4/18 - The Patio Bar

No, we didn't play on the patio (but at least they had one).

Where to start? I guess with our new friend, Mike. This guy had the stature of Danny Devito and the personality of Ernest T. Bass with a wee bit of Ed Norton thrown in for good measure.
Keeping that in mind, try to imagine this one sided conversation we had with him (we were there and it's still hard for us to believe). He opened with, "I love Jesus. I mean, I appreciate what he did for me and all, but I'm a government man. I really love the government. They plow my street when it snows...Jesus never did that for me, they pay for hurricanes and floods (I'm assuming he meant for the clean up of the aftermath of hurricanes and floods not for the actual sending them part), and I love cigarettes. Cigarettes and alcohol. Especially cigarettes (as he took a moment to contemplate the cigarette in his hand rapidly burning down). Woo-wee, that wind!" (I'm hoping that he switched back to the hurricane part of his tale).

And he was the self designated requester of songs. My favorite request was, "play some Garfunkel". Mudcat told him that we didn't know any Garfunkel songs that he did by himself, but we'd be glad to do some Simon and Garfunkel. "NO, NO, NO....not them....you know...Garfunkel". Oh so too very scarily, I was able to follow his train of thought as it was derailing and offered up Grand Funk Railroad. "YEAH, YEAH, that's it...play them". So, we played Simon and Garfunkel.

This place was a nice little neighborhood bar and if you have an aversion to the law, then you would have got your $6 worth of sin taxes out of the way in one evening.

I kind of felt like being at the kids' table during Thanksgiving, providing the kids' table was in a separate room from the adults. They at least came in to check on us every now and then, which prevented us from creating our own little coup. We tried, though.

At one point, Mike came in with a few other people and told us to connect with the crowd as he gestured toward himself and the others, then promptly went out on the patio and closed the door behind them.

And speaking of coups, you guessed it ~ another Mike story. We took a break and sat at the adults' table, just a few bar stools down from him. The bar was a squared off U shape and sitting directly across from Mike were a few Hispanic boys. Yeah, we thought it might get ugly too, because Mike was well into his love of alcohol via Jagermeister and Bud. He raised his beer bottle and shouted USA!, USA!. Then he told the Hispanic boys to raise their bottles too. When they didn't, he stared speaking his version of Spanish to them. Jake's favorite part of this one sided exchange was when Mike asked them if they worked and one of the boys started speaking real Spanish back to him. The only thing I could glean from it was the word "loco". Then Mike decided that he needed to really be friends with them, so he meandered over to their side of the bar where he could carry on his ramblings up close and personal, which was about the time we went back to the relative safety of our kids' table.

Oh, and he was quite the "dancer". Jake and I were trying to decide if he was actually dancing or just doing his best to stay upright. At one point, both attempts failed...but our new friend Mike is a trooper. He did a quick save by rerouting his oneness with the chair, which was soon to be a oneness with the floor and lunged the chair and himself toward us (thankfully, there was plenty of room for him to work his magic) and then started "dancing" around the chair. Kind of like dancing with a broom, but as polar as one can get from Gene Kelly.

So, I guess all in all Mike was the real entertainment for the evening. They could have saved some money and just booked him....

4/17 - Enclave Coffee House (and video rental)

Well, this might have been our last gig at the Enclave...that all depends on Timothy Vegas. He's the new owner and everyone is hoping that he'll keep the Enclave the same (other than the new furniture). We're hoping so too, because we really like playing there.

The weather was so nice that the front door was left open, which was all fine and well until we were forced into a battle of the bands when a half dozen Harley's started up at once. The Harley's won, by the way.

It was nice to see some familiar faces again and of course we convinced ourselves that they were there to see us more than they were there for the coffee (and video rental). We dedicated "Walkin' The Dog" to the one with the most hair and legs, who bolted out the front door when we followed that with "Stray Cat Strut".

Now, here's something you don't see everyday. This was an actual notice posted on their bulletin board. Had to get a picture of it because there's no way I could relay it verbatim ~


There's just so many things I could say (and have said) about it, but I'll let you guys make your own comments.

The boys did their rendition of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and Mudcat followed it with his office version of "If I Only Had A Brain". Kudos to Kayla for her backup singing!

We closed with "Ridin' The Storm Out" and Mudcat quite cleverly wished the Enclave the same.

Hope to see you guys soon!

4/11 - Ravenna Elks Club AND Redhawk Grill (yup, 2 gigs in one day!)

So, let's start with the Elks Club ~

This marked the 1 year anniversary of their new building and let me tell ya what, it was like a palace. Very nice indeed.

They had a corn hole ( I really wish that game had a different name) tournament going on in one room and raffles, pool playing, and general all round good fun in another room. We were part of the general all round good fun.

Everyone was super nice to us and Jake made a new friend.

Oh yeah, and Jake did "Old Time Rock & Roll" by request. Pretty amusing hearing him singing "say I'm old fashioned, say I'm over the hill".


Moving on to the Redhawk Grill ~

Our new friend, Andy was very appreciative of our songs and chatted with us for a while when we were done.

Mudcat and Jake did a kick ass version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". A couple started to leave just as the song began and they stopped and came back to dance to it. Said they couldn't resist. Told ya it was kick ass.

The best part was that we only repeated 6 songs! Three of them were intentional and the other 3 just sort of fell into the groove. AND we still had plenty of songs left over that we didn't get to. Not to toot our own horn, but we know a lot of songs (toot,toot!).