Conquering Frenchtown
Friday, 14 October 2005
I was under the impression that the gig last month at Club 501 was to be the last for Knucklehead. As it turns out, this was not the case. We had two more unconfirmed dates at Baha Rock Club in St. Charles, MO. This Friday was one of them. I had taken a half-day vacation from my day job, so there would be little rushing around to get there on time (have I mentioned how much I hate Friday gigs?).
The week had been fairly eventful for me leading up to the weekend. I was offered a new job with a company that is about five minutes from my home - as opposed to the hour-long drive I am currently making every day. I had used Deron as one of my personal references, and they called him earlier in the week. He sent me an email to inform me that if I got the job I would owe him a six-pack of Labatt Blue. I responded by telling him if I got the job he would get a case. So, warn your liver, D...the Blue is coming your way. And thanks.
I arrived at the club around 20:00 before anyone else was there, set up my equipment, and was pretty much done when Deron and Steve rolled in around 20:15. We chatted a bit, and I realized that I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch. As it was now a little past 20:30, and we were to start at 21:00, I knew there was no way to get something across the street at Big A’s and still have time to eat it. I was hosed. It would be a long night.
I had rehearsed some old, rusty tunes with BenWahBob on Tuesday night. Other than that, I hadn’t touched my bass since the last gig with KH at Club 501...over a month ago. The crowd at Baha was a bit thin when we started, and Deron decided to launch straight into Iron Maiden’s Two Minutes to Midnight. Yikes! My hands were starting to cramp halfway through the second verse. Not a good portent for the night, to be sure, but I managed to get through it without too many flubs.
There was a bit of an odd feel on the stage that night...a sense of uneasy direction that would manifest itself later in the night. I couldn’t hear my keyboards in the monitors at all during the first set, which was probably a tragedy during the bridge section of Mr. Crowley. I couldn’t hear, so I have no idea. The keys finally showed up again during the last two sets - when I use them the least. Oh, well...c’est la vie, eh?
During the third set, someone grabbed the talkback microphone at the soundboard and asked for some Skid Row. We rolled successively through every Skid Row song we knew, and even one we didn’t know. Then someone asked for Queensryche, so we did I Don’t Believe in Love followed immediately by Operation: Mindcrime. Very cool stuff, but I think we lost some of the crowd during this self-indulgence.
Not to be outdone in the last set, Deron started off with Seven Seas by TNT. I saw several more people get up and head for the door. It’s hard to fathom, but there are apparently some people in St. Charles who don’t fully appreciate a band that can do stuff like that. If they were looking for Mustang Sally, they came on the wrong night. This last set went by so quickly that we were at the end of the night before we knew it. Things seemed to end without much ado. We tore down the gear, loaded our vehicles, and headed for home.
I listened to the Spiral Architect album A Skeptic’s Universe on the ride home, which seemed to take forever. The insane level of musicianship of that group kept me awake, but just barely. The lack of any food in the previous 15 hours, and the fact that I had been up since 04:30, was taking its toll. If I hadn’t known that Dawna was waiting for me at my house, I would have pulled over and slept awhile before I left Missouri...a flashback of the old days driving the We-Haul truck back from The Speakeasy in Breese, IL. “Plus ce change, plus c’est la meme chose!”
Saturday, 15 October 2005
It’s all Paul J. Smith, all weekend. Baha Rock Club just couldn’t get enough of me this weekend, as Saturday night I was back there again...this time with BenWahBob. I was able to leave the bass amp there after Friday night, so I had absolutely nothing to set up. I just showed up around 20:30, tuned my bass, and hung out until it was time to play. The BenWahBabes all showed up, too, minus Bobby’s wife Roberta.
The crowd was kind of sparse in the early going, which was probably all well and good. Dale had decided to inject all of the odd songs we had rehearsed earlier in the week into the first set, so we were a bit skittish about them. Everything seemed to turn out OK, though. April Wine’s Just Between You and Me actually sounded pretty good to me, as did the others. Most of the night went pretty much that way. We had our share of duffs, I guess, but we made it through the night without any really awful moments. There were three guys running around all night wearing mullet wigs, who seemed to actually enjoy the classic rock stuff we offered. Joe Dirt, eat your heart out.
At the end of the night, after we had disassembled the stage equipment and were awaiting payment for services rendered, I had my second rock star moment of the night. A woman had approached us all earlier in the night and asked for all of our autographs on a couple of our flyers. Now, as I sat at the front edge of the stage carrying on a literary conversation with Dale’s lovely wife Chris (who is a teacher in Troy, MO) about Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, George Orwell, and other writers of that ilk, I was approached by a young gentleman with a camera in hand and two attractive young ladies in tow. He asked if I would mind having my picture taken with the two ladies. Huh? What a silly question, Dude. They sandwiched in on either side of me like I was somebody, and we waited for the guy to figure out how to use a camera. The flash finally blinded us, and they giggled off toward the door. These things still amuse me to no end, even after all these years.
I listened to the Gordian Knot CD on the drive home this time. There’s something about music with Chapman Stick and Warr Guitar that is both inspiring and relaxing at the same time. Call me silly, but I like it.
I was under the impression that the gig last month at Club 501 was to be the last for Knucklehead. As it turns out, this was not the case. We had two more unconfirmed dates at Baha Rock Club in St. Charles, MO. This Friday was one of them. I had taken a half-day vacation from my day job, so there would be little rushing around to get there on time (have I mentioned how much I hate Friday gigs?).
The week had been fairly eventful for me leading up to the weekend. I was offered a new job with a company that is about five minutes from my home - as opposed to the hour-long drive I am currently making every day. I had used Deron as one of my personal references, and they called him earlier in the week. He sent me an email to inform me that if I got the job I would owe him a six-pack of Labatt Blue. I responded by telling him if I got the job he would get a case. So, warn your liver, D...the Blue is coming your way. And thanks.
I arrived at the club around 20:00 before anyone else was there, set up my equipment, and was pretty much done when Deron and Steve rolled in around 20:15. We chatted a bit, and I realized that I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch. As it was now a little past 20:30, and we were to start at 21:00, I knew there was no way to get something across the street at Big A’s and still have time to eat it. I was hosed. It would be a long night.
I had rehearsed some old, rusty tunes with BenWahBob on Tuesday night. Other than that, I hadn’t touched my bass since the last gig with KH at Club 501...over a month ago. The crowd at Baha was a bit thin when we started, and Deron decided to launch straight into Iron Maiden’s Two Minutes to Midnight. Yikes! My hands were starting to cramp halfway through the second verse. Not a good portent for the night, to be sure, but I managed to get through it without too many flubs.
There was a bit of an odd feel on the stage that night...a sense of uneasy direction that would manifest itself later in the night. I couldn’t hear my keyboards in the monitors at all during the first set, which was probably a tragedy during the bridge section of Mr. Crowley. I couldn’t hear, so I have no idea. The keys finally showed up again during the last two sets - when I use them the least. Oh, well...c’est la vie, eh?
During the third set, someone grabbed the talkback microphone at the soundboard and asked for some Skid Row. We rolled successively through every Skid Row song we knew, and even one we didn’t know. Then someone asked for Queensryche, so we did I Don’t Believe in Love followed immediately by Operation: Mindcrime. Very cool stuff, but I think we lost some of the crowd during this self-indulgence.
Not to be outdone in the last set, Deron started off with Seven Seas by TNT. I saw several more people get up and head for the door. It’s hard to fathom, but there are apparently some people in St. Charles who don’t fully appreciate a band that can do stuff like that. If they were looking for Mustang Sally, they came on the wrong night. This last set went by so quickly that we were at the end of the night before we knew it. Things seemed to end without much ado. We tore down the gear, loaded our vehicles, and headed for home.
I listened to the Spiral Architect album A Skeptic’s Universe on the ride home, which seemed to take forever. The insane level of musicianship of that group kept me awake, but just barely. The lack of any food in the previous 15 hours, and the fact that I had been up since 04:30, was taking its toll. If I hadn’t known that Dawna was waiting for me at my house, I would have pulled over and slept awhile before I left Missouri...a flashback of the old days driving the We-Haul truck back from The Speakeasy in Breese, IL. “Plus ce change, plus c’est la meme chose!”
Saturday, 15 October 2005
It’s all Paul J. Smith, all weekend. Baha Rock Club just couldn’t get enough of me this weekend, as Saturday night I was back there again...this time with BenWahBob. I was able to leave the bass amp there after Friday night, so I had absolutely nothing to set up. I just showed up around 20:30, tuned my bass, and hung out until it was time to play. The BenWahBabes all showed up, too, minus Bobby’s wife Roberta.
The crowd was kind of sparse in the early going, which was probably all well and good. Dale had decided to inject all of the odd songs we had rehearsed earlier in the week into the first set, so we were a bit skittish about them. Everything seemed to turn out OK, though. April Wine’s Just Between You and Me actually sounded pretty good to me, as did the others. Most of the night went pretty much that way. We had our share of duffs, I guess, but we made it through the night without any really awful moments. There were three guys running around all night wearing mullet wigs, who seemed to actually enjoy the classic rock stuff we offered. Joe Dirt, eat your heart out.
At the end of the night, after we had disassembled the stage equipment and were awaiting payment for services rendered, I had my second rock star moment of the night. A woman had approached us all earlier in the night and asked for all of our autographs on a couple of our flyers. Now, as I sat at the front edge of the stage carrying on a literary conversation with Dale’s lovely wife Chris (who is a teacher in Troy, MO) about Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, George Orwell, and other writers of that ilk, I was approached by a young gentleman with a camera in hand and two attractive young ladies in tow. He asked if I would mind having my picture taken with the two ladies. Huh? What a silly question, Dude. They sandwiched in on either side of me like I was somebody, and we waited for the guy to figure out how to use a camera. The flash finally blinded us, and they giggled off toward the door. These things still amuse me to no end, even after all these years.
I listened to the Gordian Knot CD on the drive home this time. There’s something about music with Chapman Stick and Warr Guitar that is both inspiring and relaxing at the same time. Call me silly, but I like it.
posted by Paul J. Smith | 12:04
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