Keith at Pub Thirty Two -- Thursday, 10Dec2015

"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...