5/30 - Panini's

This definitely felt like the shortest gig ever. Time flies when you're having fun (or when you're throwing a clock across the room).

We even made a new friend. His name is Craig and he seemed like a very nice boy. He started at the bar, which was about 8 miles from where we were and he moved into one of the booths near us. Craig was mesmerized by Mudcat's guitar playing and with good reason. He came up to us when we were packing it up and talked to us (well mostly to Mud) for a while.

Some of the people who stayed at the bar and the booths on that side of the room were craning their necks to see us and they clapped after every song.

One of the boys who was in the next room playing corn hole kept coming out to where we were when it wasn't his turn to throw. He told us how much he enjoyed listening to us.

Even the young pups were into us. Some of the girls were chair dancing and the boys were tapping there feet.

I think for the most part we were well received. However, there's always one in every crowd...

5/24 - Solon Freeway Lounge

Well, we were back on the patio. This time, the weather cooperated and there were no flying umbrellas.

It was "bowling for the cure" or "bowling for a cause" or something like that. A fund raiser for the cancer society. They had a buffet set up inside with some tasty treats and a big ol' grill set up on the patio for hamburgers and/or hot dogs. There were tons of baskets for the silent auction. Face painting for the kids. The only bad part about this event was that it was scheduled on the holiday weekend, so they really didn't have a great turn out for it.

We did find some back up singers, though. There was a group of teenage girls who were hanging out listening to us in between bowling, so C-Man called them up to the mic to sing with us. They were thrilled. Their parents were snapping pictures right and left. It was very cute.

5/24 - The Brew Keeper

They liked us! They really liked us.

Wow, guess I shouldn't have made that sound like it was a shocking revelation, huh? Anyway, people had fun. We got a lot of compliments.

The brewing room is pretty much all windows, so it's kinda neat to be able to watch what's going on in there while we're singing. However, at one point in the evening the brew room was filled with boys and all the windows fogged up...hmmm...what was really brewing in there?

5/23 - Epiq Bistro

No wardrobe malfunctions this time. Whew...
However, I did start out with a lightweight top on and then changed so that if we ended up setting up on the patio, I'd be warm enough. Bad career move. Not only did we not set up on the patio, but it was about 112 degrees inside. Thankfully, the smokers (people, not cooking equipment) have no regard for the cold and/or door closing. Since we were right by the door, we benefited from their open door policy with the cool air spilling in toward us.

Vinnie strapped on his guitar and sat in on the second set with us. He was truly the missing part of Project Mojo.

Some guy at the end of the bar spilled his drink and as he was brushing the spillage out of his way, he took the ice and threw it over his shoulder. Oh guess who was on the receiving end of that ice. That would be correct. The look on his face was pretty funny when he realized where that ice was headed. I laughed (more because of the look on his face than the ice flying at me)and then he laughed, so everything was fine. It could have been worse - at least he wasn't throwing tomatoes.

Kevin was celebrating his 21st birthday, so we sang a very special birthday song for him. Not sure if he enjoyed it, but we sure did.

5/17 – Solon Freeway Lounge

Well, it all started with my very own personal wardrobe malfunction. Just as I was getting ready to leave the house, a button fell off my blouse. Actually, I noticed a thread and pulled it and THEN the button fell off, but that’s beside the point. Let’s just say that if I had left it that way, it would have left nothing to the imagination about my northern parts.

That sent me into girl panic mode and I zoomed around the house like a squirrel in the middle of the road (before the car hits it) and I figured it would be quicker to sew the button back on than it would be to change tops. Sure.

Then I arrive at the gig to find out that it was booked as an outdoor gig for their patio opening. It was about 50-ish degrees and raining (at least we were setting up under an awning so we wouldn’t get soggy and/or electrocuted). And did I mention that the blouse material was very thin? It was. I realized too late that I should have taken the button “falling” off as a sign to have changed tops. But, I figured that I could just wear my jacket for the whole gig if I needed to. Mudcat was nice enough to offer me a sweatshirt that he had in the van if I wanted to change, but I toughed it out.

The rain let up and then stopped by the time we started playing and there were actually a few brave souls out there. And then the rain came back, but brought its good friend Wind Gust with it. So the brave souls turned out to be not so brave after all as they went running inside, while we kept playing.

The wind uprooted the table umbrellas and sent them hurling through the air like javelins. Thankfully the wind was blowing away from us. It was fun to see someone else turn into a squirrel in the middle of the road when the servers tried to catch those airborne umbrellas that were like giant Mary Poppins umbrellas, until they folded up and became weapons…

Not to be upstaged by the wind, the rain came back again. This time with a vengeance. That seemed like a good time to take a break. Mudcat became Carl Spakler when he told us that the heavy stuff wouldn’t be coming down for a while.

When our break was over it was still raining and had turned even colder, which meant there was nobody on the patio. The manager told us to move inside, so we did. Then it became an odd man out kinda gig.

The Miller Lite girls were there and I’m quite sure that their parents are so proud…and thankful that they chose that profession over being strippers. It was very amusing to me that grown men would gladly wear a plastic necklace with flashing lights as long as it was given to them by a stripper, I mean Miller Lite girl.

One of the TVs in the bar was showing a Seinfeld episode, which was fun to watch as we were singing and I could follow it since I pretty much knew all the lines. Perhaps I should be doing something else in my spare time…

5/10 - Mel's Crow's Nest

Well, it was definitely animal print day. On the way to the gig we saw a leopard print motorcycle (honest). Once we got to the gig, there was a woman sitting at the bar with a purse of patchwork animal print, another woman sitting in a booth had a zebra print purse, the hostess was wearing a leopard print top and oh yeah, and so was I. Geesh. And let's not forget my animal print rug.

As we were carrying the equipment in, I noticed a sign in the parking lot ~ "Harley parking only. All others will be crushed." That kinda cracked me up a bit.

After all the equipment was set up, Mudcat and I went outside and sat by the fire ring. However, there was no fire in it at the time. We didn't care. We sat there staring into it, which
made for interesting looks and/or comments from passersby.

The place was pretty hoppin' and everyone there was very nice to us.

The cutest little girl was on the deck just on the other side of the wall-o-window from where we were set up. She was running back and forth (made me tired watching, so I'm counting that as exercise) and with each step she took, her little shoes lit up. Why don't those shoes come in adult sizes? I really wanted a pair. When she finally got tired or bored, she stopped running and stood at the window watching us. Then she put her face against the glass and smooshed her nose all up. It sort of made me feel like we were an attraction at the zoo (please feed the animals), but anyway when we were done with our song she started jumping up and down, clapping. Now that's what I call a positive response!

And we had a brief moment of "Aqua Man meets the Polka King".

Other than that, I got nothin'.

5/9 - Solon Freeway Lounge

This place was way different than I expected, but in a good way. It was a bowling alley with a lounge/patio, but I didn't know about the lounge/patio part at first. I honestly thought that we were going to play in the bowling alley where you couldn't hear yourself think between the bowling sounds and the 8,540 kids (in my head count that's how many kids were there). Then I spotted the lounge area.

It was exactly similar to the Driftwood gig. Play inside...no, why don't you play outside...no, no
play inside...geesh. We played inside.

One area of the ceiling over the tables in the lounge was pretty cool. It was painted to look like the sky and it had miniature biplanes and triplanes and dirigibles (isn't dirigible a great word?) hanging from a track lighting kind of thing.

This place is quite popular for dads. They get to be good dads by taking their kids bowling and then the kids can bowl and the dads can sit in the lounge drinking barley sodas. Their kids ran in every now and then to get more money and then ran back out. Everybody was happy.

Well, not everybody...but, that's a whole different story.

5/2 – Slim & Chubby’s
This one was a whole band gig and thankfully, we had a big old stage to spread out on. As Anno put it, we had some real estate.

The stage also doubled as the dart throwing section of the bar. Thankfully, no one decided to throw any while we were playing.

We had to wait until the Cav’s were done playing before we started playing. I just love basketball. Or not.

There were a couple guys sitting at the bar who were really into what we were playing. Even when they went outside to the smoking area, we could still see them through the windows cheering us on.

And we had a couple of dancers, too.

Oh yeah, there was some chick who wanted to hear Journey. C-Man did his version of it and she was all kinds of happy. Then, during the next break the real song was playing. Talk about a happy girl. Geeze-o-petes. She was standing up on her chair cheering.

Then there was the odd sound check at the end of the gig…

4/26 - The Brew Keeper

Pretty cozy setting. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Even had some requests.

Well, there was no drama tonight. However, a tale of two Mojos is in the offing.

The amusing thing to me was that there was some hip-hop guy booked right after us and his amps were about 3 times the size of ours. Kinda cracked me up. Guess he goes by the theory of quantity is better than quality. Now that's not nice, we didn't even stick around to hear him. I'm just being judgemental.

They had some yummy beer there. Not only can you brew your own beer, but they offer brewing your own wine, which might be kind of fun. No grape squishing between the toes, it's all pre-measured. We asked.

4/25 - The Factory

This place was an old factory (hence the name) that's been converted into a pretty neat bar/restaurant, but it's still stuck in the midst of other old factory type places. People know about it, though.

For some reason, the owner thought that we were a Mo-Town band, so he kept telling us to play more Mo-Town. We're not and we didn't.

Other than that, this gig was pretty uneventful too.

4/10 - LaPorte Inn

This was a pretty uneventful gig. Prozacly why it's taken me this long to enter the post.

The best thing was that the T.V. near the stage was tuned into the food network and one of the shows was about coffee. Yeah, I kinda lost track of my ownself. Mudcat was all ready to play "stop in the name of love" and did the usual count and I just stood there with the deer in the headlights look. Had to tear myself away from the tube. We started again.

You know how I hear snippets of conversations at gigs sometimes? Well, this one was a good one. Some guy was telling a girl there that her kneecaps were the sexiest things he had ever seen. So, I'm thinkin' that this chick either had really sexy kneecaps or that guy didn't get around much OR it's one of his lines. Probably that one.

The bartender was dancing behind the bar during a couple of the songs, so I guess he liked us.

Well, that's pretty much it for that gig.

4/5 - Norwalk Moose Lodge

Don't you think that a moose lodge should have moose tracks ice cream? Yeah, I do too.

We had a grand stage to play on. I think that Mudcat and C-Man might have been in different zip codes. Okay, fine then - it really wasn't that big. It was carpeted, but there was something questionable on the carpet right in front of me (it was like that when I got there) and of course I had to keep looking at it. It never went away nor did it get less questionable.

Very interesting people at this lodge-o-moose. Fast Freddy sang "house of the rising sun" and then Tim got on stage and "played" the air guitar while "singing". He and one of his buddies even had an air guitar contest during one of the songs.

One guy came up to the stage while I was singing "what's love got to do with it" and I honestly thought that he was coming up there to make me stop, which I almost did. I realized that wasn't the case when he started dancing. Alone. But that's okay, he was enjoying himself and I didn't have to stop singing. We had a couple of other dancers throughout the evening, but they let this guy fend for himself.

Another guy came up to us during one of the breaks and told me that my tambourine and maraca playing reminded him of The Monkeys, but I had to question if he actually meant the musical group or the zoological group. When he said like Davie Jones, I felt better.

It was a pretty good gig. We all meshed together really well (this place must have had good electricity).

We did play a wee game of hide-and-seek at one point, but that's okay. Everybody wins.

3/22 – Edison’s

Happy birthday, Anno!

We had a decent 1st and 2nd shift. A lot of people on 3rd shift were shirking their responsibilities. Maybe they were all in bed early so that they could get up for the Easter sunrise service. Sure.

Swoop (like what a bird does) sat in for Hollywood Dan, who sits in for Rev. Marty on the drums. He was loads of fun, but I’m sure he had mixed feelings about us.

Now, if Mudcat could only learn to bet for money, he’d be wealthy beyond compare. He won the pool. Well, not an actual swimming pool – that just doesn’t mix well with electricity, unless of course it’s the waterproof kind, but those outlets are really hard to find. Never mind.

We progressed from the Aqua Man set to the Marcel Marceau set. Nature can be a freaky thing.

I know, I know – enough with the inside jokes already.

There was a couple sitting right in front of me at the bar (and if you’ve ever been to Edison’s you know how close they were to me). They were engaged in what appeared to be a most romantic kiss. It’s been a really long time since I’ve engaged in any kissing, but I seem to remember that it’s not good practice to wipe your mouth with the back of your hand as soon as the kiss ends, while not turning away from the other kisser. Yeah, the chick did that. However, the guy either didn’t notice or didn’t care, since he kissed her again. The second kiss met with her approval. Either that or she waited until she was on the way to the bathroom to wipe her mouth.

Speaking of the bathroom, I have another bathroom story for you. This one is definitely much better than the last one. Here goes –

These 2 girls walk in together and as they’re standing next to each other, clearly the brighter of the pair said that the stall to the left was open. Dim girl asked, “your left or mine?” Bright girl said, “it’s the same left”. Seriously, I can’t make up stuff like that.

3/17 - The Great Lakes Brewing Co.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

And it's Lola's 100th gig! Can you even believe it? Re-mark-able.

It was almost a marathon gig - 6 hours. The longest gig the boys have played is 7 hours, so I'm still catching up. But that's okay, 6 hours was more than enough. The cool thing is that we didn't repeat any songs.

We did one Irish song. Bobby McGee.

It was an interesting crowd. Started out young-ish and dunk-ish. Ended up being the after prom chaperones by the time we left. They still seemed to enjoy themselves and our music, so that was good.

Alex sat in with us for a couple of sets, even the Aqua Man set. It just can't be explained.

Peanuts made his appearance, breezed through (well as breezy as Peanuts gets) and was gone.

They fed and watered us, just like singing house plants. After we ate I was so full that I was a wee bit concerned that I might just drift off into a cat nap, but I managed to hold off on that until I hit the couch at home.

3/15 - Stop On Inn

Oh yeah, we had our very own personal, private Idaho friend for the evening (when he wasn't taking phone calls or going outside for a smoke break, but forgetting his cigarettes). Lawrence.
Apparently, in 5th grade Lawrence was chased home by some bullies and he turned that experience into a blues song, which of course he sang for us. Lawrence really wanted to be a movie director. That didn't seem to work out for him.

The chick's bathroom was a day-glow mess and had a questionable odor. Hey - it was like that when I got there. Honest. But, seriously it was scary. I don't know if they painted it like that
for the sobering up effect or the scared straight effect. It was the brightest pink and green that I've ever seen in my life. NOT pretty.

And then there was the boys' bathroom. We had a perfect view of the urinals every time the door was opened. I learned that most of the boys in this fine establishment are completely ready for the task at hand (pun intended) by the time they get to the urinal. They really need to tighten up the spring on that automatic door closer. The boys' bathroom was also painted white.

Aside from Lawrence and the bathrooms, it was a pretty uneventful gig. It seemed like everyone was laying low until Monday for a full blown St. Paddy's Day celebration. Every one was pretty low key. Okay, maybe not everyone. There was Lawrence after all.

2/29 – The Harland

I know, I know – that was a while ago. Hey, better late than never ya know?

Everyone was pretty subdued that night. Maybe it was the snow, maybe it was the magic beer mug. Not quite sure.

When C-Man sang Walkin’ the Dog, one of the guys at the bar did an “air yo-yo” (exactly similar to an air guitar). I was pretty amused by that.

People watching was pretty interesting, despite the subdued air. Had to be there.

We finally got to sing some new stuff (well, new for us) and that was most fun indeed.

Other than that, I got nothin’.

2/24 – AT Witz End

This place is a true biker bar, complete with bike tire skid marks on the floor (yes, inside).
We started out with just 2 people at the bar, but things picked up during the 3rd set. Everyone seemed to like us, so that was a plus.

Chase was our guest guitarist, and man-oh-jiminy-Christmas-balls can that kid play! He sat in for a few songs and he did a great job.

This place has an elevated stage and at first I didn’t like it, because it felt like we were too far removed from everyone. Then I realized that we were pretty much eye level with the big, big screen and the Godfather was playing, so I got to watch that for the 112th time. The smaller T.V.’s had NASCAR on them. I don’t get the appeal of that, unless there’s a crash. Of course I want a crash where no one gets hurt. It’s like watching figure skating and waiting for someone to fall.

But, the other reason that I was grateful for the elevated stage was when one of the “gentlemen” customers pulled up a chair and sat down directly in front of me and just stared up at me. It was a wee bit creepy, but don’t worry about me…I’ll be alright….

2/23 – Dine & Dance

If you’re like me, then you’ll think that by the name of the place it would have been a pretty nice joint. Oh, but we’re wrong.

It was the kind of place who’s regulars included a man named Pee Wee (it could very well be his real name) who talked like a bad version of Louis Armstrong and looked a little too much like a short relative of Grizzly Adams. Pee Wee also decided that Mudcat’s tie just had to go, which I think made Mud a tiny bit concerned that it was going to quickly move from a wardrobe item to a noose.

C-Man suggested that we should add a roll of chicken wire to our equipment for just such an occasion, but we made it through the evening without having anything thrown at us and Mud’s tie remained in tact.

And let’s not forget the weird and unidentifiable pounding with its very own synchronized blue flashing light coming from the place behind the bar. It sort of looked like a giant bug zapper, but it had a pounding sound, not a zapping sound. When I pulled in the parking lot, I thought for a brief moment that there was something horribly wrong with my little car. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case.

As we were leaving, Anno and I howled at the remains of the full moon, so that made everything all right (at least for me).

2/16 – Thunder Road

Well, this place had no issues…certainly not issues 4 or 5. I’d forgotten what it was like to not be able to breath. It was most unpleasant.

Once again, we had our resident “dancer”/ joke teller / tip giver.

Remember the guy from The Pump who looked all Harley gangster-like who was sipping wine? Well, I did it again with judging someone by their appearance. This guy was pretty big with the biker boots goin’on, his hair was halfway down his back and pulled into a pony tail with 3 rubber bands, which were sort of equally spaced. The entire back of his shirt sported a picture of a woman who was scantily clad (except for the thigh high boots and the whip). So, with that in mind I judged him as a person who would most certainly be into hard classic rock. Guess what song he requested – Moon Shadow, by Cat Stevens. Seriously. When Mudcat told him that we didn’t know that song, he proceeded to sing it for us. Then Mud realized that he had to be more specific and explained that he was familiar with the song, but didn’t play it. Ya just never know.

Then there was the guy sitting at the bar wearing a black T-shirt with really big yellow letters that spelled out “F#CK OFF”. So, I did. Pretty sure he’s not a people person.

The girls were the kind of girls who could pretty much take care of themselves too.

The stage at this place was pretty nice; hard wood floor, a railing around the edges, all colors of lights – even a disco light. Oh yeah, and one wall was all mirror. No, we didn’t strip.

However, there were little post card sized flyers on some of the tables with the date, Project Mojo and a bikini clad blond. Pretty sure that some of the boys were disappointed, since clearly none of us looks like that chick. Do you think it would be considered false advertising if that picture is on the website?

2/1- The Harland

Well, it was interesting to say the least.

I got a wee bit scared when we were setting up, because I thought that our stand in "drummer" was going to settle in behind us, but it turned out that he was just moving his drum set out so that we could have more room. Whew...

Lisa, Jeff, and Ron were there and they were very happy even before they arrived. They made for some very interesting people watching.

When Chloe arrived, Lisa introduced herself and her crew and invited Chloe to sit with them. I don't think I've seen her laugh quite so much in one sitting as she did with them.

Squirrel man was there, cashing in his postcard and hording one away for the next time.

My new friend, Bart showed up toward the end. As always, he offered to carry things for me and as always, I declined.

All in all, it was a pretty fun gig with minimal sleeping going on.