An alert reader kindly reminded me that I have posted absolutely nothing on the Making the Band saga in many many months. In fact, the last post was here. Well, hold your breath no longer, I am about to update you on The Dream. I will say right off that I really enjoy playing with the boys in Searching for Sanity (S4S if you're nasty), I like and respect everyone on a personal and musical level, and I realize that I'm just a hack musician who is lucky that anyone would ever hire them to play "lead" guitar. So, hopefully nobody will get their feelings hurt if I poke some fun at my buddies and fellow musicians. It's all in good fun, and my 3 readers really enjoy a good Spinal Tap story.
2nd Gig - Tonic Lounge
Our set went real well in comparison to our first gig. I played "ok", but fortunately Mark the drummer showed up on game day for a stunning rendition of "jungle drums" and Jeff and Rich played well. I managed to bomb my 1st solo, but recovered to play a pretty good set after that. The only real Spinal Tap moment was contributed by yours truly. There's a part in a song where I come in all alone while Jeff holds out a long vocal. I had swapped out guitars previous to this and had my amp on standby, so when I went to play my part - nothing came out of my amp... silence. Poor Jeff had to hold that note a very very long time while I flipped my amp back on and got it all figured out - but he manned up and after the momentary glitch my guitar fired up again and it actually came out nicely.3rd Gig - Red Room. Wasn't real pleased about how this gig turned out actually. Probably the weakest gig we've played and I'm glad to have that one out of our system. We opened for Keel Over. Keel Over was very good. Great guitar player/singer, great drummer and great bass player. They did a fantastic cover of a Rage Against the Machine tune, which the title escapes me at the moment - Elephants on Parade I think.
Interestingly, Metaphisc opened for us this time. Small world. My brother kinda took a shine to the contact juggler lady in the band and wanted me to hook him up. But, I told him that I really didn't have much pull in the Metaphisc camp.
Our set was not void of Spinal Tap moments. Before we even started, we discovered that we had forgotten the cymbals for the drum set - they were back home in the garage packed up neatly on the floor. Drums without cymbals is like ice cream without cake. The drummer from Keel Over was kind enough to lend us his, but didn't fail to remind us that though we forgot our cymbals, we DID NOT forget the Fog Machine. So, cymbals in hand we went on. The next Spinal Tap moment was courtesy of yours truly, when I AGAIN forgot to switch my amp off standby just like the last show. I AGAIN bombed my 1st solo, and I was starting to get a sorta mental block about the whole "1st solo" thing. At the end of the night we made a whopping 12-dollars - for the whole band. That joint was SMOKY I'm telling your. Fortunately for those of us of advancing age, Oregon has now banned smoking in the clubs, which will allow me to live a few more years I hope.
4th Gig - The Living Room Pub - Oregon City - New Year's Eve. Wow, we had moved up in the world with a boner-fide NYE gig. It came together the day BEFORE when the scheduled band flaked. Somehow we got the call and so on we went. It was the perfect storm, really. For me there was really no time to get nervous and worrisome. One minute I was at work, the next I was packing the Soccer MILF Van and headed to the gig. Before I knew it I had played through the 1st solo without bombing it - mental block officially broken through. This ended up being a super fun gig, and the folks at the Living Room really treated us well with free beers all night. I thought we played very well this night. We went through our set a couple of times, which was great practice, and I was really pleased all around with everyone's performance, and even my own. We even played the "Happy Birthday" song for the pub owner, who was celebrating his B-day.
5th Gig - Tonic Lounge. January 10th. We opened for Thunderstruck, which is an AC/DC tribute band. Man, Thunderstruck are very very good. They sounded awesome. If you closed your eyes you'd think it was Angus and the boys. Definitely check them out if you can. Anyhoo, this was sort of a watershed event in my development as a rock star. There was a pretty good sized crowd here for Thunderstruck. Also, several folks from work showed up, as did some old friends, and even Debbie showed up for this one. Surprise of surprises though was that my parents made an impromptu trip to Portland and surprised me at the gig. This was pretty special I thought. So, all told I knew about 20 or so people among about 200 who came to check out the show. The gig went pretty well - once we got started. We had a Spinal Tap moment right at the get-go when Jeff was having some kind of wardrobe malfunction with his guitar strap. That finally rectified we fired into the set, and it went pretty well after that. I only managed to bomb one solo, but nobody seemed to notice, and besides Smoky the Fog Machine was putting out so much fog who would care? and I even had some nice compliments after the show. My dad seemed to especially dig the show and has since volunteered to "Roadie".
6th Gig - The New Copper Penny. January 12th. This was a "Battle of the Bands," and since we had just gigged two nights previous I was pretty "up" for a good effort. No Need. We were the only band that showed, and Searching for Sanity ROCKED the 5 people in attendance - Jeff's wife, Jeff's buddy, the two bartenders and the manager. Ironically, it was the best gig I ever played up to that point. We sounded real good as well and won by default. The down-side was that we had to PAY FOR OUR OWN BEERS. WTF? We kindly declined to move onto the next level of competition as it was going to be on a Monday and we just didn't feel up for it. To add insult to injury, besides no free beers we didn't even get paid.
7th Gig - The Living Room Pub. Back to the Living Room and my personal favorite venue. The Living Room does not have it's own PA system, so the band has to bring it's own. Fortunately Jeff has a PA. Unfortunately, both speakers curiously crapped out the week previous during rehearsal. Mark, who's daytime gig is Electrical Engineering, assured us that it was a statistical near-impossibility that both speakers would crap out at the same time. But, there you go - two crapped out speakers. After much fussing about with speakers, Rich asked Jeff what this strange box was, this box that he had been putting his beers on all these last 8 months? Jeff replies, "Yes! The Penetrator 3s."
Penetrator 3s? Penetrator 3s? Did somebody just say Penetrator 3s?
Was this not the coolest name that anyone ever called a PA speaker? Well, we strapped on our Penetrator 3s and S4S was back in business sporting a sweet pair of Penetrator 3s.
Got to the gig, and it went pretty well especially considering we had not rehearsed in a couple weeks. Had a few folks from work drop by to check us out. Band sounded good, and I played a real good set, so all's well that ends well. Free beers and a 100 bucks thanks to our trusty Penetrator 3s. I have to say it one more time... Penetrator 3.
Next Gig - March 21st - Tonic Lounge. We open again for Bully and Thunderstruck. This should be a good one! Too bad we can't bring the Penetrator 3s.
We missed you at the Living room by a week. We went there this last weekend and had a good time. Mike and Inez (the owners) are awesome people, and the expansion of the bar seems to be going great.
You haven't lived until you have taken your kids trick or treating at the living room LOL The big thing here is taking the kids toting downtown. Nothing says halloween like taking your kids door to door to different bars!
The band that was there that night was ok, but they kept starting songs, then stopping mid song which got really annoying.
I must say going out to listen to music is a lot better since the smoking ban took effect!
We will have to check you guys out the next time you are at the LR.
Posted by: Liz | March 13, 2009 at 07:46 AM
You forgot the cymbals, but NOT the fog machine! Spinal Tap indeed! Thanks for this post, Matt. It gives great insight to the lives of a gigging band that still holds a day job. This was an enjoyable read. Good luck on tthe 21st. If I was west coast, I'd be there.
Posted by: Ryo Vie | March 17, 2009 at 06:32 AM