K&W at Waterloo Station -- 25May2007

Well, that was different, at least. Waterloo Station is a new coffee shop, just 4 miles from my house. Daleen noticed an article about it when it opened up, and the owner (Suzy) was soliciting "local musicians" to come play. I emailed her, and got a reply from her boyfriend Rick, saying that he knew all about us 'cuz he'd seen us play several times before, and that he'd be happy to have us come in. That was kinda cool -- being "famous"...

A lot of my local friends have never come to see us play, citing "too far" as their reason (or excuse). So I thought that this would be a great place to play 'cuz they could all come out. Luckily (or not) it occurred to me to check the place out in person before I sent out the "come see me" message, 'cuz the place is kinda small. So I sent out the message, but I didn't really push it.

I needn't have worried about my friends overcrowding the place, though -- none came. Not only that, no strangers came either. Well, almost none -- we had one very loud older guy come in and basically take over the place for 45 minutes. We just kind of stood and watched. He didn't even buy anything -- in fact, he was trying to sell some paintings to Suzy. And later on, a guy come in to buy a chocolate croissant, settled for a brownie, and sat and made a few requests and listened for a while.

Other than them, all we had was Suzy and her dad to play for, until boyfriend Rick finally came by towards the end. He's a big British Rock fan, and ran down the list naming lots of songs for us to do. In addition to being the "booker" for Waterloo, he's also a "local musician" playing open mics and gigs at other places, so he knows a lot about being a "bookee". As we were tearing down he and Warren had a long talk about places to check into, which might turn out really useful.

But Suzy (and her dad) and Rick seem to like us and our songs, so we all agreed to (pretend to) blame the lack of attendance on the Memorial Day weekend, and try again at some unspecified future date.

Pawnee Princess Campout at O'Neill

Since Sunday was Mother's Day, and we couldn't find any other less-crowded weekend, we had an Our-Tribe-Only campout for just Friday to Saturday. This one-night campout idea actually worked brilliantly. Since there were only 2 meals involved, we just had pizza on Friday night, and went out to McDonald's for breakfast on Saturday morning.

It saved us having to get groceries for 20, and drag out all the propane, stoves, supplies, pots, pans, forks, paper towels, etc., etc. And we didn't have to waste time cooking the food, and cleaning up afterwards. Clean-up from pizza is "Throw your paper plate in the fire".

It was also easier on the dads, 'cuz it's a lot easier to recover from one bad night's sleep than two, and easier on the girls 'cuz they had some weekend left over to get their homework done, etc. Not as much playtime, obviously, but, you know, enough.

It also produces a cool effect that Warren and I independently noticed about playing on Friday nights -- when you do something cool on Friday night, it makes it seem like a 3-day weekend. You do something fun, and then you have Saturday, and, although it seems like the weekend must be over, there's still Sunday left -- like a bonus!

I guess another thing that made this one-nighter seem a lot easier was that there was no Big Production Saturday Night Campfire (with me setting up the Whole Rig, playing, and tearing it all down again) and no Sunday Morning Assembly (with me setting it all up and playing again). I sure like playing for the kids and all, but it takes a big chunk out of my weekend to have to.

K&W at CM - 05May2007

Pretty good night. The amp didn't blow up this time, so that's a start...

We set up really early, 'cuz we're getting used to getting kicked out at 10. Most places that close at 10 start the music at 7, so we're just treating that place as a 7-10er, even though officially it's an 8-11.

Downside of that, though, was that there was nobody there yet, so it was hard to get started, playing (and, worse, announcing) to an empty room. But it started filling in after a while, and people were tuning in. My voice, which, by my experiments singing in the car in the days leading up to the gig, was gonna be a terrible embarrassment (cracking and just cutting out), turned out to be the best it's been in many weeks. And at times, better than I can remember for a long time. I was hitting high notes, and had a kind of nimbleness that I haven't seen in forever. Truth be told, it was making me kind of cocky, and I took chances I won't usually touch. Fun!

The last hour or 45 minutes we had a kind of full house, and it seemed ridiculous to shut down just when the crowd had finally materialized and gotten in the groove, but the Mean Girl Manager doesn't see any of that...

We had lots of people come up and tell us that we were "really good", and one guy seemed to be telling Warren that he was gonna fix us up with a (presumably paid) party somewhere. We'll see...

Tried out the new "Girl", a Beatles song from "Rubber Soul". It sounds pretty good at home, but just kind of laid there in the store. I'll give it another go or two, but it may just not "have it". Shame, too, 'cuz it's a song where I actually strum (gasp!) the guitar, and it actually works.