K&W in Laguna Beach -- Friday, 11Apr2014

Busted! Almost...

I was hoping that there would be some action in Laguna on Friday nights, but I guess it's still too early. But we started out with some nice girls on the bench, but only three songs in, a cop car pulled up right when I was playing "Over the Rainbow" for them. He didn't actually signal me to stop, and I'm pretty sure that I wasn't breaking any laws, so I just kept playing, albeit as quietly as I could.

He went over and talked to Warren, and said that someone, who he wouldn't name, had complained about the noise. Our understanding is that there is no loudness limit, unless a business complains. The Ice Cream guy loves us, so he would never "drop a dime" on us, but Sanchez was playing across the street in front of the Fingerhut gallery, and the ladies in there hate him, so they definitely would.

But he was playing quieter than I've ever heard him, and so was I, since I didn't have to compete with his noise. Warren told him that it was more likely "the guy across the street" that had prompted the complaint, but the cop said that they'd mentioned the top hat.

So we were baffled, but the cop said that he thought the music sounded good, and if we turned it down a little, we could keep playing until/unless there was another complaint. And he went across the street to tell Sanchez the (presumably) same thing.

Our only theory is that a (new?) Fingerhut lady heard Sanchez' noise, but looking out the window, just saw me with a guitar and assumed I was the one making it. Or maybe she called in about "all those darn musicians". I guess we'll never know.

But later on, Warren saw a Fingerhut lady come out, make "turn it down" gestures at Sanchez, and then talk to him for a while. She didn't come over to do the same to us...

But, the whole thing put the scare into me, so I played super quiet and subdued from then on, and cowering every time a white car came around the corner from behind me. The cop never did come back, but it was pretty awful -- waiting, hoping he wouldn't.

We did have some people come by, unaware of the drama, and plop down on the bench with a batch of cameras, to take some time-lapse photos of the traffic going by Main Beach. For whatever reason. But the lady took some nice pictures of me with her fancy camera, and emailed them, so that was nice.

After we gave up (early -- no people, no fun -- at 8:30) and were hanging around talking, some high school boys came up and asked us if we were done. Turns out they were big fans of ancient blues rock: Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Dylan, etc. That was unexpected...