We made a deal with Tom that if we didn't come down last week, he wouldn't come down this week. So we had The Corner to ourselves all night for the first time in a long time.
I got the chance to play my new ukulele a few times. It works quite well for "Over the Rainbow", "I'm Yours", and "Hey, Soul Sister", since people have heard those songs, played that way. I also played "Ukulele Lady", but I'm not sure the novelty songs that I've learned will work. Like "Waltzing With Bears", they require some attention from the audience to follow and get the jokes, and people in this situation don't really have the span. Not to mention the audibility challenges from sirens, Harleys, and loud car douchebags.
It was a pretty good night for "off season". My little Superfan Natalia (and family) came down again. As always, I played "You'll Be In My Heart" for her while her dad cuddled her up. I thought she'd like my new "toy guitar", so I played "Tiki Room" with it. Then back to guitar to play "Puff the Magic Dragon" for her little brother, but before I got started, Natalia came up and asked if she could play the Toy Guitar. I said, "Sure" and handed it to her. Her mom came up and held her while we did "Puff", with Natalia pretending to play along as part of the band. Very cute.
Also appearing was Phuong and Christopher, our other Superfans. Phuong is a real sweetie, and makes the most surprising requests. She keeps me on my toes, requesting songs I haven't done in ages, like "When You Wish Upon a Star".
Three Canadian ladies showed up and wanted to hear Canadian songs, so I played Neil Young's "Old Man", and Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind". When they told me it was the middle one's birthday, I sang the song and gave her a tiara so she could look the part.
Later on, I was in the middle of playing "Here Comes the Sun" when a college girl stopped. It was apparently "her jam" 'cuz she came right over to stand in front of me to wiggle-dance and smile. At the end, she said "Oh, thank you!", gave me a kiss on the cheek and Warren a hug, and off she went.
A couple came by and after a few songs the husband came over to buy a CD. I offered to autograph it, and the wife said to sign it to her, and that her name was "Lee". (Or "Leigh"?) I wrote "To Lee", and then my name, but it seems to me now that that was probably inadequate. I've never had anyone ask for a dedication before, so I was taken off guard, but I should probably think of something a bit more clever.
Another couple stopped and the lady asked for "Fire and Rain", saying that she likes that song because her name is "Suzanne". Before I could stop myself I blurted out that the Suzanne in the song had killed herself. This Suzanne probably didn't need/want to know that. What a jerk I am sometimes...
Tom offered us a deal that if we didn't come down this week, he wouldn't come down next week. That seemed like a good deal: not having a bad night (on the "wrong" corner until 11) this week in exchange for a good one next week. But since I hadn't played last weekend, I needed to play someplace, and took the opportunity to give Belmont another try.
There's been some discussion about the confusion of amplifier ordinances in Long Beach (they literally have laws on the books both ways), so it's a little scary about whether or not you'll get busted. So every time a cop came by (and they come by a lot to keep the drunk partiers in check), I got really quiet, and paranoid. But, so far so good -- no hassle this time, at least.
The "usual" busking spot is in front of the Chase bank, which is closed at night, and has a nice wide sidewalk. But there was already a guy playing slide blues kinds of stuff (with no amp) there, so I set up across the street in an alcove of the Bank of America. Unfortunately, that's the "less fun" side of the street, so I didn't get much attention. Quite a few people passing by put money in my jar, but I'd'a preferred that they stop and listen a while...
I did have a family stop and I gave the little girls the Kids' List, and they chose "Do You Want To Build a Snowman?" from "Frozen". I said OK, but somebody needs to feed me the Elsa line, "Go away, Anna!". I thought the big sister would find this fun, but watching her up to that point in the song, she was freaked out by the dread responsibility of being able to hit her cue. But her mom helped and after we got through that part, she relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the song.
Around 10, the slide guy inexplicably moved up the street, so I moved over to where he had been, since that's the "fun side". And it did get a lot more traffic, but still not a lot of people stopping to listen. Except a surfer guy who recognized "Hotel California" as he went by, and came back to plop on the ground to listen. His remarkably scantily-clad girlfriend and other friend had to stop and come back, too. I gave them my song lists, and they stayed for 5 or 6 songs, and helped attract some other people to at least slow down.
But it really only started to get good at 10:30 or 11, when a lot more people came by. But again they were mostly putting money in the jar and moving on. Finally three kids stopped, mostly because the guy like my hat. He wanted to wear it, and get a picture, so I gave my phone to the girl so I'd have a copy, too. Then the other girl wanted to get in on this, so we got another picture, with her in the hat.
I told them that they could pick a song, and the blue-haired girl said that, since she was having a bad night, she deserved to pick. Fine with me... But then she picked "Let It Go", and I figured, what the heck, nobody else is stopping anyway, and went ahead and played it. And, boom! *Everybody* (guys and girls) passing by jumped in to sing along, run up to get a picture or video next to me, dance through (with castle-making gestures), and, yes, throw money in the jar. Biggest song of the night, by an order of magnitude. I shoulda just played it back to back, all night.
Just after 1am, a fire truck came and parked right in front of me, with the loud diesel engine running. I couldn't play against the noise, so I sat on the bus stop bench and waited. Pretty soon some cops pulled up, and then more, and more, until there were five cop cars lined up. Dunno what the problem was (maybe something about a lost drunk girl?) but I was unwilling to give all these cops an opportunistic "amp law" bust, so I packed up.
A lady who had been playing a ways down the street also decided the sudden cop swarm wasn't conducive to street music, so she packed up and introduced herself on her way past. She was Lisa Stryker, who's a minor celebrity on the "Long Beach Musicians" Facebook group, mostly because of her continuing experiences and complaints about the unclear amp situation. We talked for a while about that, and I was a bit surprised, 'cuz her Facebook posts don't have that Australian accent...
Wow. I didn't play at all last weekend. So getting up there gets a little scary 'cuz it's not immediately familiar. And there's a huge amount of stuff that's not on the song sheet that I have to remember, and after two weeks, you're not sure if it's faded away or not. On the other hand, the vague and scary feeling of unfamiliarity also causes the songs to be "fresher" as routine habit gets replaced with actual attention.
So I was knocking those songs Out. Of. The. Park. It felt great to be playing and singing again, and these old folks know me by now and are a great audience. Also, it's a church (-ish?) kind of building with terrific acoustics and it just sounds great in there. Especially compared to the only other place I play these days: The Corner in Laguna with the Harleys and firetrucks and rude cellphone talkers, etc.
The tricky part was that I had smashed my left thumb in a piano-moving accident three days before (like slamming it in a car door), so the chords where I throw my thumb over the top of the neck were possible, but painful. So, just to add a layer of complexity, I had to try to reformulate those chords to use only fingers, on the fly. I love a challenge...
Anyway, to add some variety for these poor captive folks that have already heard my stuff a half-dozen times, I had a secret weapon that I held back as long as I could stand it: the new ukulele. I've been playing nothing else for the last two weeks at home, and decided that, if there was ever an audience that would like to hear it, it was these guys. Naturally, I've played "Over the Rainbow" for them every time I've been there, and, their possible memory issues aside, it feels like it just has to be getting repetitive for them. So I played it on uke this time. I actually think that both versions sound great, so I'm not really sure which one I should keep in the act. After that, I pulled up a classic 1928 uke tune, "Ukulele Lady", which they seemed to really like, so, although I had planned to just do those two, I went ahead and did "Five Foot Two", which I only learned yesterday. But I mostly got through it, and they loved it.
There's a room in the back corner of the big auditorium, and people kept walking through to get to some kind of meeting that was going on back there. Invariably though, they'd stall a bit and listen to a song or two before going on in. That was flattering.
And after I was done, a guy came up and asked for a card. He runs the "55 Club" that meets there, and wants to hire me to play, maybe monthly, but at least for his Christmas Program in December. He asked me if I knew any Christmas carols, and I said that I don't, but I know lots of Christmas *songs*. He asked what was the difference, and I told him that carols have Jesus in 'em, and only sound good when done by a four-part choir. Christmas "songs", on the other hand, are about snow, Santa, and winter in general. He was OK with that, though I suspect that he thinks that this will be a singalong, which, sorry, I have to arrange the songs to fit my style and abilities, and they're not necessarily the way people singing along will remember them. Oh well, we'll see what happens...
Anyway, that was fun. I wish I got to play longer, but after an hour, it's Senior Snack Time, and I gotta get out of the way for that!
Warren was Back East visiting with family, so I went down alone. I thought Tom would quit at 9, but his curfew has been lifted, so he plays until 10:30 now.
So I set up on the other corner, but ended up talking to a pair of "regulars", Wendy and Tom, most of the time. Tom says he prefers me to the Tommies' because my music makes him cry. I thought he was kidding, but when I started playing he asked for a Beatles song so I played "Let It Be". He tried to hide under his baseball cap, but he really was crying. "Let It Be" doesn't seem all that sad, but there you go.
I moved to the ice cream corner when the Tommies left at 10:30, but of course most of the people were gone. And that, coupled with Homeless Willy pestering anybody who dared to slow down, made for a pretty poor night. Willy was trying to sell some rubber-band launched light-up whirligigs to passing tourists. But since his pitch was to demo that, every time he launched one it ended up in the middle of the street, I'm not sure how he convinced anyone.
He also resumed his annoying routine of shouting out the artist at the end of every song. I finally had to tell him that, since I had gone to the trouble of learning these songs, I was pretty familiar with them and knew, and had noted on each song sheet, the artists, thanks anyway.
I did get a little attention around midnight as the bar-hoppers appeared. And there were a pair of cops "walking the beat", and they marched by the first time, but on their way back I was in the middle of "Over the Rainbow" and one of them stopped the other one so he could listen. That's never happened before -- they're usually "all business".
But a big part of why I even stayed was to try out my new ukulele. My old one doesn't have a pickup, so I couldn't use it in the act, but this one does. I waited until it was really late, and started with "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. Although I thought nobody was around, suddenly there were people zooming by, and lots of them put money in the jar. Novelty, I guess -- but it seemed weird to be making a better impression with the silly uke than I had been with my guitar.
Definitely nice to have the change of pace in the act, so I'll keep at it, but I wonder what Warren will do while I'm playing it. A big part of the beauty of it is how plain and simple it is, so it won't really work to have him playing electric lead over the top of it.
But that may be a moot point if we can't get the ice cream corner until 10:30 every time. It's just not worth going down there that late.
