Mi Casa, Su Casa
Friday, 05 May 2006
Cinco de Mayo -- the celebration of the Mexican victory over the overwhelmingly superior forces of Napoleon's invasion forces at the Battle of Puebla. It makes for a great excuse to party...and party they do. The party has gotten so big, that they've even invited Americans to participate along with them...as if we needed a reason to party either.
BenWahBob has been scoring some pretty good gigs for this holiday in the past couple of years. With the leader of the band being a "beaner" himself, this is to be expected I suppose. This year we provided the party soundtrack at the Casa Gallardo Mexican Restaurant at Manchester & I-270 in West St. Louis County. Anyone who has been through this area in the last couple of years knows what a nightmare it can be to get anywhere. Some genius engineers took a perfectly good accident-prone intersection and turned it into a giant fustercluck by making it a divided roadway. The restaurant is located on the south side of Manchester Road, just west of I-270. To get there, though, you must go east. Well...you exit west on Manchester, then north on Des Peres, then east on Manchester again, being careful not to drive right past it, as it is mostly hiden from the road until you are already driving past and about to cross over I-270 to West County Mall.
We decided it was best to set up on Thursday night after happy Hour in an effort to avoid the hassles of trying to load in during the festivities on Friday night. I don't know that I've ever been to this particular Casa before, but I knew where it was, and was able to get there with no problems. Bobby found it easily, too, as he goes there frequently. Dale didn't seem to have any trouble, and was there before me, as I got stuck in the construction traffic on US-40. Carlos, on the other hand, got lost, and ended up at Manchester & 141. After we all got there, and Carlos and Bobby got some appetizers at the bar, we set up my small system in a fairly isolated area just across from the bar. We did a basic (very basic, as I had not brought my bass) signal check, and I got the heck out of there. It was getting late, and I was already having a rather long week. The Chief Pricing Agent at Wick's had announced the previous week that he was leaving for personal pursuits, and I was offered the position. It looks like it will be quite a challenging job, and I spent the whole week being tutored in the fine art of organ pricing by two people with a combined total of 88 years at the company. Needless to say, it was mentally draining and I was tired.
Friday didn't really provide the stress relief that one would like from it either. I was hoping to get out of work a bit early to avoid the rush to get to the gig on time. My new hours are 8-5, and we were supposed to start promptly at 19:30. Unfortunately, I got dragged into a meeting with some visitors from Korea at around 16:00. At around 17:10, I looked at my watch and sighed. I guess Mark Wick heard or saw me, because he quickly wrapped things up with the meeting and cut us loose. It seemed unlikely, but I actually made it to the restaurant by 18:30. We plugged in the mics, turned everything on, and started right on time.
The crowd was exactly what you would expect on a night like this...and yet not. The place was packed, to be sure, but they seemed a bit more distant than we would have liked. Once the dinner crowd dissipated -- around the third set -- the place got pretty thin fairly quick. There were still a good amount of people in the bar area, but that was on the other side of the building. We ended up playing the last two sets to an empty room with a big fountain in the middle. It was a nice fountain, though.
That infernal Georgia Sattelites song popped up at the top of the second set again. I though we had rid ourselves of that pestilence, and yet there it was. Bobby told Dale that he use to sing it all the time, and wanted to give it a shot. Dale seemed a bit put-out, but aquiesced nonetheless. Amazingly, it went off without a hitch this time. Hmmm...
We banged out the rest of the tunes, even throwing in some Zeppelin at the request of a couple of friendly (drunk) young ladies. It is nice to know that some of the kids are still listening to fairly decent stuff like that. I say "kids" because most of them look to me like they are probably breaking some law by even having an alcoholic beverage in their hand, much less consuming it. I know that's mostly a function of the aging process, but I still find it mildly amusing. I feel like Larry Rolens sometimes...minus that whole Gretchen thing, of course.
The tear-down went pretty quickly, and I was on my way home by 01:00. As tired as I was, though, I needed something to keep me awake. That Circus Maximus CD The First Chapter, and a quick diversion to White Castle, seemed to do the trick. I can't seem to get enough of that album. I wish they would hurry up and put out another one.
Cinco de Mayo -- the celebration of the Mexican victory over the overwhelmingly superior forces of Napoleon's invasion forces at the Battle of Puebla. It makes for a great excuse to party...and party they do. The party has gotten so big, that they've even invited Americans to participate along with them...as if we needed a reason to party either.
BenWahBob has been scoring some pretty good gigs for this holiday in the past couple of years. With the leader of the band being a "beaner" himself, this is to be expected I suppose. This year we provided the party soundtrack at the Casa Gallardo Mexican Restaurant at Manchester & I-270 in West St. Louis County. Anyone who has been through this area in the last couple of years knows what a nightmare it can be to get anywhere. Some genius engineers took a perfectly good accident-prone intersection and turned it into a giant fustercluck by making it a divided roadway. The restaurant is located on the south side of Manchester Road, just west of I-270. To get there, though, you must go east. Well...you exit west on Manchester, then north on Des Peres, then east on Manchester again, being careful not to drive right past it, as it is mostly hiden from the road until you are already driving past and about to cross over I-270 to West County Mall.
We decided it was best to set up on Thursday night after happy Hour in an effort to avoid the hassles of trying to load in during the festivities on Friday night. I don't know that I've ever been to this particular Casa before, but I knew where it was, and was able to get there with no problems. Bobby found it easily, too, as he goes there frequently. Dale didn't seem to have any trouble, and was there before me, as I got stuck in the construction traffic on US-40. Carlos, on the other hand, got lost, and ended up at Manchester & 141. After we all got there, and Carlos and Bobby got some appetizers at the bar, we set up my small system in a fairly isolated area just across from the bar. We did a basic (very basic, as I had not brought my bass) signal check, and I got the heck out of there. It was getting late, and I was already having a rather long week. The Chief Pricing Agent at Wick's had announced the previous week that he was leaving for personal pursuits, and I was offered the position. It looks like it will be quite a challenging job, and I spent the whole week being tutored in the fine art of organ pricing by two people with a combined total of 88 years at the company. Needless to say, it was mentally draining and I was tired.
Friday didn't really provide the stress relief that one would like from it either. I was hoping to get out of work a bit early to avoid the rush to get to the gig on time. My new hours are 8-5, and we were supposed to start promptly at 19:30. Unfortunately, I got dragged into a meeting with some visitors from Korea at around 16:00. At around 17:10, I looked at my watch and sighed. I guess Mark Wick heard or saw me, because he quickly wrapped things up with the meeting and cut us loose. It seemed unlikely, but I actually made it to the restaurant by 18:30. We plugged in the mics, turned everything on, and started right on time.
The crowd was exactly what you would expect on a night like this...and yet not. The place was packed, to be sure, but they seemed a bit more distant than we would have liked. Once the dinner crowd dissipated -- around the third set -- the place got pretty thin fairly quick. There were still a good amount of people in the bar area, but that was on the other side of the building. We ended up playing the last two sets to an empty room with a big fountain in the middle. It was a nice fountain, though.
That infernal Georgia Sattelites song popped up at the top of the second set again. I though we had rid ourselves of that pestilence, and yet there it was. Bobby told Dale that he use to sing it all the time, and wanted to give it a shot. Dale seemed a bit put-out, but aquiesced nonetheless. Amazingly, it went off without a hitch this time. Hmmm...
We banged out the rest of the tunes, even throwing in some Zeppelin at the request of a couple of friendly (drunk) young ladies. It is nice to know that some of the kids are still listening to fairly decent stuff like that. I say "kids" because most of them look to me like they are probably breaking some law by even having an alcoholic beverage in their hand, much less consuming it. I know that's mostly a function of the aging process, but I still find it mildly amusing. I feel like Larry Rolens sometimes...minus that whole Gretchen thing, of course.
The tear-down went pretty quickly, and I was on my way home by 01:00. As tired as I was, though, I needed something to keep me awake. That Circus Maximus CD The First Chapter, and a quick diversion to White Castle, seemed to do the trick. I can't seem to get enough of that album. I wish they would hurry up and put out another one.
posted by Paul J. Smith | 00:06
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