Little Hills and Small Minds
Saturday, 20 August 2005
As seems to be the trend lately, I had another gig with BenWahBob. This time we were booked at Baha Rock Club in St. Charles MO. It’s kind of a home-away-from-home for this band, which has been playing there for nearly 10 years now – way back to when it was called Key West and under different management. They have always treated us well there. Likewise, we have always had a good response when playing there. This week was right in that vein.
One of the nice things about being a favorite band is getting the premium dates. This weekend was the “Festival of the Little Hills” (Fete de Petite Cotes, for all of you Francophiles), St. Charles’ biggest party weekend. For those who have never been, they shut down Old Town St. Charles and the riverfront, block off the streets, set up vendors in the streets and on the sidewalks and in the Riverfront Park, and the party is on. They try to keep it clean and family-oriented, but that’s really just on the surface. There is a bit of everything for just about everyone. Even a picky, fickle musician like myself can find adequate entertainment there. I usually try to go every year, if nothing else just to see one guy who is always there. Bob Culbertson is one of the preeminent Chapman Stick players in the world. Many of his books and videos are sold on Emmett Chapman’s own website, and he holds a large invitational clinic every year in his hometown of San Francisco CA. He sets up a booth on Main Street and plays all day long, for both days of the Festival. I’ve bought a couple of his CDs there, and had several opportunities to converse with him about the Stick and music in general. He’s a really great guy and a virtual cornucopia of knowledge. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it over there during the day this weekend, so I missed him for now the second year in a row. Bummer.
Anyway...with this being the Festival weekend, we were expecting a large crowd at Baha. We were not disappointed. It started out a bit slow, but by the end of the first set the place was jumping. Everyone seemed wound up and bent on having fun. Carlos’ wife’s sister’s husband (did you follow that?) was entertaining everyone in the place with his completely goofy antics on the dance floor. The place seemed to be crawling with attractive people. All of the BenWahBabes made it out for the first time in quite awhile. That was nice to see, too.
The set list was at its usual mix, with a few stumpers thrown in here and here. I say stumpers because some of these songs we haven’t played much since I have been in the band (or Bobby, for that matter). I couldn’t remember how a Candlebox song started until Bobby reminded me; for the life of me I couldn’t remember Bad Company’s Movin’ On until we actually started playing it; we were all concerned about the odd-meter diddy that goes into the solo section of Sail On, Sail Away by Moxy, and it came off just fine. We did Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song at the end of one of the sets, and things started to get kind of weird. John got a bit heavy on the vocal delay and it started feeding back into itself. The result was a big garble of unintelligible noise that buried most of the song. Too bad, because I actually felt pretty good about the way I sang it this time. Oh, well...c’est la vie, eh?
We ended the night with the usual foray into War Pigs. All the “rock guys” in the place immediately rushed the stage, fists pumping in the air. I am still at a loss to explain this phenomenon, yet there it is every time. It does give one some semblance of rockstardom, so I guess I shouldn’t question it. Whatever.
Everyone in the band was bent on breakfast after we had evacuated the stage. Unfortunately, Dawna and I could not participate. We had dropped off her son Derek with some friends in Granite City – Geo and Katrina Romer of Ivory Tiger – and had to pick him up on our way home. We did end up going to the Denny’s in Pontoon Beach after we got him, as neither one of us had eaten since early in the day Saturday. Derek slept in the back of my van while we went in and ate. We found out on Sunday that Geo and Katrina’s car had been broken into shortly after we had left them. I feel for them, as that has happened to me on several occasions. My free advice to them: get out of Granite City and move to a small town. It’s working for me.
An interesting note: I listened to absolutely no music all day Sunday. Sometimes, quiet is good.
As seems to be the trend lately, I had another gig with BenWahBob. This time we were booked at Baha Rock Club in St. Charles MO. It’s kind of a home-away-from-home for this band, which has been playing there for nearly 10 years now – way back to when it was called Key West and under different management. They have always treated us well there. Likewise, we have always had a good response when playing there. This week was right in that vein.
One of the nice things about being a favorite band is getting the premium dates. This weekend was the “Festival of the Little Hills” (Fete de Petite Cotes, for all of you Francophiles), St. Charles’ biggest party weekend. For those who have never been, they shut down Old Town St. Charles and the riverfront, block off the streets, set up vendors in the streets and on the sidewalks and in the Riverfront Park, and the party is on. They try to keep it clean and family-oriented, but that’s really just on the surface. There is a bit of everything for just about everyone. Even a picky, fickle musician like myself can find adequate entertainment there. I usually try to go every year, if nothing else just to see one guy who is always there. Bob Culbertson is one of the preeminent Chapman Stick players in the world. Many of his books and videos are sold on Emmett Chapman’s own website, and he holds a large invitational clinic every year in his hometown of San Francisco CA. He sets up a booth on Main Street and plays all day long, for both days of the Festival. I’ve bought a couple of his CDs there, and had several opportunities to converse with him about the Stick and music in general. He’s a really great guy and a virtual cornucopia of knowledge. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it over there during the day this weekend, so I missed him for now the second year in a row. Bummer.
Anyway...with this being the Festival weekend, we were expecting a large crowd at Baha. We were not disappointed. It started out a bit slow, but by the end of the first set the place was jumping. Everyone seemed wound up and bent on having fun. Carlos’ wife’s sister’s husband (did you follow that?) was entertaining everyone in the place with his completely goofy antics on the dance floor. The place seemed to be crawling with attractive people. All of the BenWahBabes made it out for the first time in quite awhile. That was nice to see, too.
The set list was at its usual mix, with a few stumpers thrown in here and here. I say stumpers because some of these songs we haven’t played much since I have been in the band (or Bobby, for that matter). I couldn’t remember how a Candlebox song started until Bobby reminded me; for the life of me I couldn’t remember Bad Company’s Movin’ On until we actually started playing it; we were all concerned about the odd-meter diddy that goes into the solo section of Sail On, Sail Away by Moxy, and it came off just fine. We did Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song at the end of one of the sets, and things started to get kind of weird. John got a bit heavy on the vocal delay and it started feeding back into itself. The result was a big garble of unintelligible noise that buried most of the song. Too bad, because I actually felt pretty good about the way I sang it this time. Oh, well...c’est la vie, eh?
We ended the night with the usual foray into War Pigs. All the “rock guys” in the place immediately rushed the stage, fists pumping in the air. I am still at a loss to explain this phenomenon, yet there it is every time. It does give one some semblance of rockstardom, so I guess I shouldn’t question it. Whatever.
Everyone in the band was bent on breakfast after we had evacuated the stage. Unfortunately, Dawna and I could not participate. We had dropped off her son Derek with some friends in Granite City – Geo and Katrina Romer of Ivory Tiger – and had to pick him up on our way home. We did end up going to the Denny’s in Pontoon Beach after we got him, as neither one of us had eaten since early in the day Saturday. Derek slept in the back of my van while we went in and ate. We found out on Sunday that Geo and Katrina’s car had been broken into shortly after we had left them. I feel for them, as that has happened to me on several occasions. My free advice to them: get out of Granite City and move to a small town. It’s working for me.
An interesting note: I listened to absolutely no music all day Sunday. Sometimes, quiet is good.
posted by Paul J. Smith | 00:31
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