Tuesday, September 23, 2008

9/20 – C-Town

Okay, maybe somebody out there can answer this question for me…why is it called C-Town if it’s in Broadview Hts? Shouldn't it be called B-Town? And it’s not just the bar. There’s C-Town Pizza and the C-Town quicki-mart (would you like a spoon straw for your Slurpee?).

Oh, but that’s not the only question I had. Read on, if you dare.

Why is it called a clam bake when the clams are not baked? And the answer is: Originally and/or traditionally, the items of a clam bake were stacked in layers of soaked seaweed and baked over glowing hot rocks in the sand. I’m thinkin’ that technically that’s not a clam bake either, since the wet seaweed would steam the stuff. Hey, what do I know?

But wait, there's more – unbeknown to me, we were picking up radio signals through Mudcat’s guitar. The chatter could be heard quite clearly through the ear buds, but not as easily just from the amp. When the first bits of chatter came through, I asked Jake (who was not wearing ear buds) if he could hear that. He did the concentrate on listening thing and then said no, so naturally I started to wonder if I’d finally taken that step through the looking glass and/or if I’d be able to find my way back. Sure would have made singing White Rabbit more interesting...not really, but it did make me wonder, because the voices in my head were doing the "turn or burn" speech. So, I asked Mud if he could hear the voices in my head. I wanted him to ask me if the voices in my head were telling me to repent like the voices in his head were telling him. When he answered that he could hear religious stuff too, it made me feel much better. Hearing the chit chat in between songs was amusingly annoying or annoyingly amusing, it sort of switched back and forth.

Oh yeah, they had a Big Buck hunting game there, but this one must have been the deluxe model, because it was also a safari game (see first post for Den Too for previous sighting of a Big Buck game). There was a patchwork of animal print on the base of this game and one of the prints was zebra. Oh guess what I was wearing...that’s right...zebra print. And let’s not forget about my rug (not that rug, ya big perv) that’s leopard and tiger. I was oh so too very afraid that the boys who were "hunting" would notice and turn the guns on me. They didn’t.

There was a crew at the end of the bar who were very happy with the songs we did. I was shocked and amazed to see them swaying with their arms up and singing along to I’m Leavin’ On A Jet Plane. One guy even did the lighter thing.

They danced for some of the songs and one guy did this weird dance thing with his sandal. I guess it was his version of dancing with a broom. Maybe he thought he was Fred Astaire. He wasn’t.

Pete and Linda ventured out to show their support. Thanks!

But, my favorite part of the evening was when people at the bar literally stopped in the middle of their conversation to turn around and watch Jake play. Yeah, he’s that good. And it happened a few times during the course of the gig. I don’t know if he noticed, but Mudcat and I both did. Way to go, Jamaica Jake!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

9/6 – Scoreboard’s

It was pretty quiet for a Saturday night, but there were a couple of guys there who were feeling no pain and they decided that it would be a really good idea to come up and sing “Amy” with us.

One of the guys bought us a barley soda (well, we each got one. It’s not like he just bought us one and we had to share).

Mudcat has a new fan (and deservedly so). She’s a cute little girl who was there with her parents. When I walked by their table while doing a sound check, she looked up at her mom and said with great enthusiasm, “he’s a really good singer”.

The gig was going great until…I think I may have coughed up a hairball. Of course it was right in the middle of a song. Not just a song, but in the middle of “Bobby McGee”. Oh well, I weathered through it and life goes on.

Other than that, it was a pretty low key gig. Fun, but low key.
9/5 – Rider’s 1812 Inn

This is a bed & breakfast place. Very quaint. I almost expected to see Dick, Joanna, George, and Stephanie…

It was a rainy night, but not in Georgia. Although, it could have been. I just don’t know.

We had a wee bit of technical difficulty early on, but Mudcat fixed us right up and we went on to do the gig technologically sound.

Well, now we can add paper airplane to the list of items that have been thrown in our general direction during a gig. Once again, glad it wasn’t tomatoes…or boots, like last time.

Carol is our new best friend. She bought a CD! That’s only part of the reason she’s our new best friend. She also bought my soup (which was dee-lish) in lieu of buying me a drink, since I was drinking water. Yeah, I was pretty shocked at my choice of a beverage item too. I must have panicked. Okay, the real reason that Carol is our new best friend is because she really liked us and she was very supportive all night. Did I mention that she bought a CD?

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

8/30 – Tony’s Tribe cook out

This was a private party, back yard cook out, pot luck type event. Tons of food. Someone even brought home made macaroni and cheese. You know how I love m&c, but I don’t love it enough to eat it cold, which it was when we took our break. Shoulda nagged Mud all through the first set about stopping to eat so it could be like old times…nah.

There was college football on the big screen and an interesting version of a golf tournament going on, not to mention the great play area for the kids (although, most of the kids decided that it would be way more fun to play with the extra microphone than it would be to play in the inflatable castle. Especially Mike. He was Jake’s favorite kid there).

Joe, one of the kids there, sat in on a couple of songs with us, playing Jake’s guitar. He was pretty good.

But, Sidney was our little rock star. She started out all shy with the microphone while sitting in the chairs that were lined up so the kids could feel like they were at a concert, then she scootched up to sitting on the ground in front of us facing the rows of chairs. That progressed to standing next to me, which quickly turned into sharing my rug (which worked out, since I finally found someone shorter than me). She kept looking up at us while she sang back up. Wasn’t quite sure if the look was for her cue to come in or wondering why we weren’t singing when she thought we should be. Then she progressed to her very own mic stand. Apparently, she liked singing more than she liked playing the maracas, because she gave those back to me pretty early on. She was very polite and said thank you to us before she left.

There was a pooch that could have used a doggie downer, but fortunately we all stayed upright and the equipment stayed in tact.

It seemed like everyone had a great time. We ended up doing 2 encores (and I’m not talkin’ TV dinners).

Thanks, Tony! Hope to see you next year.