THE GIG AND LATER

Tired shagged – at a grave like work place – piles of stuff that people are trying to get in by the end of the quarter. It’s funny in following the calendar, Business are linked in a remote way with the agriculturally cycle. This is the harvest season and the next full moon will be the harvest moon which is the first full moon after the autumnal equinox.

I’ll stop before anyone injures themselves by falling asleep and hitting their heads on the desk.

The gig went well, thanks again to everyone who gave us the gift of their time and came down and saw us (can you just gag?) everybody had a good time, once we FINALLY GOT ON at 12:45.

When we got there we found out that the 9 pm band had gone on at 10 and we were going to have to wait. Alas one of my friends somehow thought we were going on at 8 and had been at Otto’s since oh 4 pm or so, so he was hurting by the time we went on. We didn’t know the reason why everything was screwed up and I must admit I may have had a tiny tiny diva style hissy fit, actually what I was upset about was that everybody had to wait – it was late for folks that work during the week.

Meantime the Enemy Below was fighting off a sore throat by drinking more hot tea and water than I have seen in quite a while. This was adding another small stress factor – we were worried that by the time we hit the stage the Enemy Below’s voice would be a frog croak – and not a few of our songs depend on his voice to add the punch line or sideways commentary to the song. I’m especially fond of our vocal take off at the end of “Ode to Glock” it amuses me no end to tack that lovely coda on a song about a man who’s going to go on a rampage. Horrible things beautify sung could be one of the goals of the band truth to tell.

Anyway – so with these two ticking clocks – my tension level was pretty damn high, then someone from the band before us came up and asked if he could borrow a guitar – I said yes. I didn’t want to but we had a spare electric (my strat that I don’t play out much with seeing and I tend to bang on the box like say Elvis or Pete Townsend back when he was having all those wrist problems. So I lent him the guitar. I read somewhere your level of compassion is tested not by times when you are in love with the world (which happens rarely to me anyway) but when you are royally pissed off at the planet. Like I was. Part of the motivation was selfish; I figured once he got the guitar, he would play. Then we could play.

Well it didn’t quite work out like that – he had a drummer with him – a woman. Chick drummers seem to be a trend – There are the White Stripes, Deadboy and the elephant men and this band (whose name I forget) during the 80’s I remember a lot of bands had a woman bass player. It was a trend – same with the lady drummers I presume.

So the lady drummer took forever and a day to set the drum up and then guitar guy takes forever to tune – I was sweet mercy full heavens who did I piss off? And can I make it up to them.

Well finally after their set – I came up to the guy as they were breaking down and handed me the guitar “Thanks a lot” he said “Sorry I bled on it.”

The pick guard quite a bit of blood on it. “great” I thought, “just bloody Great” I put the guitar back in its case, remembering that the HIV virus dies after 24 hours exposure to air “I’m cleaning that tomorrow” I thought.

And then at 12:45 we did the set – grand time had by all except us, we were both convinced that people were going to be tossing shoes at us pretty soon. But like everything else that night – it wasn’t what we expected. We were shown very much love indeed. Thanks we needed that.

I’m going to post the pics either later today or tomorrow – I got no sleep last night and the damned camera wasn’t being nice to me – I have to do a weird dance to get things from the camera to my pic file so I can post and I couldn’t get it done last night. So I’m hoping to post tonight but, it’s also likely I’ll go home, pop some dreck in the DVD and pass out.

Band notes: We thinking of getting a drummer – nothing fancy just someone to keep the beat, fill the sound out more. It’s the Enemy Below’s idea and I think it’s a good one. Another reason I love having him in the band. I tend not to pay as much attention to details like that as I should, I’m always trying to write the next song but our presentation is as important as the songs. By the by after you see the pictures should I ditch wearing the baseball cap or no? Or maybe another style hat?

Other Band thoughts: we are in a position were we have to drop songs from the set, not because they are bad, it’s just we don’t have room. We have enough material now for a two hour set and none of it would be covers. We have songs that we know are going to be on the second album. It’s odd. Of course now that I said that, we’ll dry up like one of those pools in the desert that form after a cloudburst (which are then filled with short lived shrimp whose eggs can lie dormant for years then when enough water is available, the eggs hatch, they frantically mate then bury their eggs and die in a week. Seems a gyp to me. I think I have an existential crisis sometimes. Jesus try being one of those shrimp. “That’s it? That’s the whole deal? We screw and then die broiling in the sun? In a week or less? What’s the point of that? ”

And huzza the open mike Sunday went nicely – so nicely that it’s going to keep going for a while. We had new people and some regulars, a nice crowd. We all got to hear Emily sing again which is a great treat. O’Hanlon’s isn’t like a lot of open mikes, it’s just a bar not a regular music venue so on Sunday night only about half the crowd is waiting for you to stop damn tying to sing and let them get a chance to impress the rest of the planets with their superior artistry and musicianship, the other half is simply there to chat, watch the football game or drink themselves into oblivion to start the week off. And that’s the challenge, you get them to shut up and listen you’ve done something. Last night when Emily was singing the place went dead silent. She’s got that kind of voice. Me I have to have props and sing about insects to get folks to stop watching the ball game. No her. I suspect if she did an album of American Standards like Rod Stewart has it’d sell in the millions. (not that I like American Standard but Jesus if a brunt sell out like Stewart can do it, why not someone with the vocal chops to do the songs right?) Or maybe Nashville

Anyway it was a good night.

Meantime it seems Washington is going to hell in a hand basket. Every story I read about this Foley Clown makes me want to a take a shower. Real long one, very hot water, lots of soap and one of those loofa things to take every inch of old dead skin off your body until you are raw. That kind of shower.

Last comment: Last night at the open mike there was one guy who considered himself god’s gift to women and in a spirit of she might say yes, hit on just about every woman in the place. (He didn’t hit on one guy’s very scary girl friend but I could understand that, the anger waves coming out of that woman were causing ripples to form in people’s beer). I’ve never been able to understand how someone like that thinks. Of course my problem is a huge lack of ego, not a huge ego. Me, a woman could drag me home to bed, be putting her tongue in my ear while ripping my shirt off and I’d be saying things like “I don’t want to pressure you, if it doesn’t’ feel right you can stop” While thinking “why the hell is she doing this? It can’t be because she wants me. I mean come on this is me we’re talking about here.”

Ah low self esteem, the gift that just keeps on giving.

Well , later me oh me droogies.