Whining and Dining
Saturday, 20 May 2006
After the last couple of rather uneventful weeks, I was ready to get to a playing weekend. If nothing else, just for the entertainment factor. And, of course, as is usual, I was not disappointed.
Well...let's say that I was not disappointed on the entertainment front.
(Warning - Whine Alert!)
It's no secret that Yngwie J. Malmsteen has been one of my favorite artists since his first solo album was released in 1984. He was scheduled to play at Pop's Saloon & Music in Sauget, IL on 20 May...same night as the Baha gig with BenWahBob. Bummer. I was going to miss him again. I've missed seeing quite a few artists over the years for this very same reason. Once back in the late 1980's, I was playing on Laclede's Landing in Downtown St. Louis while Cacophony was right across the street. People are surprised when I tell them that I've never had the chance to see a band like Iron Maiden. I finally saw bands like Yes and Kansas for the first time just a few years back. Timing is everything, I guess. I've seen Yngwie before, so it was really not that big of a deal.
BWB's guitar player also owns an electronics repair shop in Florissant, MO. One of his advertising methods is handing out flyers at artists' concerts that draw strong numbers of musicians. It's an effective tool. He had some trouble getting someone to do this show, so the Office Manager volunteered. That would be my girlfriend, Dawna. I wasn't too thrilled about the idea of her going to Pop's without me. I'm all protective like that. I knew I would worry about her all night. To make the situation worse, she was going to have to find a babysitter for her two children. She told me she was going to get either George or Katrina Romer to go with her...probably Katrina. As it turned out, it was George.
I’m not going to delve too deep into the personal aspect of this, as it is not the purpose of this blog. I will say, though, that sending my girlfriend to a concert at Pop’s while I’m playing in St. Charles wouldn’t have been my first choice.
Oh, well...enough of my crying about my personal life.
I spent a fair amount of the day Saturday burning CDs for the BWB Live disc that we are debuting this coming weekend. As a result, I didn't arrive at Baha Rock Club until about 20:45. as we were scheduled to start at 21:00, I was in a bit of a rush. It turns out it was all for naught. I hurried in, after finding "rockstar parking" right in front of the club, set everything up, and noticed that the soundcheck had gotten quiet. Apparently the soundman, John, had gotten sick and needed to leave. He looked awful. He was complaining about sweating and shortness of breath. We all started thinking that he might be having a heart attack. His wife came to pick him up and, we assumed, take him to the hospital. This left us with no soundman. The system at Baha is curious, to say the least. To say the most, its a complete fustercluck. Nothing is plugged in where it is labeled. Carlos did his best to get us a quick level check, and we were playing by about 21:20. Jim, the manager, became the default soundman.
We poured ourselves into the sets. Our efforts seemed to go largely unappreciated, as the small crowd seemed relatively indiferent to our presence. We played on nonetheless. As we started the third set with Mustang Sally, I mentally noted the irony of playing that song while Yngwie was onstage at Pop's playing nothing remotely like it. I also joked that, as late as we started, I probably could have gone to the show anyway. The usual dance songs had people on the dance floor, and the usual "drive-em-off-the-dance-floor" songs did their thing, too. We never did get Bobby's mic working, so Carlos and I did what we could to cover his vocal parts. That made things somewhat more interesting.
Someone from a wedding party requested Mustang Sally again, so we started off the fourth set with it...again. Once again I noted the above stated irony, and wondered how Dawna was doing. I was trying not to worry myself to death over it, and was failing miserably. My playing all night was just atrocious. My mind was obviously somewhere else. Fortunately, we only did half of the song this time and melted it into Hard to Handle by The Black Crows...another song of which I'm not terribly fond. Things evened out for me, though, at the end of the last set, when we ended the night with Rush's What You're Doing, Sabbath's Paranoid, and War Pigs. A pretty noble end to an otherwise dreary evening.
We tore down our stuff, shut down the PA, and stashed the mics. As I started to load out my equipment, there were three highly intoxicated young people sitting on the steps of the building next to the club. There was also a St. Charles Police Officer standing on the sidewalk talking with them. As I came into earshot of the conversation, the drunk guy sitting with two girls was remarking to the police officer about how they make the best breakfasts he's ever had. The cop looked at me and just shook his head. I remarked about how Waffle House seemed like a much better option. The cop asked him why someone was trying to beat him up last night, and the guy looked at him in amazement and asked how he knew about that...to which the cop told him "I know everything about you." I walked out of earshot about that time. However, Carlos came in just behind me to fill in the details. The guy apparently said to the cop, "That dude hit me, and you didn't do anything!" The cop answered, "That's not true. I laughed."
Things you can only experience in the seedy life of a bar musician.
They were all gone by the time I actually left the club. On the way there, I had listened to a CD from a band called The Quiet Room. They are a very talented group, but seem to be missing something that to me seems obvious – vocal harmonies. To exacerbate the issue, there are six guys in this band – two guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, and only one singer. With all of those guys in the band, one would think that the vocals would be huge. Yet, alas, they didn’t go that direction. The singer reminds me of early Geoff Tate…but, not quite. So, I listened to Queensrÿche’s Operation: Mindcrime for the drive home. It is easy to forget just how influential that album really was. It’s still great to this day.
This week’s a busy week again, flying out to the East Coast for a couple of days, then culminating with the trip to Lesterville this weekend. That should make for an interesting blog next week. We’ll see…
After the last couple of rather uneventful weeks, I was ready to get to a playing weekend. If nothing else, just for the entertainment factor. And, of course, as is usual, I was not disappointed.
Well...let's say that I was not disappointed on the entertainment front.
(Warning - Whine Alert!)
It's no secret that Yngwie J. Malmsteen has been one of my favorite artists since his first solo album was released in 1984. He was scheduled to play at Pop's Saloon & Music in Sauget, IL on 20 May...same night as the Baha gig with BenWahBob. Bummer. I was going to miss him again. I've missed seeing quite a few artists over the years for this very same reason. Once back in the late 1980's, I was playing on Laclede's Landing in Downtown St. Louis while Cacophony was right across the street. People are surprised when I tell them that I've never had the chance to see a band like Iron Maiden. I finally saw bands like Yes and Kansas for the first time just a few years back. Timing is everything, I guess. I've seen Yngwie before, so it was really not that big of a deal.
BWB's guitar player also owns an electronics repair shop in Florissant, MO. One of his advertising methods is handing out flyers at artists' concerts that draw strong numbers of musicians. It's an effective tool. He had some trouble getting someone to do this show, so the Office Manager volunteered. That would be my girlfriend, Dawna. I wasn't too thrilled about the idea of her going to Pop's without me. I'm all protective like that. I knew I would worry about her all night. To make the situation worse, she was going to have to find a babysitter for her two children. She told me she was going to get either George or Katrina Romer to go with her...probably Katrina. As it turned out, it was George.
I’m not going to delve too deep into the personal aspect of this, as it is not the purpose of this blog. I will say, though, that sending my girlfriend to a concert at Pop’s while I’m playing in St. Charles wouldn’t have been my first choice.
Oh, well...enough of my crying about my personal life.
I spent a fair amount of the day Saturday burning CDs for the BWB Live disc that we are debuting this coming weekend. As a result, I didn't arrive at Baha Rock Club until about 20:45. as we were scheduled to start at 21:00, I was in a bit of a rush. It turns out it was all for naught. I hurried in, after finding "rockstar parking" right in front of the club, set everything up, and noticed that the soundcheck had gotten quiet. Apparently the soundman, John, had gotten sick and needed to leave. He looked awful. He was complaining about sweating and shortness of breath. We all started thinking that he might be having a heart attack. His wife came to pick him up and, we assumed, take him to the hospital. This left us with no soundman. The system at Baha is curious, to say the least. To say the most, its a complete fustercluck. Nothing is plugged in where it is labeled. Carlos did his best to get us a quick level check, and we were playing by about 21:20. Jim, the manager, became the default soundman.
We poured ourselves into the sets. Our efforts seemed to go largely unappreciated, as the small crowd seemed relatively indiferent to our presence. We played on nonetheless. As we started the third set with Mustang Sally, I mentally noted the irony of playing that song while Yngwie was onstage at Pop's playing nothing remotely like it. I also joked that, as late as we started, I probably could have gone to the show anyway. The usual dance songs had people on the dance floor, and the usual "drive-em-off-the-dance-floor" songs did their thing, too. We never did get Bobby's mic working, so Carlos and I did what we could to cover his vocal parts. That made things somewhat more interesting.
Someone from a wedding party requested Mustang Sally again, so we started off the fourth set with it...again. Once again I noted the above stated irony, and wondered how Dawna was doing. I was trying not to worry myself to death over it, and was failing miserably. My playing all night was just atrocious. My mind was obviously somewhere else. Fortunately, we only did half of the song this time and melted it into Hard to Handle by The Black Crows...another song of which I'm not terribly fond. Things evened out for me, though, at the end of the last set, when we ended the night with Rush's What You're Doing, Sabbath's Paranoid, and War Pigs. A pretty noble end to an otherwise dreary evening.
We tore down our stuff, shut down the PA, and stashed the mics. As I started to load out my equipment, there were three highly intoxicated young people sitting on the steps of the building next to the club. There was also a St. Charles Police Officer standing on the sidewalk talking with them. As I came into earshot of the conversation, the drunk guy sitting with two girls was remarking to the police officer about how they make the best breakfasts he's ever had. The cop looked at me and just shook his head. I remarked about how Waffle House seemed like a much better option. The cop asked him why someone was trying to beat him up last night, and the guy looked at him in amazement and asked how he knew about that...to which the cop told him "I know everything about you." I walked out of earshot about that time. However, Carlos came in just behind me to fill in the details. The guy apparently said to the cop, "That dude hit me, and you didn't do anything!" The cop answered, "That's not true. I laughed."
Things you can only experience in the seedy life of a bar musician.
They were all gone by the time I actually left the club. On the way there, I had listened to a CD from a band called The Quiet Room. They are a very talented group, but seem to be missing something that to me seems obvious – vocal harmonies. To exacerbate the issue, there are six guys in this band – two guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, and only one singer. With all of those guys in the band, one would think that the vocals would be huge. Yet, alas, they didn’t go that direction. The singer reminds me of early Geoff Tate…but, not quite. So, I listened to Queensrÿche’s Operation: Mindcrime for the drive home. It is easy to forget just how influential that album really was. It’s still great to this day.
This week’s a busy week again, flying out to the East Coast for a couple of days, then culminating with the trip to Lesterville this weekend. That should make for an interesting blog next week. We’ll see…
posted by Paul J. Smith | 23:26
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