lady made that even more concrete -- specifically and vocally asking for "more", and it was great to try to deliver it.

Anyway, it was a great night. I pulled in $178, almost a record, and sold 11 CDs in all, totally selling out of the 8 "Favorites" CDs I'd brought. I had people listening continuously all the way until 11:30, when we'd "shut the place down". It's amazing how, as soon as I stop playing, I suddenly notice how much my feet, knees, lower back, and fingers hurt...

K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 18May2013

Jim couldn't make it again, so I went down to meet Warren in Laguna on Saturday night. Nice weather, lots of people. There was a guitar girl I've never seen before on Greeter's Corner, so we set up across the street in front of Fingerhut, which is a pretty good second choice. And since she was acoustic-only, she was bound to be a lot less distracting than Sanchez, while blocking him from taking that spot -- win-win!

I still prefer the Ice Cream corner for the better foot traffic, not having to worry so much about the Gallery Girls coming out to complain, and I think the tall-plants backdrop helps diminish the car traffic noise -- but the "monitor" effect of the sound reflecting off of the glass wall across from us is pretty nice on the Fingerhut corner.

It was nice to be without Sanchez for a change, but after a little while, the guitar girl disappeared and my nemesis, the Bluegrass Boys, took over the Corner. They're not nearly as loud and obnoxious as Sanchez, but they're just so much fun that they can be equally act-destroying. The last time they appeared, I might as well have just gone home as soon as they'd started, since all my potential audience hung out with them instead of me. But this time, although a lot of people stopped to hear them (as they should!), I was actually proud/glad to be doing quite well at the same time. It helped that they did me the accidental favor by getting frequently hormonally distracted and spent as much time chatting up the girls as playing...

Earlier in the week, I had gotten inexplicably inspired to learn "Feel Like Making Love" by Bad Company (?!?), and had worked out a passable arrangement for it. And it went over pretty well, too -- lots of singing along by passers-by, and I even saw one fist-pump -- so I guess it's worth pursuing.

When we play in front of Fingerhut, I put the tip jar on the ground in front of us, and it has a color-changing glowball at the bottom, to make it more visible. Most people notice it down there, but a group of 20 or so young men in silly British "bobbie" helmet/hats went by, and one of them kicked the tip jar over. He didn't even notice (they may have been drinking a bit...), but another guy behind him did and picked the jar up and fetched the money back in. While he did that, Warren asked him who they were, and he said that they were a British soccer team called "The Charlatans". After they wandered off, it occurred to me how ironic it was that a couple of hundred regular people managed to go by, but it took a soccer player to unwittingly kick the jar over...

Anyway, we had a great response, and only got asked to turn it down by the Fingerhut ladies once (which was because they were hosting a guest lecturer). Lots of people stopped to hear a few songs, and I noticed that several of them came back around again later. And we made $97 for the evening, which felt pretty good considering the Bluegrass competition across the street.

Keith at Long Beach Towne Center -- Friday, 17May2013

When I first got signed up with the booking agent that covers Long Beach, Chino, and Riverside, I volunteered for every gig she'd give me. That included a Saturday that she was in a jam for back in February, this one, and two more. What I didn't really realize at the time was that I was volunteering to play for just one hour, as the "opening act" for another band, starting at 6:00, on a workday. All four of those particulars are, let's just say, far from ideal.

But the "only an hour" thing wasn't *so* bad, 'cuz they send out a sound guy with a big nice amp, which means I don't have so much setup and teardown time. And since I'm partway there already if I leave right from work, I got there in time, though 6:00 on a Friday is still a pretty dead shift, audience-wise.

It was a bit annoying that the band that I "opened" for was three 15-year-olds -- two girls who could barely play their guitars and listlessly sang while a boy bonked on a "cajon" drum/box. Everybody's got to start somewhere, but it rather diminishes the prestige of this gig when acts that ought to be at a high school talent show can get in...

But it was fun, once I got started. It's a really nice stage, and my aunt, uncle, and their granddaughter were there right from the beginning, so I had someone to play for the whole time. A nice man bought a CD from me as I was setting them out, before I'd even started. I said, "But what if I'm terrible?", and he said that if I was playing there, I must be good. I guess he hasn't seen those three kids play...

Right at the end of my hour, 5 or 6 teenage girls came by and were *really* excited to be able to choose a song, and they tussled and argued about each one. I ended up listening to whichever girl was shouting out a song I'd'a wanted to do anyway, but they were thrilled and danced around and screamed out their next choices as soon as each song was over. Fortunately, the sound guy let me run over my hour by 20 or 25 minutes so they got to choose several before I had to shut down.

I ended up with $46 in the jar, which is pretty good, and actually a really high dollars per hour rate, considering the short playing time. It's just ridiculous that this place tries to put on two bands per night, especially since they enforce a 9:30 curfew. That means the first band officially gets an hour, there's an hour of dead time for the changeover, and the second band gets an hour and a half. If they'd let one band play the whole time, 6-9:30, there'd be more music, it'd be worth the bands' effort to get out there, and this would be a great gig, not a lame one. Problem is, as long as fools like me and Amateur Hour keep falling for it, management'll have no reason to wise up.

Keith at Riverside Plaza -- Saturday, 11May2013

This was my first time at this new venue, but I figured it was another outdoor mall, so it ought to be similar to Irvine Spectrum where I've played many many (>125) times. I figured wrong.

At Spectrum, you're standing in the middle of a rush of foot-traffic, and you feel like the prow of a ship, splitting the flow and hoping that some percentage of the people rushing by will notice the music and slow down or stop for a few tunes. In Riverside, it's less of a "walking around" Fashion mall, and more of a bunch of utilitarian shops that share a parking lot. Sometime recently, they painted all the stores the same color so they can call it a "shopping center". But the types of stores and the layout do not encourage window-shopping -- you're there for a purpose, and you get in and out when you're done.

Except! There are some restaurants clumped together across from the movie theaters, and people seem to come out to eat there, and hang around at the outdoor tables listening to the band, which the management is smart enough to book 4 nights a week, every week. And when people come out of the theaters, since there's not much else to look at, they'll hang around the fountain that's out front, if the band strikes their fancy.

It was weird. People seemed to be there, if not specifically to hear the music, to at least give the music a try before going home. And once I got some people to request a song off the list, other people figured they could join in on that, and I got more and more requests.

The strange part, though, was that this was an actual city street that runs through the shops, and to set up for music, they rope off the wide brick crosswalk between the restaurants and the theaters, and call it the stage. So I'm standing right in the middle of the street, and people are hanging out on the left side of the street, or sitting at the tables on the right side of the street, and the space in the middle in front of me is apparently molten lava, 'cuz *nobody* will come and stand out there.

Until I finally broke that spell by handing out fingerlights to 6 or 8 little kids who then danced and ran around and played "ring around the rosie" out in front. The "turnover" rate was so low that the kids had lots of time to make friends and play together. I guess a lot of people liked my music, 'cuz most of them seemed to just settle in for the night. And their kids were in a safe and easily supervised space, so it felt like I was playing at a block party.

I suppose I did OK with my usual act, but it was clear to me afterward that this place requires a somewhat different approach than the high turnover Spectrum or Laguna street corner gigs -- and one that I'm completely unversed at. Having a long-term sticking-around actual audience makes it (theoretically) possible to develop some rapport and tune the set to the crowd. Not that I know how to do that...

The downside was that, because of the far-lower level of traffic, I only made $70 in tips, about half of what I make at Spectrum these days. But on the other hand, the Riverside gig pays money up front ($125), and Spectrum deducts $50 as a set up fee, so overall, Riverside is a much better deal, money-wise. But that's beside the point -- I'm not in it for the money, I'm in it for the experiences, and this was certainly a different one!

Now, this place is 50 miles from home, so it took me an hour and a half to get there and an hour to get home, plus gas, so it's not something I'd want to do every weekend, but it was interesting and fun to play under a completely different "feel". And the lady that books Riverside just booked me to play the mall in Chino, so now I'll get to see what that one is like!

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Friday, 03May2013

Nice and warm out -- first gig this year where I didn't have to wear my jacket at all.

Had two little kids, quickly joined by a third, dancing for the very first song (which is always "Hotel California"). That's never happened before -- not to mention that it's not exactly a danceable song. Fortunately, for the really little ones, "music" equals "dancing time", and there's no requirement of any discernible correspondence between their "moves" and the music's beat.

We hired a consultant to help us with some software on a new product at work. He lives in Essex, England, and his name is Simon, 'cuz it's not Nigel (seems like the only two names they have over there, doesn't it?). He flew over for the week to get acquainted with the project as the players, and had the night off, so he walked over to hear me play. He sat at the tables, which are behind me, and worked on his laptop for a couple of hours. I looked around and checked on him every once in a while, and he'd grin and wave, so I guess he enjoyed it...

Anyway, a kind of low key night. I guess you can tell how well it went by the tips ($98), the CDs sold (4) and how late I ended up staying (10:45). Fair to middlin'.