Some schools take Spring Break the week before Easter and some take the week after, so this weekend was perfect timing to get both groups. And the weather finally cooperated -- it got a little chilly after sunset, but not so cold as to send unprepared people (or Woo Girls in micro-dresses) home. We started an hour earlier than usual, at 6:00, to be sure to capture The Corner against the growing competition, and catch some of the earlier beach-going groups. Which worked quite well on both counts.
We did pretty well, as did the ice cream shop. And there were families with kids to play for, which is always fun. We had one kid, mom, and gramma come by, and I gave the Kid's List to the little girl but her mom said, "She doesn't know any of these songs!" I said, "She hasn't seen any Disney movies?!? Where are you from? [Implied: What barbaric, joyless, totalitarian regime did you escape from?]" Answer: "England!" Me: Huh? (But it did explain the Mary Poppins accents.)
So they took a look at the grownup list instead and settled for "Imagine" for the little girl, followed, incongruously, by "Tainted Love" for the mom.
Later on I was playing "Wild World" when a couple came through and kept on walking, even though the wife was singing loudly along. The song ended as they got across the street, and she yelled, "Father and Son!", and I said, "Come on back and I'll play it!", so they did, and I did. Sometimes it pays off to have 350+ songs in The Book.
Two ladies came by with a 18-20 year-old daughter. They asked for something and I played it, but then were reticent (or unprepared) when I asked if they had another request. So I said, "Come on, just admit it, you want "Hey There, Delilah" (since that's what nine out of ten 20-somethings end up asking for). They looked amazed and embarrassed to admit that, yes, that's exactly what they were too shy to ask for...
I used the new drum pedal a bit, but it was having a weird effect on the vocal. I think it was causing a brief overdrive condition in the amp, which made the vocal seem to drop out every time I'd hit the drum. But only on some songs, inexplicably. I'll have to experiment more.
Not too much interference from the bums this time. Willie was there, but not too drunk, so a bit more cooperative. But around 11:00 "Big Jim" showed up. He's usually not too bad, and has that oddly very common creepy homeless guy defense mechanism of being effusively complimentary to stave off people chasing him away.
But he was drunk (surprise!) and decided that I was there last week (which I wasn't) and played "Heart of Gold" (which I don't), and insisted that I play it again (which I can't). I did play "Old Man" for him as an alternative, which he appreciated, but he wouldn't shut up about "Heart of Gold", and started to get belligerent about it, and how I was lying about not knowing it.
I took a break and went off to the side, trying to at least clear my throat of the evening's way-too-much cigarette smoke that he was contributing to, but although Warren tried to reason with him, after a while it looked like he wasn't going to give up -- so we did. It was 11:30 and traffic was nearly gone anyway.
With the end of Daylight Savings Time, it was a little weird to show up for the gig in broad daylight. And apparently the wine drinkers of the world found it weird to be starting "so (apparently) early" as well, 'cuz nobody was there when I got there. I set up and was ready to play at 7:00, but at the owner's insistence, just waited around until the customers started to show. I had fun anyway, just figuring out the chords and playing along to the 80's Rock radio station they had on.
Eventually the place filled up and we had a nice night -- most everybody requested several songs. Oddly, one guy has a friend who's got free tickets to see a band at The Coach House next week, and he decided that I'm just the guy to give them to. He showed me videos of the band in action, and I'm in -- kind of neo-funky-folkie stuff. Guitar, bass, banjo, and washboard.
And a reappearance of Heather, my new guest singer. She wanted to take a crack at "You've Got a Friend" again, singing Carole King's version on top of my James Taylor guitar arrangement. But it worked mostly fine, and she's a sweetie.
Still loving the new amp -- much faster setup and teardown, only one trip to/from the car, really nice sound, no monitor needed, and no guitar feedback. Yay!
Pretty cold still, but people are starting to show up. Even had some little kids out, so I could give away some fingerlights. And finally some people who were just "out", not just "on the way to the next bar", so I was able to capture their attention for a while.
When I got there, there were some kids screwing around, singing and dancing with a burger-n-fries plastic basket on the ground to collect presumed tips, of which there were none. I didn't interfere, figuring they'd tire of it soon enough. A family came by that seemed to know them and helped with a pretty serviceable acapella "Summer Nights" (I'm guessing the high school put "Grease" on this year), and afterward the mom produced enough cash to let them decide that they were a success, and done.
I had taken the afternoon to knock together a scrap wood third iteration of an easier-to-lug drum pedal. This one uses a known-working drum sound generating device -- an ancient "Dr. Rhythm" drum machine from 1983. It has buttons on it to manually play the drum sounds, so I just had to rig a way to press one of them with my foot, without crushing the box. It worked quite well, finally, but I didn't get to play it much because I didn't have the stool to sit on, so I couldn't play it on songs that have both drums and changes to the harmony. I can even shift the device in its cradle to get different sounds under the button...
Which worked quite well when some nice girls asked for "Please, Mister Postman". I moved the drum machine to the "Hand Clap" sound, and described and demonstrated the requisite distinctive "Clap-clap.... Clap!" pattern, but said that they would have to keep it going because I can't tap my foot to that syncopation while playing the straight rhythm pattern on the guitar. I've tried, believe me. But the guy who was chatting them up, Blake, volunteered to come up and work the pedal, and did so, crouched down, intently playing the pedal with his hands. And it was great! Really helps make that song.
The girl, Cassie, who had requested "Mr. Postman" wanted to buy my CD, but she didn't have any cash (as happens a lot, these days). She asked if I had a card reader, which, I suppose, I ought to get. As a compromise, I traded her a CD for a selfie to post here.
Her new friend Blake had "just got off the plane" from somewhere(s) and also didn't have any American money, but gave me a Serbian 100 Dinar note (90 cents, US), with none other than Nikolai Tesla on it. Cool.
The only sour note of the evening was a lot of interference from Homeless Willy, with his "I'll just sit over here and shut up" routine, which stays in effect for only ever-so-brief periods. If anyone slows down, he immediately leaps up and starts hitting them up for cigarettes or money, which of course creeps them out and they leave. And people who'll stop for even a little while are too rare to give up these days, so after a half-dozen warnings, Warren finally called the cops, who came by and had a talking-to with him, but he was right back at it almost as soon as they left. I finally stopped in the middle of a song to physically intimidate him away from the couple who had requested it, and he got mad enough to cuss me out, declare my music terrible, and leave. Whatever it takes, Willy.
So, as it warms up, it's simultaneously getting better and worse. With the scheduling tyranny of the Tommies and the creepy homeless guys and palm-frond origami opportunists who love to "work" the audience that I assemble, I really hope I can crack the Dana Point nut and have a second, and possibly way better, choice for the summer.
Pretty great night at the wine bar. Right at the start a couple came in that was music savvy, loved my songlist, made dozens of requests, stayed almost the whole night, and promised to be back again for my next gig there in two weeks. They even demanded the bar manager to bring me back every week. Out of the blue, the bar guy asked me to play "Puff, the Magic Dragon", which was the one song that the wife insisted that I *not* play, since it was her hated nickname in middle school. Weird.
Late in the evening, the guy, Terry, came over to ask me if he could sit in on harmonica, if he found one in his car. I said sure, and his wife came over while he was gone to assure me that he was a "professional harmonica player" (and had cancer, however that was relevant) and wouldn't embarrass me. Unfortunately, the only harp he found demanded songs in G, and I don't have a listing of what key my songs are in, so all we managed to do was me playing a little blues loop for him to jam on. And he was quite good.
That encouraged the owner to insist that a lady named Heather, who apparently is a regular on Karaoke Nights, to get up and sing with me. This seldom goes well, since my songs are, surprise!, written out in my vocal key, which tends to be a bit low for most women-folk. But, coincidentally, I had just learned Gloria Gaynor's disco hit "I Will Survive", just for such an occasion (though I thought it would be some drunk Woo Girl down on The Corner). Heather was a bit young to have heard it often enough to get all the words fit in, but she held her own.
She wanted to try something slower, so I suggested Linda Ronstadt's "Long, Long Time", which she thought she knew better than she actually did. After a few more songs she got up to try again, and managed to do quite well singing Carole King's version of "You Got a Friend" against my James Taylor version backing. I'm not sure it's a great precedent to let random people come up and sing -- since I've found that quite often, people who think they can, really can't -- but it made the owner happy and seemed to liven up the place.
The place closes at 11, and I'm supposed to play until 10 when it usually clears out anyway, but this time a group showed up just around 10 and kept me playing until 11 -- which is fine with me. And the owner went ahead and booked me for two more gigs in April, continuing my every-other-Friday pattern. If I'm not careful, all this just might give me ideas/confidence about trying to get booked at some other places...
The new amp worked really well, with almost no feedback issues, and wonderful sound. Not to mention a much easier setup and teardown from my old "full rig" with its two tripods, too-heavy amp to lift up and down from one, second speaker and its extra trip-wire, and requirement of two trips to the car, each way. Win-win!
The "other performer" at the Senior Daycare has gotten (permanently?) sick, so they asked me if I could play twice a month from now on. It's an easy, nice, close, short, (indoor!) gig, so of course I accepted. But now I'm even more worried about playing the same songs over and over -- even though it's a "memory impaired" program so nobody's supposed to remember me from last time.
So it's a trade-off between playing through my limited number of songs that are old enough that they might know them, and playing different songs from last time and the time before. I suppose I'll settle on doing 4 or 5 "greatest hits" that they clearly respond to, and mixing up the rest.
This was the first official outing of my new "indoors" amplifier. It's exactly half the weight of my battery-powered rig, and comes in a cool roller-bag for transport. And it sounds amazing. And it has its own feedback-reduction circuit, so between that one and the one in the harmony box (which also acts as the guitar's interface), I might just be able to play my new guitar without feedback, finally.
I got it to play at the wine bar (tonight!) and this Senior gig, and it'll also work at the outdoor gigs with power, like the Artisan Faire/Farmer's Market kinds of things, and also Santa's Workshop come Christmastime. It's louder than the old amp, and has much better, clearer, sound. So far, I'm really pleased with it.
Lookit me -- a new guitar, a new amp, and a new(-ish) car to drive them around in. What's going on here?!?
