Terrific night of Christmas Cheer in Naples! When I got there, there was a little acoustic combo setting up near the spot that I always use, which was unusable anyway because of a big puddle of water from the rain the night before. So I went looking for an alternate location, and immediately came to a driveway/alley next to the brown-glass cube house. Since it's all glass I felt a bit safe that either the people weren't home, or were hiding in the back away from the tourists' eyes, and, hopefully, from being annoyed by the noise I was about to make.
It turned out to be a much better place than my usual spot because I could stand back out of the traffic flow, there was room for some kids to join me "on stage", there was a bright street light, I was facing (and playing towards) the canal and the passing tour boats, and across from the sidewalk was a wooden deck with a long bench for an audience.
And I did assemble quite a few pretty big audiences. Early on, it was families with kids who came up to shake the jingle sticks. Toward the end, I had dating couples who just needed an excuse to sit and cuddle. Either way is fine with me.
I had one older lady stop and listen for a while. She said that I sounded like Willie Nelson, and did I get that a lot? I said, no, it's usually James Taylor, but since I've been singing so much, I'd gotten a bit of a blown-out rasp that might be Willie-like. She asked if I knew that Christmas song by the Carpenters, which is one of my favorites but I seldom get to play it because it's one of "the slow schmaltzy ones". Afterwards, she admitted that she didn't have any money on her, but as a tip alternative, she wanted to "give me a cheek", and she came over so we could bump cheeks. More sanitary than a kiss, I guess.
About 10, it settled into adults, mostly college kids, just sitting and listening, so I finally got to shift from the Rudolph/Frosty/Jingle Bells cycle into the schmaltzy ones. To my surprise, nobody got bored by them and got up to leave. When I ran through all of those, I switched to some non-Christmas songs, "You've Got a Friend" and "Hallelujah", to which one girl was boldly singing along, so I recruited her to come up and sing the Girl Part for "Baby It's Cold Outside".
But as I was getting out the second mic for her, the guy in the white house came out and said, "I don't want to be a scrooge, but it's 20 till 11, and I gotta go to work in the morning". I quickly agreed to shut down after this one last song. Rachael did mostly OK, but didn't really get the inner portions of the song and kept jumping the gun on her lines. I tried to jump the guitar part to keep up with where she was, but that tended to truncate the middle of my vocal lines, causing much confusion. Really great try, though, and fun anyway.
As I was tearing down, several groups of people came by and stopped expectantly, and I had to tell them that I was done because the guy wanted to get some sleep. I had some battery life left, and clearly a lot of remaining interest, so I guess I could have moved back down by the park (the combo was surely gone by then) but my voice was pretty shot, and I had a (paying) gig the next night, so I went on home.
Gotta love Christmas time -- people are lots more friendly and less guarded, the tunes are all culturally shared, and the tips really flow. A couple of nights like that one would pay for my whole Christmas list.
This was my eighth year playing for the families waiting in line to see Santa and Mrs. Claus at the city of Mission Viejo's elaborate Santa's Workshop. There are nine nights, and I play eight of them, only 'cuz one overlaps with their own Holly Jolly Lights Tour party that I also play.
I'm set up such that the kids can come over since they're "contained" by the picket fence behind me and the queue itself -- the parents (or one parent) can stay in line and call the kids back to the line when they get close to Santa. The idea is to give the hyped-up kids some distraction when the line to see Santa can get up to two hours long. And it works out really well, except...
Sometimes the coordinator allows some local group to come play. The first Wednesday was a tiny tots dance school -- very cute, but you could only hear the boom box, not the kids, and only then if you weren't in line, since they'd set up on the grass to "play to" the moms, grammas, etc. and not the general public. Not sure why they needed to do it here, except I guess it was a nice setting for Dad's pictures.
The second Wednesday was a middle school caroling group -- not bad, but inaudible, even though I tried to get them to set up nearer the line. It's not so much that the line *needs* them, but when nobody can hear you so they ignore you, it's demoralizing for the singers. Lose-lose. And same with the third group, a small group of girls who sang inaudibly a capella for a while, and then lip synched (or sang along, I guess) with a kids choir record on a boom box.
Anyway, when it was my turn, I had fun, like always. I love playing for kids. And most of them are all dressed up for the Santa pictures, so it's very cute. I brought my "jingle sticks", and this year realized that, to keep the wall of noise created by them more manageable, just put fewer out there. Duh. Not to mention that it's easier to keep track of them so they don't walk away as often. I do still have to take them away from kids (always boys) who have decided to see how hard you have to bang the stick against the table to break it, or start to use them as a weapon. Still, overall, the kids that enjoy playing with them outweigh the hassle.
Of course, filling two or three hours with the 7 or 8 kids' Christmas songs gets a bit repetitive, so I branch out a little by playing "Do You Want To Build a Snowman" from "Frozen". It's got "snowman" in it, don't it? Of course, once I've done that one, they all suss out that I probably know "Let It Go", so then we do that one. And I sometimes throw in "Over the Rainbow".
And then usually, when the line gets short at the end of the evening, I can start up some of the crooning old-school ones -- they're so much fun to sing. Reckon I'll be back next year...
I figured it would take me two hours just to get there, on a Friday just before Christmas, driving past South Coast Plaza, but if you're not there really early, there's no place to park. So I left at 3:30 and got there at 5:30. Of course, nobody else was there so I had to stall a while before setting up. Good thing, too, 'cuz the batteries weren't fully charged and I only got to play for two hours -- shut down just as it was getting good. Oh well.
It was pretty slow at first, and without sufficient traffic, it's hard to get anyone to stop. But I did get some families to stop long enough for their kids to shake some tambourine sticks to "Jingle Bells". And a girl came right up and asked if she could get a picture with me, so after that I asked her if she wanted to sing a song, too. Her friend suggested "Silent Night", which I remembered as a Big Hit last year, so I fired it up.
A group of four middle-aged ladies with matching light-up halos on was sitting nearby, listening and singing along. They wanted "Joy to the World" next, but since I don't know it, I admitted that I do know "Oh Holy Night", so I had to do that one. Unfortunately, the bombastic high notes at the end coupled with the increased signal when the harmony box is on proved to be too much for the batteries to cope with, and it started doing that cutting out thing that it does when it's about finished.
And just as I was about to ask if one of the Halo Ladies would step up for the Girl Part of "Baby It's Cold Outside". Drat.
But, even with only two hours, and too early of ones at that, I did really well tips-wise, and had fun. I'll have to go back with fuller batteries next week, if the weather cooperates.
A guy who runs the "senior club" saw me playing for the Senior Daycare, and asked me to come play for the Club's Christmas lunch/party. I think he meant for me to play after they were done eating, but for some reason the ham was an hour late, so I ended up playing while they were eating.
Which was pretty awkward, 'cuz it made me into background music underneath their lunch conversations instead of a concert, but I guess I'm getting used to that, and I got paid either way.
When they were done eating, though, the guy got up and made everybody stand up and sing along to "Jingle Bells", but nobody knew the second ("Miss Fanny Bright") verse. Then they wanted to do "Silent Night", but nobody knew its second verse, either. They did better with "I'll Be Home for Christmas".
Afterwards, a bunch of nice grammas came up to tell me how much they enjoyed it, and several of them took my cards, so maybe that'll turn into yet more gigs for old folks.
"It was late in the evening, and I blew that room away!"
-- Paul Simon, "Late In The Evening", 1980
Pub Thirty Two is a pretty nice bar and restaurant just three miles from my house in Mission Viejo. We noticed that they have live music on Fridays and Saturdays, and stopped in to find out how to get booked, and they told us that you come for the monthly Open Mic, and if they like you...
I'd had a bad cold for the last three days, but decided to go anyway, if only to see what the format of the Open Mic was, how many people came, equipment setup, etc., but I threw my guitar in the van, just in case -- better to have it and not need it than vice versa.
When I got there, I just hung around outside, 'cuz I could see whoever was playing through the window, and hear through the door. A kid was strumming through "Wagon Wheel", with occasional tuneless harmonica breaks. Let's just say he was sincere, and everybody has to start someplace. He did a couple more songs, and they spent way too long resetting up the equipment so an old guy could get up and hack through "Ring of Fire". I guess his courage was admirable just to get up there, especially considering how terrible he was.
He did another song, and then Wagon Wheel got back up, and I decided that, if this was the quality of the "talent" for the night, even my cold-ravaged voice would suffice. And it looked like there was nobody else waiting -- which is what I was kind of expecting, at an Open Mic in sleepy Mission Viejo. On a Thursday. In December.
So I finally went in and asked if there was a sign-up sheet, and they said, "Oh, you want to play?" Turned out that Wagon Wheel was running the event, which is why he went back on after Ring of Fire -- there was nobody else there. So he did a couple of songs, and announced that a "new singer" was coming up.
I brought out my Magic Bag, which simplifies the setup since it's battery-powered and pre-wired with the harmony box and the wireless receivers, so I just need one connection to the house amp, and my balance, tone, and reverb is controlled by me, not whoever's pretending to be a sound man. As I was getting the wireless rigs in place on my head and guitar, I looked over at Ring of Fire and his friends, glaring at me like I was Big Jim Walker pulling out his two-piece custom-made pool cue. Suddenly I had something to prove -- a guy with all this fancy equipment better Bring Something...
I started with "You've Got a Friend". I was nervous in a new place with weird sound, but I got through it. And the place went nuts. Sound Guy and his wife (about my age) were going berserk, but even twenty-something Wagon Wheel and his girlfriend were hooting and hollering (probably because I'd just "saved" his Open Mic). The rest of the bar was applauding as if JT himself had walked in to play a song. When it finally died down, I looked at Sound Guy and Wagon Wheel and said, "So... Play another one, shall I?"
Of course, they let me play another one, and for the rest of the night, since there was nobody else on the List, and Wagon Wheel wasn't about to try to go on again after me. I guess I played from about 9:30 until 11:30 when Sound Guy decided he needed to get his wife and equipment home.
As I was packing up, the manager came by and said, "When you get done packing, let's chat". And he booked me for a paying gig, the next open Friday (January 8th), right then and there.
His only concern was a little hard to decipher in all the restaurant-ese, but I'm pretty sure that the gist was that he considers the evening divided into two phases, Dinner, and Bar Time. He thinks I'm perfect for Dinner phase, but wonders if I can get more rowdy for Bar phase. (Which is why he booked me for a Friday -- Fridays are More Dinner, and Saturdays are More Bar.) But I do have lots of more uptempo stuff, I just need to get past thinking that it's "too easy", and that it sounds dumb for a guy with an acoustic guitar (i.e., no drums nor bass) to play rock and roll. But if guys that are way less skilled than I am can do it with a straight face, I should be able to, too.
So, it was like a movie: Struggling musician can't get a break, plays the Open Mic/Audition and "blows the room away", finally gets booked (and lives happily ever after?). But as I was lying in bed too excited to sleep, it occurred to me that I've put in at *least* as much time on this stuff as it takes to get a four-year degree, and I should certainly be hire-able by now.
And as icing, a guy and his wife/girlfriend were at the bar, and she, at least, seemed very impressed with my stuff. As they were leaving, he dropped a twenty and his business card on the barstool next to me. He's the President/CEO of "Peppino's" restaurants -- there are three, all nearby, and they have live music. I guess I'll send him an email and see if he meant to imply any kind of offer...
My friend in the Laguna Beach Historical Society asked me to come play for their "Hospitality Night". I figured it was yet another euphemism for "Christmas Party", and I'd be playing for the members, just like the lawyer party I'd be playing that same afternoon.
Turned out, "Hospitality Night" is a city-wide block party, where everyone turns out to see Santa light up the historic Pepper Tree at City Hall, and they block off Forest (which is essentially Laguna's "Main Street") and party all night.
The Historical Society is in an old house one street over from Forest, and they wanted me to play out on the covered porch to try to bring people in. And it worked! The porch acted like a stage, and lots of people walking by stopped to hear me play, saw me up there, and ended up going on in to have a look at the historical stuff inside.
It was really quite nice to have a raised, well lit, and heated! Place to play, and the street is much more quiet than my usual spot on The Corner so the sound was quite good. There were a few chairs on the porch and lots of people took the time to sit and listen for a while.
The weirdest part was when a long-haired and wild-eyed guy and his girlfriend approached me from across the street while I was playing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". They waited for the end of the song, told me how great it was, and that they had a proposal. I was leery of what that might be, but it turned out that the girlfriend had made a Christmas video for her family back east, and they had unsuccessfully scoured the internet for background music. They wanted to buy a CD, and use my song. Sure, OK with me, and really, how would I know or stop them anyway, even if I wanted to? The guy promised to send me a copy of the final video, but of course, he hasn't...
People kept telling me that I ought to be playing over on Forest where the real party was going on, but I felt like I should play where I had been asked to (and paid to) play, and besides, it was going so well. But finally, a little after 8:00, the foot traffic had all but died on Ocean, so I packed up to go see what was happening on Forest.
And it was a madhouse! People wall-to-wall filling the street, loud music from the rooftop parties, and a big stage set up right in the middle of the street. I set up next to the green swirly thing where the crowds started to thin a bit, and unsuccessfully tried to compete with the rock band on the stage. But after four songs, it was clearly not going to happen, and I was nearly out of battery, so I packed up and came home.
I was told that the Tommies were on The Corner, Sanchez was across from them, and another guy was in the Corridor, but it's hard to imagine that any of them could play against the rock band. I'm guessing that they were there earlier, and had to quit once the rock started up. Might be worth trying that myself, next year.
I guess they liked me last year, so they had me back again to play at the Orange County Bar Association holiday party. I forgot my Christmas tie, but luckily had my hat out in the car -- I figured it was too silly for a lawyer party, but the lady who hires me for these asked about it and wanted me to wear it, so I did.
The party itself went about the same as last year -- they're all there to socialize, after all, so I play and they talk and ignore me for the most part. Occasionally someone nice comes over to apologize that they don't appear to be listening, but they really do appreciate the music, and I'm pretty sure that's essentially true. And I did get paid.
This time I decided to put my tip jar out, albeit subtly on the ground in front of the speaker, and the lawyers again proved to be terrible tippers -- I made seven dollars. But I also put some cards out and several of them disappeared, so maybe something will come of that.
