K&W in Laguna Beach -- Saturday, 08Aug2015

My new guitar finally came in! It's really pretty and plays pretty great (now that I've lowered the action a bit). When I picked it up, I asked them what strings Taylor had put on it (so I could, you know, replace them with the same kind eventually, assuming I like them). But the shop guys not only didn't know, they didn't know there was two kinds that Taylor uses. I suspect that they're what Taylor calls "HD Light", which is really just Medium top three strings, and Light bottom three. The result is that the high strings feel really tight, and hurt more. And some sound difference too, I guess...

Anyway, Tom wasn't supposed to be down there, so I was really looking forward to playing the whole night on the ice cream corner, with my new guitar. But Tom's plans changed at the last minute and he was going to be there after all.

Well, I had to go down anyway, and play someplace, anyplace, 'cuz, new guitar! I noticed that the alley was empty as I drove past it, but I was aiming at playing by the green swirly artwork bench-thing. But there was already a guy there, so I decided to head for the alley. As I went through the Fingerhut corner, Rasta Ross jumped up and said, "Oh! You can play here! I give you this corner!", which was great of him.

Fingerhut is actually closed, so I could play right in front of the papered-over display window without fear that the ladies would come and tell me to quit blocking it. Facing that way, people can use the low wall as a bench.

Problem was, the window's just a bit too narrow for the both of us, so I was too close to Warren's amp and hearing his guitar too much, and getting feedback from my guitar, and it being unfamiliar and not sounding right all made for an uncomfortable first try.

Still, somehow, we did all right -- I sold five CDs even before Tom quit and we started up on the ice cream side, at 11:20. It sounded better there, since I'm farther from Warren's amp, and there's no little wall directly across from me, to which I attribute the feedback problem.

Anyway, it was pretty dead at 11, but it was fun to be playing the new guitar, so we kept playing until the Changing-Bars people started coming through. They all thought we should keep playing until 1:20 when the batteries disagreed.