One of my favorite authors, P.J. O’Rourke , once made a good parallel between the tse-tse fly that causes sleeping sickness, and tse-tse girlfriend, tse-tse economics professor and tse-tse newscaster. I spent the day getting tunes together and taking naps. When I added up the naps, I have slept 14 hours since this time y’day. And I still did not have enough material to play the evening.
Let me introduce you to the band. This is a picture of the accumulations of paraphernalia you get with any musician’s kit. Why doesn’t somebody come up with a wireless outfit. The band is in the DVD player you see to the lower right. I made a minor miscalculation about the amount of material I had ready, as will be explained below. (Nevertheless, this was a still calculation and represents an astounding advance over the empirical methods used by others. The error was I had assumed I would waste as much time on stage as certain other people I won’t mention. You know, playing Zydeco versions and such. In fact, I play back to back.)Yes, I did play my first single gig in my life. I have always had somebody else on the stage. So how did it go? I have some good news and some bad news. We’ll start with the bad. The joint bombed. Not me, the bar. There were only four people came in all night, never more than two at one time. I was 17 minutes short on programmed material, but since they closed down an hour early, I didn’t have to do any repeats. There was some new barmaid in there that nobody told I was scheduled.
The good news is the few patrons there knew their music. It was not as dead as some coffeehouses I’ve played at in living memory. They were astounded by the show, and the average tip was $5.00 and three drinks. I’m stockpiling the drinks. Actually, the only tip was $5.00, but I’m allowed to word it as I please. There was one kid in there drinking with his father. The kid plays guitar and is convinced I know the bass lines to every tune in existence.
That is the result of playing a far wider range of material than most guitar-based bands. Yet it is only an impression and I have to fire up ho-hum tunes such as “Mountain of Love” to flesh it out to the full three-hour show. My setup time is down to eight minutes. I’ve noticed my compressor (music volume) does not do a very good job on stage, I’ll have to find an alternative. Also, the MP3s show a distinct variation between what otherwise seem like similar tunes, similar electronically, I mean. I don’t think Johnny Cash ever used the same studios or engineers twice.
I’ve got one tune where you can hear him in the background stating that he has cut hit songs in less than five minutes. Back when such things were possible. I will have to choose nights when it is already busy to make any cash at this. Mind you, I made comparable cash to anything I played in this town before. The concept works, and it does not take the audience very long at all to figure out what is going on. I heard repeatedly all night that I was an excellent bass player. I feel I’m better than that, but since I can’t say it without some jerk calling me egotistical, I’ll settle for the tips.
After the show, I did some impromptu asking about what they liked. Too many people said the bass lines were too quiet. I thought I had a good balance with the music. It turns out they were not talking about that. They liked the bass lines so much that they wanted to hear the bass lines louder than the band. I’m listening. And learning.
Here’s a new one. Pudding likes plastic bags. At first I thought is was coincidence, but she will actually seek out plastic to sleep on, provided it is lying on the floor. Her favorite is grocery bags and she will wait around for them. Then, I tried to watch some more TV. I can’t figure out why the TV people have never figured out how to list their programs on channel 18 in a way that matches what is actually on TV. Channels 42-46 never have the same program they list. Another thing that I can’t fathom is all these shows about how movies are made. You know, the ones where they go into how the sets were designed and how they did the special effects. I find it detracts from the movie. Some people like to see the guts, I guess.
Ah, it just hit me why I slept 14 hours. Tse-tse John Wayne Memorial Day Weekend Film Festival.
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