Horseback Riding in Hollywood

We had a great time on Sunday. The stable is at the north end of a street that dead-ends into the Hollywood Hills. You drive right past the original offices of the Hollywoodland Realty company that put the original Hollywood(land) sign up, and the stable is only a few hundred yards from the sign itself, and most of the way up the mountain. You ride west through a gate, and you're in Griffith Park. After going up a while to the top, you wind down the other side, winding up in Burbank, at the 134 and Forest Lawn Drive. There's the Los Angeles Equestrian Center there, next door to a Mexican Restaurant, so they tied up the horses, and we had lunch. After lunch, it was back on the horses, and another two-hour ride back to the stable. We rode out at 11, and got back at 4.

And, yes, I'm really sore. The worst was my bottom, what with the horse insisting on trotting a lot of the time, so I was bouncing on that seat -- and I don't have much padding between the leather and my bones. Especially on the way home, he pretty much insisted on trotting, so I got pretty good at detecting the little half-step that indicated he was about to shift into trot-mode, and pulling him back down into a walk. Too late, though, I guess. My bottom is better now, but my back is still pretty stiff.

We did have a near-tragedy -- about 5 minutes from getting back to the stable, our 'expert' rider dad somehow managed to get his horse's back feet off the edge of the trail, a 45 degree slope. The horse was digging in from a reared-up, Hi-ho Silver position, and Roger fell off. The horse scrambled back to the trail, but kicked him two or three places in the process. Fortunately, it was just his calf, and a small ding to the forehead. The rangers got him out of there (somehow -- we kept going on to the stable), and the paramedics took him to the hospital. They did X-rays and CT scanned his head, and he's OK. Not a good thing for his daughter to have to watch, though. Fortunately, by the time he was loaded into the ambulance, he was past some of the pain and joking around, so his daughter was able to see he was OK. That ol' Roger always has to be the center of attention. I told him it was pretty nice of him to throw himself under the horse to cushion his fall.

Anyway, naturally, on Monday, on their long walk to school, Geneva started the campaign to get a horse. Of course, Daleen, having owned a horse herself already, won't hear a word of it. Even Geneva had to admit that 'maybe I shouldn't have gone on that ride.' She is 'working' down at the Camp Cookie stable for their Girl Scout project, so that helps. Unfortunately, they're supposed to be cleaning and repairing the stable, not playing with the horses, but it's hard to get Geneva to remember that...

Jimi Hendrix's guitars

It's reasonably well-documented that Jimi played a right-handed Strat, strung upside down so it would be "normal" to him -- bass strings at the top. The only "hard" mods would be to reverse the nut, and put the strap button on the "wrong" horn.

This puts the pickups in a strange "shape" for the strings they refer to, and the tremolo bar under Jimi's elbow, which you can see him working in performances. There's also some people who think that the long gap from nut to tuner on the bass strings in this configuration (rather than the treble strings) makes some difference to the sound.

Still, people labor under the belief that the nut-to-tuner gap, and the odd pickup angles (especially the closest-to-saddle pickup, which is strongly angled -- presumably to compensate for something, but in the Jimi-arrangement is now doubly-wrongly compensating) contributed to Jimi's sound, and they want it, too. So Fender makes (made?) the "Voodoo" model -- a not-exactly mirror image white Strat, so right-handed players can upside-down string a left-handed guitar, becoming, I suppose, the Bizzaro-Jimi. Actually, the neck and pickups are backwards, but the "horns", controls and tremolo bar are in the conventional spots. I guess it's more of a right-handed body (with "wrongly" placed pickups) and a left-handed neck. This avoids Jimi's problem of the deeper cutaway being on the wrong side, too.

Thoughts about an audition CD

Warren wants to put "Take Me to the River" first thing on the CD. I'd'a put it last, or not on there at all -- partly because I don't think it's Representative, and partly because I don't think I do it well. I guess we're agreed that for the audition CD, being Representative is optional, but I'm still pretty embarrassed by doing the song in the first place. (It remains a mystery why I worked it up at all. I guess I like the song too much, and hoped for the best.) Part of it is that I don't think of myself as a "rocker" (singing *or* playing), part is that it's (supposed to be) so drum and bass intensive, and we have neither (which is why I tried to add that MIDI part once), and part is that I'm singing it an octave down.

I guess every song I play has a little story to go with it. "Let It Be" is a favorite lately because I think I sing it well, and I feel like it's one song that I'm not really "imitating the original" so much. I don't sound like Paul the way I sound like James, and the guitar part is clearly not Paul's piano, so I guess I like to fantasize that it's (at least a little bit) a re-interpretation, rather than an imitation, which makes me feel cool. Unlike, say, "Fire and Rain" where I'm playing as exactly like James as I can, though I've tried to back down on the sounding-like-James vocally, and sing it a bit more like me instead.

The story on "Five O'Clock World" is that I heard it done by Hal Ketchum, and am imitating his version. I like the yodeling in it, mostly because it's so "out there" -- even more scary to do in public than normal singing. I like doing it, early and often -- and because of the "edge", it's what I chose to do at The Gypsy Den. But then it came to my attention that every "young and hip" listener associates it *only* with the Drew Carey show -- and now I'm mostly embarrassed to do it, 'cuz of the lame cultural reference. When older people are in the house, I think it sounds as I intended it, but with a younger audience, my sincere reading juxtaposed with Drew Carey's ironic comedic take = embarrassing. "Who's the geek up there singing that Joke Song like it was Mozart?"

And if you can bear another story, "A Whole New World" is probably just a mistake. There's a great, soft country version on the "Best of Country Sing the Best of Disney" album, by Collin Raye, a reasonably famous country star. (A) I'm not pulling off the country feel he (and his band) does, and (B) despite it being the Big Song from a relatively recent Disney hit, none of the little kids actually seem to recognize it.

Venue Troubles

We're gonna try to keep Tully's open as an option, or even back again as a residency (barring other Better Offers). I wish Dave had put the hours back to 10:00, not just 9, but you can't have everything.

It's clear that Moxie is Not Gonna Work Out, at least not in the short run. This last weekend was encouraging -- it was way up from the all-time low of Exactly Nobody the weekend before. I'd'a said that two more Saturdays of "near nobody" would have fulfilled our obligation to Jill. Admittedly, apparently everywhere was Really Slow through the holidays, and the grocery strike is still ongoing, so many of the "chances" that Moxie had to "show us the audience" were unfairly stacked against poor Jill and her little cardboard sign.

I don't want to get off on a rant, but my problems with Tully's are (a) short hours and (b) lack of support. Even if they back down on the open resentment, the fact that Manager Dave won't even put a stinkin' sign in the window bugs me. Moxie at least put up The Sign and some of my little posters, and Del Lago put up signs *and* handed us some cash. Dave won't do either -- and for the first oh, three months, that was understandable. But after a year of free Saturdays, you'd think he'd have thrown us a bone. "Live music Saturdays" written across the bottom of the whiteboard standing outside would have been a start.

Still, it's better'n nothin'. Even if the management and staff treat us like a scourge, the customers tend to be mostly nice.

Thoughts About Playing at Moxie Java

Turnouts at Moxie Java have been pretty small. Obviously, we'd prefer a place with more people in it, but I don't know how to find that gig. I'm feeling lucky to have a gig at all, and hoping for the best, traffic-wise. It's a little scary when Steve says, "Not a bad crowd, for a Saturday" (eerily mimicking the first line of the last verse of "Piano Man"). It'll be interesting to see how much attendance we get this Friday. My impression from the two Fridays that I've checked in were that they consist of a few drop-ins, and a lot of friends/fans of the particular act of the night. For the piano guy (Rob Blaney), that makes 50 people; for the guitar lady, it was 8-ish. I guess it's a challenge to us to create a fan base, or make do with the drop-in traffic. The third option is find a new place (like Tully's) that has decent drop-in traffic.

The tough part of having a gig is it limits your ability to go looking for a different one. I keep holding out hope for Mama Java's at Mission Viejo Lake, which has that cute little sub-room especially built for music, but I haven't been able get there to see what they're up to since the "last chance!" night of the little jazz combo. I don't know if the combo was retiring, or moving on, or being fired, or if the shop itself has abandoned hosting music. The upside there is that it's fed by the big "Tortilla Flats" restaurant in the same center, and it's got the cachet of being "on the lake", instead of "next to Von's" like Moxie. When I went to the "last chance", there were about 20 people packed into the room, but they were clearly friends/fans, so it was probably non-indicative of a "normal night".

Diedrich's remains tempting, too, but the whole corporate control thing scares me. I'm not sure I'd like being sent all over different places every week. I guess it also feels like they prefer Original Acts, not cover bands -- more like the vibe at the Gypsy Den. I'm afraid to find out how the Monkees must have felt when they went on after Hendrix.

New Gig at Moxie Java

Well, Tully's changed their hours, and is now closing at 7:30 every night (which is when we *used* to start!) so we're out of there. But, coincidentally, my wife saw an article in the local paper about a new (3 months old) coffee shop that has live music every Friday (*Friday*?) and was looking for local talent. So, I called the lady up, and told her I was Local Talent, and she said that she was pretty booked up for Fridays until December. I told her that we're used to playing Saturdays anyway, and she said that she wasn't really ready to afford (afford?) to have music on two nights, but then suddenly said to come on down, then.

Turns out she pays the acts (all solos so far, apparently) $20/hour, and she wanted us to play 7:30-9 (though they close at 10). We went ahead and played 'til 10, of course, 'cuz we like to. My wife and kids came down, and the lady slipped her a check for $40 while we were playing. That's more than she'd promised, and before she knew that we were gonna play longer than *we'd* promised. It's only $20 each, but it's nice to be appreciated. They advertise the "Live Music On Fridays" in their PennySaver ads and the sign out by the street. There's posters of the Act of the Week in the window and tacked to the cash register. Apparently, unlike Tully's, they *like* having music. They *want* to have music. They want to be The Friendly Neighborhood Hangout. We may convince them to add Saturdays...

Anyway, I have an Indian Princess campout this weekend, but they may call me to come in on Friday (which is their advertised night.) I had dropped by this Friday, just to see what's up, and they were *packed*. It was some keyboard guy, with CDs for sale, and professionally photographed posters and a website... Probably a lot of the people were his fanbase -- friends, family, website mailing listers. But however many of them were Friday Regulars for the music, I guess we'll have next Friday, if we get to go in.

Busking in Japan

I'm thinking about taking my guitar to Japan and playing in the subway stations. I've seen plenty of Japanese kids doing it, generally completely ignored, and I guess I'd just like to see if walking-by folks would like me. I'd be way too scared to do it in, say, New York, but Japan is so non-threatening that I could fire it up without fear of danger -- only fear of "rejection". Even that is infinitesimally low -- Japanese people are too polite to overtly "reject" with sneers, boos, tomatoes, or suchlike. If they don't want to listen, they'll just be "busy" (which, nearly by definition, people in a train station are, anyway), and scoot by. They don't have to feel bad, and I don't have to feel bad. But if I get a few people to stop and listen and throw a few yen into the guitar case, I'll have a story to tell my grandkids.

Geneva's being there is a concern, though. But, again, it's so safe there that I don't think there'll be a problem if she comes along. The train stations are clean, safe, well lit -- more like one of our malls, really. Shiny happy people scurrying here and there. (And great acoustics because of all the tile...) Geneva certainly can come along if she wants to -- more danger of her being bored than anything else. Or, maybe I can leave her in the hotel room watching strange, unintelligible TV shows. But, lately, she's wanted to learn a few songs with me (!) -- maybe we'll work up a few before we go and she can give it a try. If a 11-year-old blonde American girl singing Disney tunes doesn't make an impression in the Ikebukuro train station, I don't know what will.

Once Upon a Time...

... there was a little girl who had too many unicorns.

Campout in Julian

The campout was pretty good. There were only three of us Pawnee, but it was Acacia's two best friends, and, coincidentally, two of mine, so it was a good combination. It was waaay out by Julian, and 4000 feet up the mountain there, so it was bitingly cold, but we got through it.

They asked me (*asked* me!) to play two songs at the Nation campfire, so I did "The Three Mile Hike" (Princess words superimposed on, of course, the Gilligan's Island theme), and closed the show with my "Goodnight Irene (Princess version)". I had a whole two minutes' notice, so I fumbled quite a lot on "Hike", because I have to slide the capo in real time to affect the 4 half-step key changes, which is pretty tricky even when I've practiced the move, and my hands aren't frozen. With no practice, frozen hands, and campfire smoke blowing into me with an inopportune wind shift, it was quite a trick.

Afterwards, we have our own tribal campfire, but I spent the remainder of the evening setting up the telescope to peek at Jupiter, so I didn't play much.

But at the end of the Big campfire, they asked me to whip up "God Bless America" (!) for the morning show. Not exactly your usual guitar-oriented folk song... I spent the early morning working that up, and got a passable rendition ready in time. They sure have (unfounded) faith in my abilities. I guess my problem is that I haven't let 'em down yet, so each subsequent request is more outrageous.

On the way home Sunday, we stopped for the gold mine tour, which was pretty amazing. Three-feet wide by five-feet high tunnels right into the mountain, probably a thousand yards worth, on the level we took. We walked around in there (with a guide) for almost an hour.

Miyazaki's "Spirited Away"

Terrific. Problem was, we thought we were going to the dubbed-to-English version, supervised by John Lassiter (of "Toy Story", "Monster's Inc.", etc.), but when we got to the theater, it was the Japanese language version with subtitles. That's kinda OK with me, but the kids were a little over their heads, bandwidth-wise. Especially since, as the reviewer below notes, it's a pretty complex story for a kid's movie.

The good news is that they're releasing it on DVD this coming Tuesday (dubbed version, of course). At the same time, they're releasing "Kiki" and "Laputa". Gonna be an expensive Tuesday for me, and not only because it's tax day.

It won the "Best Animated Film" Academy Award last month -- beating Disney's "Lilo and Stitch" and "Treasure Planet", and Fox's computer-generated comedy "Ice Age". I think I read that the other three had earned over $100 million each, while the US release of "Spirited Away" had only made $5.5 mil. I can't tell if the US releases of Miyazaki movies don't make money because they're marketed badly (on small budgets), or if they're marketed badly because they don't make money.

Working up some songs

I'm trying to work up "Puttin' On the Ritz". It was apparently written in 1930. I haven't really decided which verses and bridges to use -- the original words were about going down to Harlem and watching the servants spend their pay. There were a bunch of verses added subsequently, to replace the offensive ones, so there's no "real" version anymore. The Pasadena Roof Orchestra version I have uses some of each, so I may follow their lead.

I need a lot of work on the guitar part, especially the bridge. There's a lot of bass line, going pretty quickly. Of course, possibly a bigger problem is trying to actually pull it out in public -- the whole song seems too peculiar...

I was also surprised to like "Let It Be" so much. It's always seemed a little "much", but it plays so well on guitar, and I like singing it (now that I've transposed to a rational vocal range). Maybe it feels better because of the current political climate...

I worked on "Someone to Watch Over Me" some more last night. I'm liking it more and more as my arrangement begins to sound righter to me. It was, and is, clearly, a chick song, but lots of guys sing it anyway, so I guess it's OK. I suppose if Sting can do it, I can. (He says, "There's a little lamb that's lost in the woods", instead of "I'm a little...". I may steal that idea.) I'm trying to get the guitar part smoother -- getting the hang of that "four inside strings" diminished chord. In this case, it's a Cdim, x3424x. It helps me to think of it as a two-finger E7 shape (the 030200 part) *and* an A7 shape (the 004040 part), played at the same time.

The "real" song has one of those traditional, completely different, intro parts, which I don't have any chords to, and most folks don't know that part anyway. The remaining song is kind of short, so there's definitely an instrumental verse in there for Warren. I think it'll go like "Stardust", with an instrumental verse, then a repeat of the final section(s).

Yet more new songs

I guess I'm essentially not happy with the quality of many of the songs that I end up doing just to fill the time -- even when it was only an hour and a half. I'm probably my strictest critic, but I keep hoping to stumble on songs that really "work", to replace the second-stringers. Recent additions like "Let It Be" and (I like to think) "Crying" fall into the first category -- all too many others fall in the second.

Anyway, I think I've settled on some working chords for "Someone to Watch Over Me", after some work on Sunday. It's a classic, of course, and though I'm not sure my singing will make it a "keeper", it was worth a try. (Not to mention the pure challenge of getting it working.)

And we were at Daleen's mom's house last night, and she had a "Songs of Irving Berlin" book on the piano, from which I plucked "Putting On the Ritz". Surprisingly, the chords work quite well on guitar (unlike, for instance, "End of the Innocence", as discovered on Saturday). Again, I don't know what the vocal will sound like yet, but there's a small chance it'll work out. (It probably falls under the category of "Songs to Stump the Lead Player", but it might be fun.)

I guess I've discovered that some songs that sound OK in the bedroom, fall flat at Tully's -- and vice versa. So I'm stuck with working them up anyway, and trying them out live.

P.S. In reading various sites on Berlin, one claimed he only played didn't read or write music, never learned to play properly, and only played black keys on the piano (!). Using a pitch shifting piano (apparently readily available at the time), he *sounded* in different keys. Another said that he could only play in F#major (which may or may not correspond to "black keys only" -- I guess it's F#major without 4s and 7s). Can that really be true? If so it'd be a amazing collection of pentatonic melodies... I guess I should sit down at the piano and pick out "Ritz", starting on F#.

Tully's 15Feb2003

Tully's was pretty good this week. My cold is getting worse, but I seem to be able to kinda sing through it -- I don't have a sore throat, just a cruddy one. I managed to hold off the coughing until between songs. A quartet of nice Chinese people came in about 9, having an anniversary party. They wanted to hear some Carpenters, which I begged off of, on account of being chromosomally impaired for such songs. I happen, though, to have "Won't Last a Day Without You" in the book, 'cuz this little girl at work likes to come sing it when I bring my guitar in for lunchtime practice. So the anniversary couple's friend came up and sang it while I played -- she wasn't bad. And they tipped us $20 at the end. We had to play all love songs for the rest of the night, which, as it turns out, not so many in the book qualify for, but it was fun.

Yesterday I worked up a song at my mom's insistence -- it's called "Frog Kissin'", and the recording I have is Chet Atkins. The song may or may not have been written by him, or Ray Stevens. Anyway, it's a novelty song about seeing the best in people, worked around the fairy tale notion in the title. Cute, but I can't imagine doing it for anyone except my mom.

Longer hours at Tully's!

February 10, 2003 9:28 AM

Wow. We did 33 songs last night. I was afraid my ragged voice would give out, but I actually felt stronger as the night went on, though I did hear myself missing notes here and there. It was odd -- usually I just sing, and think about the song, and the words, and the phrasing, and the chords -- and the singing itself just takes care of itself. It's not like you have to think about how to talk -- you just do it. But with the sore throat, I have to actually *try* to hit the notes -- it's like my voice is slightly out of control and I have to concentrate on it to keep it in line.

Hopefully, it'll clear up soon -- though today it's worse than last night, so I'm not in the upswing yet...

Anyway, there weren't many songs on the list that we *didn't* do last night -- mostly the "second stringers". I guess I'd better go on a more active hunt for more material.

I'm pretty stoked that we get to play 'til 10. It'll be a challenge to have that much really good material, and to be able to play that long, and sing that long, but it reinvigorates that whole thing.

Warren seems to think that I sounded "fine". Seemed to me like I heard me miss plenty of notes -- sharp here, flat there. "Wicked Game" is certainly the most challenging -- that descending line off the falsetto flip is the worst. I don't know how he does it so smooth -- I always feel like my flip from falsetto "don't" to regular-voice "want" is horrible. I end up landing on "want" so hard it sounds like a yelp. And my falsetto sounds so much different than full-voice that it embarrasses me. Maybe it's not so bad from the outside? In my head, it's gnarly. If I didn't like that song so much, I'd certainly skip it.

I lately heard "I Will" on the Musak somewhere, in a version that sounded a lot like James Taylor. I've never seen it on an album, but a deep check of the 'net showed it on something (bootleg?) called "Rarebits", so he may do it in concert, though how it would get it on a Musak tape remains a mystery. Anyway, it gave me the idea to go ahead and transpose it to a sing-able key (duh! Why don't I think of that *without* the cattle prod?), which I did yesterday. It's originally in F (!), but moved down to D, it's (as far as I can tell with my trashed voice) in a sing-able space, and easy to play, not to mention very James-like in chords.

In fact, once moved to D, the first phrase is identical to the first and last lines of "The Way You Look Tonight", so I'm thinking of melding (medly-ing) the two. It'll, at least, save me having to decide on a "next tune" once per night.

I'll have to see if some other Beatles songs can be beaten into submission by the same treatment. I might look at "Mother Nature's Son", as requested by my brother a couple of weeks ago -- seems like a distinctive (and non transposable) guitar part, though.

Anyway, I played through some of the "Working On 'Em" songs to see if I can move 'em into the "Good Enough" section. "Play Me" (Neil Diamond) seems a likely candidate, and "Four Strong Winds", I guess. Also, we probably ought to dust off some of the ones that we were playing, but that I've come to avoid because I didn't think I did 'em well enough -- "Free Man", "Crazy Little Thing", "Still Crazy", and such like. Even "That Thing You Do" maybe...

My first Party Gig

I played an office Christmas party at my in-laws'. It went OK, but nothing to write home about. Probably 40 people in the house, only 6 or 8 came over to listen to me -- the rest were partying, of all the nerve. But the folks that listened in seemed to enjoy it -- they didn't hasten to join the others, at any rate. It was unnerving, to try to play while most folks were talking and laughing, loudly -- as always, I'm afraid to interfere. I probably played for an hour and a half, though. Did most of my adult-ish (bars Frosty and Rudolph)Christmas songs, and some James, of course. A lady asked for "Shenandoah", but gladly accepted "Water is Wide" in its place -- that was nice. All in all, I'd rather play Tully's, though. It was better than a "cold" night at Tully's, but worse than most nights there. The upside was that folks felt comfortable just talking to me, or asking for stuff. The downside was that I just seemed out of place. Good place to do the "party test", though, I guess. Running though them, though, I realized that "I'll Be Home for Christmas" was way too high, so I transposed it to A (from C). Plays OK there, and sings much better. Too maudlin to actually perform, though, so I never got to it. I thought I'd hold it off to later, but suddenly it was time for the gift exchange, and I was done. I also took a look at "Blue Christmas", just as a joke, but it's actually kinda cool. I'm gonna play with it some more, and see if I can do anything with it that doesn't ridicule Elvis (or me). And I transposed "Please Come Home for Christmas" down to D (from A). Seems like a long way, but it's *still* kinda high for my voice -- those darn Eagles! Reminds me of "Hotel California" -- waaay too high. Anyway, it works OK in D, mostly playable -- but I gotta get my G#dim (4x343x) worked up better, it happens too often in this Christmas music.

I hate Guitar Center

I hate Guitar Center -- I like the cheap prices, but I can't stand being "helped" by an idiot, or, worse, a rock-n-roll know-it-all. It's quite unpleasant being pressure-sold something I don't want, or being unable to buy what I do want.

My Second Patent

It's a shoulder strap that includes the AC adapter for your notebook. Presumably, your notebook could have strap hooks on it, eliminating the need for a case, or, at least, the case would be a lot slimmer with only the notebook (and your papers) in it.

The cleverness is that the wires are triple-folded inside the strap during carrying, and extend out when in use. You pull the strap and it sucks the cable up inside the strap.

Seemed like a good idea at the time...

Open Mic at the Gypsy Den, second time

October 22, 2002

We played another Open Mic night at the Gypsy Den in Santa Ana -- our second attempt.

Shakti was pretty OK, until she started that third "headache maker" song -- although I do have to object to folks that sing so quietly/mumbled/slurred that you can't possibly pick up any lyrics. Why write lyrics, then?

Nima was OK, too -- he does have some guitar chops going on. I get the impression that it was two songs strung together -- the repetition in the second half didn't match the repetition in the first half. Still, it was OK, and had some melodic merit, and interesting guitar parts.

But... Somebody needs to tell these amateur songwriters when to quit. Less is more. Say what you need to say and close it up. All night, it seemed that song length was in direct proportion to awfulness.

Anyway, I guess we did all right. "Water Is Wide" got (me) all messed up. I got completely lost in the bit after the guitar solo. I was making up chords, trying to get back in sync -- looked at the paper, at the wrong place, of course, and trusted it... I musta been completely wrong for two or three lines at least. Somehow I managed to just keep the vocal going, though, and found the guitar part eventually. I gotta do the whole song from memory (which I can do with no pressure, but I'm not sure how I'll react with it), or keep my eyes on the page. (It's probably partially the fault of my "left margin chords" format, too. If I get lost, finding my place is complicated by the non-coincidence of words and chords.) If I stick on the paper the whole time, I have no problems, but it's not much of a performance.

"Tennessee Waltz" went OK, though. I think the room was a little stunned to hear such an old standard. Certainly in stark contrast to the home made stuff everyone else is dragging out. Nice to have some kind of "combo" quality, though -- everyone else is strictly solo (except Shakti's inaudible bass player, I guess). I think folks liked us well enough -- they should have been hugely grateful for the insertion of some actual songs, with actual chords and actual words -- but you couldn't tell that they were, or not.

I gotta say that the feedback is more readable at Tully's than at the Den. At the Den, you get polite applause, good or bad. Not really helpful. At least at Tully's, people are listening, or they're not, and if they are, you can see their faces (and count their money). And they say "thank you" on their way out.

Not to mention the dreadful sound at the Den, and the fact that you're stuck with the worst part of the performance, i.e., the first two songs, when you're still all nervous and not-warmed-up yet. (Arguably, that's good practice, doing "the worst part" over and over again until it doesn't affect you anymore, but still...)

Anyway, it (the playing) is not all that unpleasant, but it doesn't seem to have much value, either, since there's no real feedback. I can't think of what I'd expect them to do, but "nothing" isn't quite it. It does make me appreciate the Tully's gig all the more, though.

Amps for campouts

I was just thinking about amps on Sunday, due to the use of one at Surf Camp. They told us that "they" would take care of the campfire, so I decided not to haul the big amp out there, but then I thought I'd better have something, just in case, so I brought the little battery powered Peavey that my dad bought me (which I used at the Santa Clause house last Christmas). It worked surprisingly well, I just plugged in my wired mic, even with the 1/4" jack, and it was plenty loud for "announcement" use. And I jacked the guitar in for the perennial favorite, "I'm an Indian Princess" (and, by request, "Cum By Ya" (which, by the way, sounds great if you play it in G, with 320033 for G, x32033 for the C, and a standard D).

They did have a kind of small amphitheater, with a plywood stage and backdrop, so the sound wasn't as lost as it usually is, and the group was smaller than usual (since it was one of the Expensive Events), so the little amp got a bit of a break, but I was glad to have it. Still, I got to thinking how ideal the big Carvin Stagemate amp is, for various purposes, and how lucky I am to have access to it. Fortunately, Acacia still has three years of Princesses to go, so I won't have to worry about replacing it for a while. When I do, though, I can't think of any other device I've seen that would do as good a job, so I may end up with one just like it. It's just so darn handy not to have to find power, and it's never yet run out of juice on me -- I have no idea how long it can actually go.

Gypsy Den debrief

Reasonably fun. We only did two songs, and I'm still not sure why we didn't just pick a third song and do it, once we found out that three was the acceptable number. In retrospect, we coulda done "Water Is Wide", or "Crying", or whatever.

It's kinda OK that most everyone else was pure Amateur Hour. The worse the rest of the acts are, the better we look, right? I wasn't really there to listen -- I was there to play.

'Course, it's nice to see the "competition". I suppose the gauge is whether you'd stay in the same room with any of them, had you encountered them in a back room at a party. For me, I guess the answer for all the acts I saw was "No", although the a cappella guy was intriguing. His songs were all correctly structured to have verses, choruses, and rational chord progressions. Dude, find a guitar player! I could have worked up the chord sheets for his songs in 15 minutes...

And that black lady with the bass player. Ouch. She was personally appealing, but when she tuned her G string down to (almost) D, and her high E down to D -- and then pulled out the tuning machine to fine tune the high string, and proceed to completely neglect tuning the G (now D). Ouch. It didn't help that Tim chose that moment to disappear, just as she was feeding back something awful. Literally painful.

I still feel embarrassed that I don't write my own songs, but last night confirms my belief that good "used" songs beat bad originals any day.

My guitar has a pretty bad tuning problem when I change (or add) a capo. I guess I, as always, am self-conscious about wasting the audience's time with "my problem" of an out of tune guitar. Probably I've sat through guys that spend more time tuning than playing, and you start to wonder why you came... (I saw Riders in the Sky recently, and noticed that they didn't tune once. The whole time. How do they get away with that?)

The small blessing is that we had the foresight to play "People Get Ready" first, where Warren has readily visible solo bits, which left the out-of-tune song to one where he's not so "out front". I really would have tuned more, but I couldn't even hear any "note" in my notes -- just the crunch. It took me way too long just to get the Drop D (for "Five O'Clock World) working (though apparently I was tuning the low string to match a mal-tuned higher one). In the song itself, I was playing by feel mostly, 'cuz it sounded like I was playing washboard, not guitar (gives new meaning to the term "rhythm guitar"). In fact, during the last yodel, I went to change back to D from the Am7 and realized that I was already on the D -- I hadn't been able to hear that I had just skipped a whole chord. Pretty embarrassing, but then I figured that if I couldn't hear it, probably nobody else was gonna mind much, either.

But, the whole capo thing is really getting to be a problem. The current capo has a pressure adjuster on it, but if I reduce the pressure any more, the bass string starts to buzz. It's hard to imagine that one of those spring-loaded capoes would do any better, especially since it's *not* adjustable, but it may be that I need to give it a try. I hate to spend $18 on it just to find out that it doesn't do any better, though. I wonder if I can haul my guitar and tuner into Guitar Center and try 'em until one works. Hmmm, on second thought, this is just the ticket for Shade Tree, isn't it? They won't make me buy one that doesn't work, and may even understand the concept of wanting to stay in tune... Maybe I can get over there on a weeknight next week.