Monday, January 25, 2010

Gig Notes: Soul Track Mind-The Hole in the Wall Sat. 1-23-10

It was a wild one. The place was so packed the fire marshalls had to shut it down.



Both bands packed them in. T-Bird had never played the Hole in the Wall before, which was kinda surprising to me. The fire marshall cut about 20-30 minutes into their set. They fire marshalls were just doing their jobs and seemed cool about it. It was crowed in there, I was hanging in back or the front, not the performing room. While it was shut down, anyone leaving the club wasn't allowed back in and there was a line waiting to get in. I could see friends out side through the storefront like window. We called each other while looking through the glass, like prisoners of music.

After T-Bird performed a smokin' abbreviated set, we went on. The crowd was hyped and ready. We started with a couple of originals, then the set got bogged down because of the shortened time slot. That happens when a band is thrown a monkey wrench in the middle of a gig. All-in-all I thought the gig went well. Still, I had a hard time getting excited about it. The innate problems still exist-the drummer dropping beats, the singer focusing on cover tunes instead of originals, lack of CDs to sell in the club. The core TC's fans were there, which is mainly made of close band friends and they sing the covers. I was looking at the crowd and potential new fans were more into the covers, which is a problem in my opinion. When given the chance to play for such a crowd, the band should've been better prepared-musically focus on originals, have CDs with some stickers or T-shirts to sell, have a person roam/work the crowd and not just dance with friends. Opportunities work best when one is prepared. It's a drum I tried to beat but fell to deaf ears. Oh well, I took my $60 at the end of the night and ate a nice late-night meal at 24 Diner.

I guess it all comes full circle-STM is replacing me temporarily with the guy I replaced last year. He's a nice guy, but kinda a gunslinger on bass-he plays a six string bass, which is cool but his sense of pocket wavers like the drummer's. Like I said, Beat Don't Lie. A whack beat can't fool dancing feet and swinging hips & asses. Pocket & groove sticks and moves the crowd. Good luck to them...

Gig notes:
1. Cody Furr, bassist for T-Bird let me use his rig-Ampeg B-2RE head with a 4 x 10 cab (don't remember what it was...). The sound was good. It was nice not have to lug my Harkte 3500 with my ported Genz Benz XB4 cab. I gotta get a new amp/cabinet combo this year...
2. Played Clyde on the gig-my '78 Fender Jazz.
3. By the way, it irritated me to no end that we never documented the tunes we play or had solid set lists. It's like the key part of the show gets lost in time. Plus STM had a recorder so there was never a reason not to have recordings of the shows to listen to to get better & tighter.
4. It's always weird playing your last gig with a band you got fired from when it slow dawns on people that never really thought of it. "You must so excited about this year! What a gig to start the year off with!" Actually, not with this band....

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