When we got there, Anne the Trumpet Girl was there already. She plays jazz along with backing tracks, and it all sounds like Johnny Carson's Tonight Show band. She's pretty good, I think. Or I guess. Heck, I can't tell.
What's quaint is that she thinks that someone would want to hear that kind of music down on a street corner in a beach town. But she's blonde and cute, and her trumpet case catches some tips one way or the other.
Anyway, she told us she was almost done, so we waited her out. The weather started out nice, but got pretty cold later on. There were lots of people out, but for some reason, I couldn't get very many of them to stop and listen much. We had some people here and there, but never got a real crowd together except once when a little boy stopped to dance and a bunch of people had to stop to watch. That turned into a pretty big party.
A while later some ladies stopped to listen to "Landslide" and when that was over I asked them to pick a song but they wouldn't. ("Oh you're doing just fine!" I get that a lot.) So I asked them if they'd seen that Sparkly Vampire movie, and I played the song from it ("A Thousand Years") which I'd just learned, and it went over really well with them, and other people passing by.
I had had a terrible cold all week, and actually almost didn't go down, but I thought I could manage it if I took enough cough medicine. And I almost did -- I only crashed and burned three songs with coughing fits. But other than that, I was singing pretty well. And despite it seeming like we weren't getting through to anybody, we made some surprisingly good tip money. I guess I was doing better than I thought I was...
While I was setting up, a family walked by and the little girl, maybe 7, shouted out, "Are you a clown?" I don't have the perm anymore, I wasn't wearing my top hat, and I hadn't dyed my new shoes red yet, either. Whatever gave her that idea?
It's apparently Winter Formal season, and like last Saturday in Laguna, there were lots of teenagers out in their version of formal wear. It's fun to see, but not good for a gig night because they all have somewhere they're getting to, so they can't/don't stop. One dressed-up girl laid some flowers in my guitar case with a big smile, though I think she was really just tired of carrying them around...
A couple of girls stood there taking video of me for quite a few songs. They asked if it was OK to put them up on YouTube, and I said, "Sure, but email me where". Didn't happen, of course, and no amount of searching turns up anything. Oh well. Flattering that they *intended* to post 'em.
But apparently it was "Sing Along Night", and even though they couldn't stop, a lot of the packs of girls loudly sang along as they breezed by while I was playing a Disney song.
Which I now have even more of. Over the last week, I worked up "Beauty and the Beast", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" and "Under the Sea", though I somehow never quite got to that last one (never got a big-enough party started, I guess). I was afraid that the two love songs were going to come off as too cheesy, but they seemed to work OK.
The other new one that's working OK is "A Thousand Years", which is the love theme from the second and third "Twilight" movies. Which, just to be clear, I haven't seen -- but I've heard the song here and there, and my kids assured me that if I learned it, I'd have the ladies eating out of my hand. Which turned out to be pretty true -- whenever I played it, I could see lots of both teenaged girls and older ladies walking by with their lips moving as they sang silently along.
And I was playing "Imagine" when four teenaged boys stopped, three of them just standing around waiting while the tall Asian kid sang along, swaying, with his eyes closed. That was heartwarming...
Neither one of my little fans, Gabby and Hannah, showed up. I was rather looking forward to seeing them. I feel a little bit stood up.
A wise (or hip) man once said, "Friends don't let friends clap on 1 and 3", but when I'm playing guitar, my thumb is playing the bass line on 1 & 3, and it's almost impossible for me to stomp my foot on 2 & 4 like I should, contrary to my thumb. I feel like a doofus hitting 1 & 3, but I'm working on thinking of my foot as alternating with my thumb (while, of course, I'm also playing the chords with my fingers, and reading the words, and singing, and remembering the 75% of the "song" that's not written on the page (patterns, bass runs/fills, anomalies, breathing, etc.)). I did have a bit of success on "Hey, Soul Sister" though, so that's encouraging, but this one-man-band stuff is harder than it looks.
Another awfully cold night, as you'd expect in February. But people around here just don't prepare for as cold as it gets, so most of them couldn't hang out for a while even if they wanted to.
But we did have quite a few people stop and listen for just a song or two, standing, and in many cases, shivering. Greeter Mikey showed up on his bike, looking more nautical all the time. And Blain, who is apparently independently wealthy and spends his days spinning Frisbees on the beach "for peace", really loves our stuff and stopped on his way home. He never gets tired of my version of "Leaving on a Jet Plane", for some reason.
Some ladies read through the list and decided on "South of the Border", which we used to play all the time, but haven't for years. I was afraid that I'd forgotten how to play its clever "Spanish" bass line, but it came back to me, and sounded pretty great.
And then a lady came up to put in a buck and look at the list, and immediately chose "Alison". I mock-accusingly asked her, "Did you just choose that one 'cuz it's the first one on the list?" She said, "No. I chose it because it's my name." Oops. It's another one I don't do very often, and now the pressure was on even more -- not just a request, but a Special Request. But I rallied and pulled it off just fine.
Well, our January heat spell is over so it was freezing out (or, you know, "California freezing", i.e., 50's). We had lots of people come by and listen for a bit, but most of them were ill-prepared for how cold it got, so they couldn't stay for long.
Laguna has fewer teenagers wandering around than Spectrum, so although I played my new secret weapon, "Let It Go" several times, it didn't work as well here. But I did play more Disney than usual and collected a few small crowds when the young families, and young-at-heart older "kids", came by. One young lady told us right out that she was a huge Disney fan, so I held her, and she her friends, captive for quite a while, playing through my Disney catalog.
I sold two CDs, and was able to light up a few faces (in more ways than one) with some fingerlights. A darn good night, despite the cold. Can't wait for Spring, though.
Before I even started, a cute little 4-year-old (with her friend and little brother) marched up and announced that they were going to be my "spinners". I wasn't actually aware I *needed* any spinners, but I accepted her offer. True to her word, as soon as I started playing, she and her friend stretched their arms out and started spinning, round and round. This was adorable, and immediately attracted a crowd, and other parents who let their kids join the party, which swelled to a couple of dozen people within a few songs.
I played through all my best kids songs and kid dance tunes, and the crowd eventually broke up. But only a few songs later, I played another Disney song and started a new party. I must have had 4 or 5 kid parties in all.
The song that really brings them over these days is the newly-learned "Let It Go", the "big number" from the movie "Frozen". The movie is doing record business, and the teenagers are flocking to it, over and over again. So I knew the song would be popular, but I'm afraid I've created a monster.
It's clearly the best crowd-gathering song I've ever played. All I needed to do is start it up and all the teens within earshot (and at Spectrum, there are always a lot of teens around) would come running. And when that one was done, off we'd go through the other Disney songs I know from "Tangled", "Aladdin", and "Little Mermaid", etc. And when parents of littler kids hear Disney tunes, they all stop, and once there are cute kids dancing around, the old people can't help but stop and watch...
By the end of the night, I think I played more Disney songs than non-Disney songs. It completely changed the character of the gig, and it was 10:00 before I knew what hit me. Probably the most continuous appreciation I've ever gotten. I guess I need to learn even more Disney songs!
Also, I had several Returning Fans. A family that had seen me at Spectrum and then again at the Farmer's Market came by. I recognized a cute little toddler fan, and my goofy little Persian friend (whose name I finally asked for is Hannah, pronounced "Hawn-nuh") was there again, too. She kept asking for "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph". I suppose, being Persian, she didn't have a recognizable Christmas Morning at her house, so she's not clear that that's all over now...
It was an unseasonably hot January day, so a lot of people had come down to the beach. We had lots of nice people right off the bat at 5:00 when we started. I started with "Hotel California", as always, followed by "I'm Yours". In the middle of it, some Indian ladies appeared and afterwards asked for "Hotel California". Well, OK.
When it was over they came over and thanked us profusely -- the older lady was bound back to Bombay the next day, and this appeared to have capped off her trip. Her daughter-in-law, amazingly, told us that she remembered seeing us play at the Borders in South Coast Plaza, which, at best, was three years ago. And then she bought two CDs, one for herself and one for her mom. And the son/grandson was pretty thrilled with the fingerlight.
A nice bunch of teens came by and I got them to get up and dance to a few, and then a baby showed up so then everybody was dancing and shaking the tambourines to encourage the baby to dance -- it turned into a real party for a while there.
A nice lady listened for a while and then came up and asked if I knew Paul Simon's "American Tune". A very obscure request, but I do know it, and it's even in the book so I can play it. It's based on a Bach tune, so it's very cool, but also very complicated, and I don't play it very often, but I did OK. She came up afterwards and said that it was "better than the original", which was a pretty sweet white lie...
She may have been put in mind of it because of another guy requesting "America", a different Paul Simon song, which *is* on the list. He seemed to enjoy it, and also mentioned that he remembered seeing us play at Borders. Amazing -- nobody ever says that, and then two in one night.
Later on, another lady just assumed I'd know "Bridge Over Troubled Water", which, OK, yes, I do. And despite my cold all week, I was able to sing it and its way-too-high notes without launching into a coughing fit, so that was good.
According to my new theory, the best traffic-stopping songs are Disney tunes, so that, plus the huge popularity of "Frozen", led me to spend the afternoon learning "Let It Go". But we didn't really have any consistent teen traffic, so I didn't find a spot to fire it up. Finally it got really empty, so I decided to give it a try anyway, just to see how it went. Unfortunately, having only heard it a few times to figure out the chords, I'd completely forgotten the melody for everything except the chorus, so I was just making it up on the fly. Weirdly though, two teenage girls appeared out of nowhere and said "Play some more 'Frozen' songs!". I couldn't do that, but I did play a string of other Disney tunes, that kept them and their late-arrival friends dancing for quite a while.
Greeter Mikey came by and wanted to re-try his Laguna-centric improvised version of "Like a Rolling Stone", with just about the same level of success. He's the guy they make the "bouncing ball" for -- without it, he has no sense of musical timing. But he makes up for it in enthusiasm...
Unfortunately, the hot day had give way to a *freezing* night -- so much so that I broke out for the first time the chemical packet hand warmers that I'd bought back in August. Despite the warning on the label to not put them directly against your skin, compared to our frozen fingers, it was hard to tell that they were actually doing anything at all. Warren even enlisted the two Disney fans to help shake his up, but they never seemingly really got much warmer than the ambient temperature of the air. Can't tell if they can't compete with how cold we were, or if they just don't really work.
Around 10:00, some more teens came by -- out for a birthday. The Birthday Girl liked James Taylor songs, despite being no more than 20, so I sang her some. And when they left, we packed up and went in search of some heat.
When I got there the parking garage was almost full, but tough parking should mean lots of people, right? I don't know where they were hiding, though, 'cuz it didn't seem crowded at all.
But I had a kid party start up right away with a huge crowd of bystanders. After that faded away, a group of teenage girls in pajamas came by and danced for a long time. They must have been cheerleaders or something 'cuz they had some actual rehearsed routines going on, and gathered a small crowd of people watching them.
My little Spanish fan Gabby came by again, and this time she had her own toy guitar, in pink. I hadn't realized that she's interested in making music, not just listening to it, but she stood out in front of me with her guitar and mimicked my movements -- pretty accurate, too. After a while I asked to see the guitar, and it's just a toy so I thought it might be tunable, but it was so completely random that I couldn't figure out where to start and I didn't want to break one of her strings.
I've been learning Lindsey Buckingham's "Never Going Back Again", 'cuz it's a fingerpicking tour-de-force, and I just decided to see if I could conquer it. I thought I'd try it out late in the evening when nobody was around, but my hands were freezing and stiff, and I played it pretty badly. Of course I have to stare directly at my hands to manage it at all, but when I looked up at the end, two couples had materialized and stopped to watch. I guess it's gonna be worth the trouble, then.
Towards the end another group of teenage girls came by and were dancing to Disney songs. I'm starting to think that my best bet to gather a group is to just play Disney songs all the time. I usually don't play one until I'm asked to, but then as I'm playing it, more people gather 'round, so I'm gonna have to start playing them "on spec".
Anyway, these girls were dancing to song after song, and then they sort of tried to leave, so I cleverly started up "Part of Your World" from "The Little Mermaid", and they couldn't help but come running back. After a while they were holding hands in a circle and running around, and when some littler girls showed up (including my little kooky other Biggest Fan), they just opened up the ring and joined them right in. It was amazing and heartwarming to see them be so easily inclusive. Reminded me of my Indian Princess days...
When we got there, there was already a kid playing his own songs, acoustic and inaudible, but pretty nice stuff. Warren went over and played a little harmonica with him, but fortunately he was about done and ready to relinquish the corner to us.
But it was a not-surprisingly mostly-empty evening. So, as usual, I took the opportunity to play some songs we don't do very often, including a whole set of songs in Drop-D tuning that I seldom do because it's a bit of a hassle to down-tune and then re-tune while people are watching.
Old friend "Don't-call-me-Nonie" and her husband came by and listened for a few songs. An hour later, her sister and her husband came by. They both live down there so it isn't all that surprising to see either one of them, but it was amusing to see them both in one evening.
The actual surprise was my brother and his wife stopping by. They come to see me at Spectrum a lot, but this was the first time they've come by the corner. But they couldn't stay long, as they had reservations for dinner somewhere.
And local artist John Chaney came by and talked to us for a while. He's 60-something now, but grew up in Laguna, so he's a great fount of historical knowledge -- if his sometimes-fanciful stories can be believed.
But he does some pretty cool paintings, and gave me a 5x7 greeting card photo version of one of them. I suppose it was meant as a tip.
I did sell two CDs and also quite a few people took business cards. They never actually call, but it's flattering that they think they might someday.
I used to think that gigs at Christmas time would be really great, and they are fun just 'cuz I get to play all that great Christmas music. But people at Spectrum are actually shopping (!), and in a hurry, and it's cold, so I really don't get to much response (except quickly passing smiles), and I guess folks are already destroying their budgets, so the tips are actually worse.
Not that I'll stop doing them, of course. The kids are cute, and now that I have the Jingle Bell tambourines, I get a lot of audience participation -- as long as I don't mind playing "Jingle Bells", "Rudolph" and "Frosty" ad infinitum. (Fortunately, I don't.)
But I did have some people stop to listen. And at the end, a strange guy who thinks I'm so great that he gets really frustrated that nobody's stopping and/or tipping me. So he jumps around and tries to gesture people in, and basically acts so strange that he scares people away more than brings them in. I appreciate his enthusiasm, but that kind of help I don't need...
I got volunteered to play for the reception (i.e., waiting room party) for the busses that take people around to look at the Mission Viejo Christmas Lights winners. I did it last year and the year before, so they just kind of expect me now. Made the papers, though...
And it's pretty fun. They have fire rings set up and let the kids roast marshmallows, but mostly it's older people so I get to sing the old sentimental ones, unlike the Santa line gigs where it's almost all "Jingle Bells", "Frosty", and "Rudolph".
But it's a little tough to get anything going. The receptions are from 5 to 6 when the first bus leaves, and then 7 to 8 when the second one does. I start playing when the first people wander in, but it's weird to play directly to just one couple, so I start off quiet. Then more people wander in, and just walk past me, and after a while there are lots of people, but there was no "start up", so it's hard to stop being Background Music and become Entertainment.
So the first three were kind of boring, so when a little girl walked by me on her way to get more cookies during the fourth one, I snagged her in to play some jingle bells, and so her little brother had to come over too, which brought their parents, of course. And then other kids saw something happening, and it turned into Big Fun all around.
You'd think that after 12 years of doing this, I'd learn that the passive approach just doesn't cut it. I'm just still too shy, I guess.
The parking lot was jammed when I got there, so I was expecting lots of people, but they must have been in the stores. But the people I did see were lots of families, so I played "Jingle Bells" a *lot*.
But apparently it was Weird Tip Night. There was a girl walking around selling roses, like you see in fancy restaurants sometimes. After a while, she came by and laid one on the stage. First rose tip I've ever gotten.
And later on, a guy came over and asked me to play Happy Birthday for his friend -- but not yet, she's on her way. So I eventually got the cue, and played it, no problem. Candles out, cake being cut, my job is done. But then after a while, he came over and laid a piece of cake on my table. I can't really eat while I'm playing of course, but at the end I tried it and it was an amazing chocolate thing from the Cheesecake Factory. Non-trivial to bring home, but worth it. First cake tip, too.
I was playing "Little Drummer Boy", and this guy was just staring at me. At the end he was very enthusiastic, and came over to the table and pulled out a Sharpie (he carries around his own Sharpie?!?), and announced that he was going to autograph a few of my CDs. Um, really? I thought *I* was supposed to autograph 'em. But off he went, and scribbled on one of each of the three of them, along with Bible verse notations.
I didn't catch his name, and his signature is illegible, but from what I could catch of what he was telling me and some Googling, he's some hyper-Christian football player who's played all over but considers himself a "49-er", despite not actually being on the team anymore. I guess he thought he was giving me some valuable items in those autographs, but I'm not sure how to cash them in. I can't really eBay some "CD cases with some probably-semi-famous guy's autograph on 'em". He said he was granting me this boon because I was "playing the Lord's music". Really? "Drummer Boy"?!? Well OK, I suppose Jesus is in there as a supporting character...
I don't usually combine gigs into one blog post, but I had so many of these, so close together, that I just didn't have time to write 'em up individually. Not to mention that they all blur together in my head.
I emailed the lady in charge just before the first one to remind her to remind whoever was going to be setting up the line ropes to put 'em in the right place. And as expected, they didn't. But the guy was willing to push the 50 earlybirds out or line and re-route the ropes for me while I set up the equipment, so it worked out OK.
I almost always had little kids come up and start talking to me even before I was set up. They were ready to go way before I was. My biggest fan on that first night was Lilybelle, who made lots of cutely but entirely unintelligible song requests due to her spectacularly random assortment of in, out, and half-back teeth.
I started these gigs with an assortment of toy tambourines, jingle bells, and egg shakers. But the shakers tend to disappear, so I quit that pretty soon, and after a few gigs I realized that the tambourines were way louder or more piercing than the jingle bells, so I discontinued bringing them out, too.
Obviously, I get a lot of kids at this gig, so there's no way I can give away fingerlights to any of them. So I thought of another idea. I bought a bunch of jingle bells and some thin ribbon, and tied them up so the kids can hold the ribbon to "play" them, or put it on their wrist to keep from losing it. Or at least not lose it so soon...
Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a way to have them handy except to put them in my pocket, and after fetching out a half-dozen, the rest were a complete tangle. And since the cheapest bells I could find were "assorted colors", I had to hassle of kids wanting to trade the one they'd gotten for a different color, and it just got way out of hand. So that only happened one night.
This year, I made a combined songbook for the iPad that has all my Christmas songs, and also the best of the Kids' song list. Makes it easier to mix it up when I start to run out of kid-friendly Christmas songs. There are really only about 5 that most kids are familiar with. Doesn't seem to bother them, though -- I frequently get loud requests for "Jingle Bells", even when I literally just finished playing it.
Last year a guy come by with his kids and a nice camera and took some great shots of me, and actually emailed me a link to go fetch them. This year, there he was again. See you next year, buddy!
Another repeat visitor was a little girl who told me "I saw you here last year. Last year I was only 5 -- guess how old I am this year!" She reminded me of Geneva at that age, totally confident and bold. She had learned a dance to "Feliz Navidad" at school, and was perfectly willing to do it for me while I played.
Several of the kids know the set of hand motions that go along with "Up On the Housetop", so that's fun. And one little girl did the hula while I played "Mele Kalikimaka".
The only downside to the setup is that, unlike Spectrum, when the kids come up, their parents may be quite a ways away. This allows for some occasional pretty bad behavior that I can't really stop, since my hands and mouth tend to be busy. It's usually the little boys. They tend to decide that the jingle bell tambourines are too quiet, so they bang them on the benches or they get two and bang them together, which ends up breaking them.
One little boy decided to toss a jingle tambourine into the air. Each toss was higher and wilder than the one before it, until he was liable to lose it in a bush, or mow another little kid down in pursuing it. And one little boy decided he needed to get the glow-ball that sits at the bottom of my tip jar, so he was determinedly digging away through the money.
But overall the kids are sweet, and it's so great to get a chance to interact with little kids again. Now that mine are all grown up, I miss it.
I had pretty much decided to quit playing Tuesdays until it gets warmer, but it was a nice day, and a pleasant evening, and we got a lot of people to stop and listen for a while. It was a bit early, but I snuck in a few Christmas songs when a family with young kids came by.
I watched as a car pulled into the very closest parking spot. A lady got out, opened the back door, and lifted a very old Samoyed from the back seat. She carried him over to the bench, and sat down with him on her lap, and just sat and listened, and petted him. I grew up with Samoyeds, so I went over between songs and petted him a little. She said he was 14 years old, mostly blind and lame, and she just liked to get him out once in a while -- 'bout to broke my heart. After while, she carried him back to the car and left.
We had a young couple from Brazil come by and buy a CD, and then a nice lady stopped and just kind of adopted us for a while. She asked for several songs, and then asked if I knew any "spiritual" Christmas songs. Not too many, as it turns out, but I do have "Oh, Holy Night" in the book for just such an occasion, I guess. And it's pretty much fun to sing (belt) -- and especially so when I'm warmed up after playing for a few hours.
It was pretty cold out, but a gig's a gig. Actually, Spectrum, although technically outdoors, is pretty well sheltered from the wind, and generates a bit of heat on its own, so it wasn't too bad. And, I did have my hat...
The parking lot was pretty full, so I expected a lot of people, but they must have been actually *shopping* 'cuz there weren't many people walking by me. But I had lots of cute kids and a set of teens braving the cold in their best micro-dresses for a birthday party came by for a while.
One little girl in a bear skin vest didn't know much of the rest of it, but she sure knew how to "*WASH* the spider out!"
Unfortunately, she and her friends jammed up the bench and kept the tourists away, so, although her contribution was nice, I'd'a rather done without it and had some space for a real audience.
But actually, even after they finally left, hardly anybody stopped to hear us anyway. There were plenty of people out -- they just wouldn't stop. Was it something I said? Even Warren noticed, and at one point said, "Tough crowd!"
One guy seemed to like us, though -- he came up and bought a CD, and then left. But about 10 minutes later, he reappeared and bought another one. I guess he figured he has his Christmas shopping all done now.
We had started around 5:00, and by 9:30 I was starting to think that we were wasting our time and might as well go on home. So naturally, people started to show up and hang out. We had finally got a pretty substantial crowd put together, when we heard a loud ruckus approaching. It was a group of Hare Krishnas, or kids playing at it, with drums and bells and singing. They got to the corner and circled the gate pole for a while, apparently oblivious that there was already someone there.
Then they went across the street, but settled into the alcove next to Fingerhut, where they were nicely projected, and so still too loud to play against. That went on for a while, and just when Warren had decided to go over to try to get them to move on, they left. Unfortunately, they went up the street, across, and back down to our corner again. But this time they circled the pole only a few times, and were finally gone.
A very "rock and roll" couple came by: big hair and makeup, leather, jewelry, etc. They were pointing and whispering about the various equipment Warren and I are sportin', but were clearly also enjoying the music. After a while, they even got up to dance. Then they introduced themselves, told me that they were also players, and wondered why we weren't playing someplace "real" -- something I've often wondered myself. The woman took my card, and her husband said "You've got management now!". I wouldn't mind that a bit...
Well, we must have been having fun, 'cuz we played from 5 to 10:30. Pretty great night, for "winter". It did get pretty cold later on, and my back gets all tense and really gets to hurting, but I don't much notice it until I stop playing...
Around 9 or so it got pretty slow, so I started playing some songs I don't do very much, one of which was "Still Crazy After All These Years". Just as I was getting to the end of it, a lady came running across the street and said, "Oh, I love that song! Can you play it again and let me sing it?!?" I figured she might as well -- there weren't many people around, so I gave her my mic and we ran through it again. She was pretty good, too.
A nice lady came by with her husband, and she asked for quite a few songs, and I played some stuff that I figured she'd like. I kept her there for a long time, playing songs she couldn't resist. When they finally got up to leave, I fired up "Over the Rainbow", and they turned around and sat back down. After a while, she started crying, which wasn't really my intent... I don't know what significance that song holds for her, but it's nice to get such a strong response, I guess.
Click 'Play' to hear the "podcast version". (Fair warning: it's really just me ramblin' on about this gig for 3 minutes.)
Better turnout than last time I played a Friday here -- must have been the nice weather. Lots of families out so I had several kids parties start up. I've gone by to hear the other acts that play there, and I've never heard any of them play kids' songs in the early evening, and transition to adult songs later on, and then mellow out for the later hours with love songs for dating couples, like I do. Don't know if they're unable or unwilling, or just insensitive to the crowd...
Anyway, I had the three toy tambourines and four egg-shakers all passed out, and I was playing "Mister Postman" which is my go-to kids' dance song, and I realized that nobody was dancing. Apparently, it takes all their bandwidth to just shake the tambourine or shaker, so they stand stock still. But they're having fun, so I guess it's OK.
One guy came by with his little daughter and they know me and must have my CDs. She danced with her beautiful ballet movements while her dad asked for a string of songs, including "Waltzing with Bears" which I never play anymore unless someone asks for it. It just doesn't work unless you're listening to the lyrics, which nobody does at this kind of gig...
Toward the end a fashion-model made-up Chinese lady was listening but too shy to ask for a song until I called her out. She wanted to hear "Your Song" and "Hotel California", though she was much too young to know them from their initial runs. Then her mom came over and the consulted in Chinese about the list for a while and settled on "Imagine", which took a while to decode from their accented pronunciation, but they seemed to really enjoy it.
As I was packing up, a drunk Aussie came over and asked if he could use my mic, as his friends kept walking on. I figured he wanted to say (or sing) Happy Birthday or some such, so I reconnected everything and powered the amp back up, and gave him my head mic. He started "beat boxing" into it, which didn't work with that kind of mic, and got a lot of beer spit all over the little foam ball. Yuck -- thanks, dude.
Click 'Play' to hear the "podcast version". (Fair warning: it's really just me ramblin' on about this gig for 5 minutes.)
The weather was quite nice, so there were lots of people out, and we got a good response just about the whole time we were out there. I sold 2 CDs and we pulled in $86, which is not bad for November...
A nice family stopped on the bench to eat their ice cream, and the two little girls knew all my Disney songs. When they finished their ice cream, I gave 'em some fingerlights -- I always have to wait until they're done so I don't get the parents mad at me for distracting the kids prematurely. Lots of people find it cute when there are kids playing and dancing to the songs, so a bit of a crowd had formed. When I ran out of Disney songs, I decided to play "Puff, the Magic Dragon", which always goes over pretty well. I started it up, but then realized that (the way I play it, at least), it's pretty lively, and a perfect opportunity for the kids to play along. So I stopped and passed out the three toy tambourines to the three kids that (I *thought*) were tehre, but as I was doing so -- just like when I start giving out fingerlights at Spectrum -- more kids appeared out of nowhere. Fortunately, I also had four egg-shakers, so I got those out and passed 'em around and covered most everybody.
By the time I re-started the song, there was a huge crowd gathered, and with all the added percussion, it was quite a song, and quite a scene. Definitely the highlight of the evening -- I'll have to try to remember how I did that...
Click 'Play' to hear the "podcast version". (Fair warning: it's really just me ramblin' on about this gig for 4 minutes.)
Only problem with that is that I don't have my usual amount of time to sing in the car on the way to the gig to warm up my voice. So I got there and started with "Hotel California" as I always do, but then I played my go-to "warmup song", which is (somewhat inexplicably since it's not actually that easy to sing), "Rhythm of the Rain". As I was singing it, an old guy came over and was inspecting the CDs on the table. He came over at the end of the song and asked me "Which one has *that* song?" I had to apologize that, although the "Favorites" CD has 25 songs on it, "Rhythm of the Rain" isn't one of them. He was affable about it, and bought one anyway.
Later on, a little girl in a Tae Kwon Do outfit and her parents came by. I started playing my kids' songs, and another family heard that and came over, and the kids were thrilled to recognize me from Spectrum. I did a bunch of Disney songs and the kids' favorites, and then the mom looked at the list and exclaimed, "Oh! Do 'Rhythm of the Rain'!" That was weird.
Click 'Play' to hear the "podcast version". (Fair warning: it's really just me ramblin' on about this gig for 4 minutes.)
