K&W in Laguna Beach -- Monday, 31Mar2014

I had thought that this week was going to be Spring Break for some people, but apparently not -- it was really dead. And a cold wind was blowing.

But some people came out prepared for the weather and were willing to sit a spell and listen. Three nice teenage girls stopped to eat their ice cream and stayed for quite a while, requesting half a dozen songs.

And a group from France pulled up short when they realized that these guys weren't half bad. I was playing "The Weight", which I really only started 'cuz nobody was there, but apparently I do it better than I think I do. When that one was over, I invited them to pick the next song, and they chose "I'm Yours" which surprised me -- I'd'a never guessed that that song had been a hit in France, too.

Keith in Laguna Beach -- Sunday, 30Mar2014

After the great time we'd had the night before, I couldn't resist coming down to try my luck again. Not as many people out, but still pretty good.

I hadn't been playing very long when up comes a lady and Captain Jack Sparrow. She asked me if Jack could come up and jam with me on harmonica. I was like, "Wait, what?" I guess it was the last thing I was expecting, so it took me a while to parse that request, but then I said, "Sure!" and she waved him over. He dug around in his waist pouch and came up with an A harp, so I fired up some 12-bar blues in A, and he started wailing -- and he was really good, too! Some really strange things have happened down on that corner, but jamming with Captain Jack has to be the most surreal thing I've ever done.

A high school kid walked right up to me, spun around and held up his phone to take a selfie video with me in the background, singing "Sounds of Silence". I could see myself in his screen. I don't know where that video's going to end up, but it was fun.

A family came by with a little four-year-old girl and her little brother. I played "Twinkle Twinkle" and "Itsy Bitsy" and "Rubber Duckie" and some more for them. After a few songs she exclaimed, "He's playing *music*!" Why, yes I am. Thanks for noticing!

A teenage girl with her little brother in tow sat on the bench for a long time. I asked if they were waiting for a ride or something, but no, she was listening to me sing. She said she loved all these songs, and said that I must love these "old songs", too. I told her, no, I'm just that old!

K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 29Mar2014

I was feeling really up for it, so I went down at :30 to make sure to get The Corner on a Saturday night in Spring Break. Lots of people out and lots of activity down by the beach, and more kids than usual. I ended up playing "Let It Go" five times.

We had a pretty constant stream of friendly people, including a batch from Liverpool who danced and unsurprisingly asked for some Beatle songs, enthusiastically joining in on the na-nas at the end of "Hey Jude".

It finally tapered off to nothing at 10:30 (a six hour shift!), and we were sitting on the bench talking about our mutual misfortune earlier in the week in the lay-off department. I was holding my guitar, since I don't bring the case from the car 'cuz there's nowhere to store it, when four guys came up who apparently spoke no English at all came up. One guy asked me if I "Haben zie Blues?", so I fired up my blues tune (barely audible without the amp) and Warren dug out a harmonica, and we played for a while. The guy was apparently at least a little impressed, 'cuz he handed me two bucks and they all called out (presumably) nice things in German as they left.

I think that the unpredictability is what makes this hobby so compelling...

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Friday, 28Mar2014

I had high hopes 'cuz of the nice Spring weather, but it was pretty slow. Had a great on-stage "Let It Go" sing-along right at the beginning, with a batch of kids and their camera-toting parents. This is definitely a winning strategy.

But, as I'd feared might happen sometimes, some kids take the opportunity to choose songs as a license to take over the show. I had some boys decide to do that this time, and their parents were nowhere to be found (some parents take me for a babysitter). So after playing some of their requests, I had to just ignore them and play songs that I wanted to, and try to bore them away. I can tell the difference between a legitimate request and a kid who just wants to make the adult "dance", and I'm not getting paid enough to stand here being abused, thank you.

An old friend from Trailmates came by and sat to listen and watch the kids for a long time. His daughter appeared after a while and they had me play "Waltzing With Bears", with them singing along like the old days. And later on a teenage girl came by and asked me if I used to play for the Indian Princesses. It's a very niche fame I've got...

I was just about to call it a night, and played "Wonderful Tonight" as my last number, and a middle-aged couple came running up to slow dance to it. That was sweet.

K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 22Mar2014

Kinda gloomy weather, so although lots of people smiled on their way past, we didn't get anything really going until about 9:00. (We did get started late, 'cuz I forgot the accessory battery again. But at least now I've figured out what change in my routine is causing it, and it won't happen again. Probably.)

Anyway, we got a few people to stop, and I gave them song lists, and they requested stuff, and other people stopped to see what was up, and that stopped even more people until we had quite a party going on for a while there. I just kind of "went around the room" and everyone was taking their turn making requests. I think I need more copies of the list.

One guy and his wife stayed a long time, and asked for quite a few songs. Finally he came up and asked me if I ever played for other people and their original songs. Um, no. I guess he wanted me to learn his songs and play them so he could record them. I told him I wouldn't have time to do anything like that. Nor inclination, but I kept that to myself..

At one point some young girls sat and listened for a long time, and finally got up to leave, but as they got across the street I fired up "Over the Rainbow". I guess they like that song 'cuz they made a sudden U-turn and came right back and sat down for it. *Then* they left.

I was playing what I thought would be my last song when some college kids came by and started dancing to it. And then they wanted more dance songs, so I fired up "Mister Postman", and they danced up a storm.

But the best part was during the big party, one guy was totally thrilled to find "Please Come to Boston" on the list and excitedly asked me to play it. I did, and there's a part where it says, "I still need to lean to somebody I can sing to", and he yelled out "You can sing to *me*!"

Keith in Laguna Beach -- Sunday, 16Mar2014

I had such a great night at Spectrum on Saturday night, I couldn't resist trying my luck again on Sunday in Laguna. And I wanted to see if the afternoon "beach crowd" would be a better bet than the evening crowd we usually play for, so went down at 2:30.

And yup, there were lots of people out, but most of them were all on their way to something and didn't slow down much. But those that did were very friendly. I had half a dozen people come up to tell me I have a "lovely voice" and similar comments. One guy and then a whole extended family came up to tell me that they'd seen me the night before at Spectrum. I remembered the grandparents sitting and smiling for a long time the night before, and since they knew want to expect, they just settled in on the bench and made several requests. The teenage grand-daughter decided to buy a CD, and asked me to autograph it. Sweet.

At one point, there was a big family standing over by the ice cream store, and a twenty-something daughter came over and just said "Excuse me!" right in the middle of a song, so I stopped, and she asked me to play "Always On My Mind" for her parents over there. I'm happy to do that, but usually people wait until a break between songs to put in a request. I guess she was just really done with that previous song...

Later in the evening, a dad with several little girls came by, so, since I had had such great luck inviting the kids up onto the stage the night before, I asked if anyone knew the words to "Let It Go", and the dad sent one little girl over. She stood in front of me didn't sing a word or move a muscle through the whole song, much to her dad's amusement. Stage fright I guess.

A nice group of tourists came by and asked me to play "Carolina In My Mind", but since it was the day after Saint Patrick's Day, one of the ladies asked me to play an Irish song first. The only one I know is "Danny Boy", which I sing a cappella in my car on the way to gigs as a warm up, because it starts very low and goes very high. So I fired it up, but I've never played it on guitar, so I had to just completely fake the guitar chords for it, and not terribly successfully. But I kept the guitar pretty quiet and powered out the vocal, so maybe they didn't notice much...

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- Saturday, 15Mar2014

A huge, wonderful night. First big terrific-weather Saturday of the year, and there were *lots* of people out for it. And lots of them were very receptive. Maybe it was the hat. (I always wear it in Laguna, but not at Spectrum – but I just felt like it this time. And now I guess I'll have to wear it every time!)

Big night for Disney songs (as they're all liable to be from here out…) Some high school kids came by and looked the list and each of them chose a different song. I told them to narrow it down a bit, and they came back with "Part of Your World" from "The Little Mermaid". I started it up, and one of the girls moved out front and started lip-synching the words and dramatically pantomiming being the mermaid. She was quite good, and a lot of people stopped to watch her.

When she was done, I heard the girls beating up on the lone boy to put something in my guitar case, since apparently none of them had any cash. He didn't either, but succumbed to the peer pressure and left a Starbucks gift card (worth $10) to get the girls off his back. That extra ten bucks pushed it over the line for a new record high in tips, too.

But of course, the big hit was "Let it Go" (in the new, corrected, "movie version" replacing the barely-known "pop version" I had learned at first), which I must have played at least a dozen times. Including the time near the end when I played it and just as I was finishing up, a middle-aged couple appeared at the side table. I could tell they wanted to ask me something, and it was "Will you play 'Let It Go'?" I told them that I'd just finished it, 30 seconds ago, and was literally still panting from the big high note at the end. Somehow, they'd walked up through the 50 yards that I can be heard from, and didn't hear the song that they were walking though...

I had one set of little kids that were there for a long time. I had run through all the Disney songs on the list and they were still there. So I fired up "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", which is also from "Frozen", but not as huge a hit as "Let It Go", but I figured these girls would know it. And they did. The song is sung by Anna, but at a particular point, there's a spoken line by her sister Elsa. When I got to that spot, I paused, and when nobody responded, I prompted, "Your line!", and one of the little girls figured it out and shouted "Go away, Anna!" *That* was great.

So a while later I had another inspiration, and it had been a while so I announced that I was going to play "Let It Go" (again), and invited anyone who knew the words to come up onto the front edge of the stage and sing along. Didn't have to ask twice... Immediately I had four enthusiastic girls on the stage, and a dozen parents out front with their cameras running. Lucky for me, my wife and daughter were also there at that time (with the dogs), so I got some pictures, too.

Indeed, the "Let It Go" mania continued even after I was finished and had the gear half packed up when some teens came by and saw the lists and begged me to play it. It was 11:30 by then, and the fountain was completely off, so I got the guitar back out and played it, acoustic-only, right there at the edge of the stage for them. That was fun.

K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 08Mar2014

Last Saturday was really great, but this one, not so much. I guess it's a lot more "luck of the draw" (who happens by and when) than one would wish.

But, oddly, we made a new record for this season in tips. Lots of people tipping, but hardly anyone stopping to actually listen. Weird.

When I decided to learn the hit song from the movie "Frozen", I figured I'd learn the "pop version" since it tends to be more playable, and sometimes the words are re-done to be less movie-specific. (The pop version of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" has all new lyrics except for the title line.)

Helping her find "Let It Go"

So I listened to the pop version of "Let It Go", and specifically did *not* listen to the movie version so I wouldn't confuse myself. And I've been playing the pop version for a couple of weeks to great response, but confusingly little singing along.

In retrospect, now I know why. When "Let It Go" came on the Academy Awards show, I realized how different the movie version is from the pop version I've been playing. Wow – no wonder nobody sings along, they don't know these words!

So I threw out my previous version and learned the movie one, despite the danger of messing up my mind. The movie version is also, as expected, harder to pull off as one guy with a guitar, but it's worth it. I worked on it all morning, and managed to play it mostly right. I think it'll get an even better response now.

Had a rough start to the evening, though. When I got all the way down there, I found that I'd forgotten the battery that makes the vocals possible. (That one battery pack runs the harmony box, and the wireless receivers for the mic and guitar. I can live without the harmony box, and can just use a cable for the guitar, but the wireless mic is the only one I have.) So I played acoustic-only (Ouch) while Geneva drove it down to me. This is why you have children: so they can take care of you in your old age.