When the Activities Committee lady asked me to play the Artisan Faire again, I figured it couldn't be as hot as it was last time -- but it tried. Despite the glowering sky, it was way too hot anyway, and humid.
But the show goes on. A bit more attendance than last time, and the nice ladies in the next booth were friendly -- they even bought a CD.
A very old but still mobile lady came by with her daughter, and they stood nearby listening to the end of a song. I walked out and handed them a song list and said that they could pick one. They looked at the list for a while and then Gramma said, far too loud, "Do I have to give him some money?!?" to much embarrassment for her daughter. I quickly replied, "No, no, I just want to play a song you like!" I guess that made it OK then, and they found something they wanted to hear.
My monthly gig with the seniors, and it went pretty much the same as always. Thankfully, not as much disruption by Sherm the Thigh-Drummer, as usual.
What was nice, though, was that, although the five or six ladies who work there generally come by a couple of times as I'm playing and stand in the doorway, pretending to be "working" but "just stopping by", they all seem to have spontaneously agreed to drop any pretense, and they just set up a small row of folding chairs for themselves and sat in for the whole concert. Kinda flattering...
I had such a great night on Saturday that I thought I'd take a chance and see if (A) the heatwave would bring out some people on a Sunday, and (B) the Tommies would take the whole weekend off. Mostly right on both counts.
I got there at 6:00 just as the sun was setting. Angel and his protégé were taking up the whole bench with their palm frond origami rose workshop, and there was hardly any foot traffic. I stalled a while, wondering if it was even worth setting up. Took the opportunity to talk to Angel and the Kid, who also work downtown Huntington Beach, and knew that you can busk there, but no amplifiers. Good to know. I also finally just came out with it and asked Angel to do me the favor of moving the workshop down the bench so that I could possibly build up a seated audience. I told him that I really didn't come down there to watch people walk by. He laughed, understood, and moved his stuff down. It was worth the trip down there just to come to that understanding with him -- assuming he remembers for next time.
The weird part was that, as the sun was setting, there was nobody walking around. But fortunately I had stalled long enough to see that the second the sun got below the horizon it was like the school bell had rung, and people started flooding the sidewalks. I guess everyone had just stopped to watch and photograph the sunset. Suddenly it was busy enough to be worth setting up, so I did.
Obviously not as many people out as on a Saturday, but it was nice. Now that most of the tourists are gone, "my age" couples from around town come out and they all like my stuff, so I had at least a few people on the bench and standing around making requests all night.
A family was over on the side bench with a little girl, so I walked over to give her one of my picture-menu Kids' Music lists. After a while, the lady brought her over, pointing to "Do You Want to Build a Snowman". The lady had an accent, so I asked where they were from, and she said that the little girl was from Russia, but she's from Poland. Not the mom, then?
Anyway, I played the song, but I started thinking that the little girl hadn't been able to read the song name and had probably just chosen it by the image, and that she'd probably actually wanted "Let It Go". I suggested that, and the "mom" liked that idea, as did a couple of extra little girls that had appeared during "...Snowman". One of those agreed to come up and sing along, but I didn't pressure the Russian girl to try.
Oddly, about 9:00 the Tommies appeared. They set up on the other side, and with the new amplification system apparently pointed to reflect off the picture window, I was beset with Tom's unvarying "chunka chunka" strumming for the rest of the night. Up close you can tell the songs apart, but from this distance, they're all the same tempo, and Tom's style never changes, and they all sound alike. But for the casual observer, Tomi's cuteness beats my musicality, and they assemble a bigger and more demonstrative (and undoubtedly more generous) audience than mine, to my continual chagrin. Oh well.
Toward the end, a guy and his wife appeared, and he plays guitar and some of the same songs I do, so I suspect his requests were more about research than entertainment. But that's OK -- I learned most of what I know by watching other guys, and I'm happy to pass it on.
Great night! Despite being October, the temps were in the 90's, so there were lots of people out. I got down there at 6:00 to make sure that our deal with Tom that made it Our Turn didn't get snarfed by somebody else.
There were three ladies on the bench as I got set up, so I gave them songlists to go over. Once I was ready, I started playing "Hotel California" as I always do as my "warm up song", and they gasped in amazement that I had read their minds as to what song they wanted.
But halfway through it, the guitar cut out, as it had been doing two weeks ago at the very end. I attempted to fix it at home, but it worked fine there, so nothing to fix. But since it was presumably the wireless rig that was failing, I brought a cable this time as a backup. So when it died again, I swapped in the cable, and it worked -- for another 30 seconds.
As a test, I hooked up the ukulele and it worked fine, proving that it was the 9-volt battery that powers the pre-amp in the guitar -- which I had no spares for. (But, wow, *so* much better than trying to get the wireless rig repaired!) Fortunately, these days I have a "backup" for the whole guitar, so I played ukulele songs until Warren arrived to loan me a new guitar battery.
I started, of course, with "Over the Rainbow", and then "I'm Yours" and "Hey, Soul Sister". After that, all I have is kids' songs and Hawaiian Novelty Tunes, which I didn't think would work, but quite a lot of people had stopped by then to listen, including a family with a little girl, so I launched "Someone to Lava" from the short before the new Pixar movie. And it worked -- the little girl gave a start of recognition, and excitedly nudged her mom who also "got it". Yay!
We had a pretty good audience all night. It actually seems like "moderate" traffic works better than "heavy" 'cuz people don't feel so "swept along" and can slow down or stop to listen. I basically had requests going all night long -- indeed I was starting to feel like I hadn't had a chance to play some of my best songs only because they hadn't been requested and I couldn't get a song of my own choosing in. Nice problem to have!
Three ladies came by and requested "Kiss the Girl" from "The Little Mermaid" from the kids' list. OK with me -- that song goes over well with all ages. A local guy who I've seen before was there and said, "Hey, I was an animator on that movie!" He asked if I knew "Whole New World" from "Aladdin" (which I do) 'cuz he worked on that one, too. I pointed out that I know lots of Disney songs, indeed, I'd love to play at Downtown Disney 'cuz I'd do great there. He said, "Oh, I can get you in at Downtown Disney". Apparently he still works there, and his dad is "an executive" there.
I gave him a card, a Kids' CD (which has most of my Disney songs on it), and made him take one of my Kids' Song Lists. He seemed sure that he could talk to his boss and get us in. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high since these things seldom pan out, but that would totally be my Dream Job!
