I had breakfast plans with Denise before I had to leave town. I was planning to take her to a great mom and pop café that I had eaten at during the rehearsal days earlier that week, but upon arrival we discovered it was closed for an emergency. We found another place to get breakfast about a block away, an “Italian” restaurant staffed entirely by Asians. It was cheap and non-offensive. I bid Denise farewell, and she went off to enjoy some other San Francisco sights before catching the red-eye back to Philly, while I headed off to the next show in Petaluma with Charlie and the girls.
I grabbed a sweet nap and shower at our Petaluma hotel before needing to be at the venue for soundcheck. Melvin, Steve, and Johnny were already jamming when I arrived, a new tune of Melvin’s called “Movin’ and Groovin’.” I didn’t have a chance to join in on it though, because as soon as I started playing, I realized my amp was completely fried. Steve and Brian were quick to troubleshoot, and they replaced the head with one of Steve’s extra guitar heads that he had brought as a backup. Completely skeptical that a guitar amp would do the job, I was pleasantly surprised to find a very warm tone. I ended up using this head for most of the rest of the tour, and what a treat to not have to deal with any stress with this mishap. The crew took care of everything.
We worked on one of Steve’s new tunes a bit during soundcheck. A few days prior, I made the mistake of suggesting the title of “Crazy Engine” for the song, since the “A” section kind of sounded to me like a train chugging furiously down a track. Steve didn’t like it at first, which made me reconsider it as well, and despite every attempt to retract my suggestion, the title ended up sticking. Anyway, at soundcheck we attempted to assign some sort of arrangement to the sections of the song, but it was a futile effort since our showtime performance that night of course strayed from what we decided on in rehearsal. Again, entirely unpredictable. We would later hone this arrangement more decidedly at my insistence and by the end of the tour, we were playing a consistent arrangement and the song had a lot more confidence to it. It was cool to see the evolution of the song over the course of a few shows.
The show went great. The room was fairly large and had some bounceback, but the sound was OK, and I think the band was feeling more comfortable on our 4th consecutive night. I got to meet some cool people backstage, including photographer Bob Minkin whose photos are featured in this post. Thanks Bob!
I grabbed a sweet nap and shower at our Petaluma hotel before needing to be at the venue for soundcheck. Melvin, Steve, and Johnny were already jamming when I arrived, a new tune of Melvin’s called “Movin’ and Groovin’.” I didn’t have a chance to join in on it though, because as soon as I started playing, I realized my amp was completely fried. Steve and Brian were quick to troubleshoot, and they replaced the head with one of Steve’s extra guitar heads that he had brought as a backup. Completely skeptical that a guitar amp would do the job, I was pleasantly surprised to find a very warm tone. I ended up using this head for most of the rest of the tour, and what a treat to not have to deal with any stress with this mishap. The crew took care of everything.
We worked on one of Steve’s new tunes a bit during soundcheck. A few days prior, I made the mistake of suggesting the title of “Crazy Engine” for the song, since the “A” section kind of sounded to me like a train chugging furiously down a track. Steve didn’t like it at first, which made me reconsider it as well, and despite every attempt to retract my suggestion, the title ended up sticking. Anyway, at soundcheck we attempted to assign some sort of arrangement to the sections of the song, but it was a futile effort since our showtime performance that night of course strayed from what we decided on in rehearsal. Again, entirely unpredictable. We would later hone this arrangement more decidedly at my insistence and by the end of the tour, we were playing a consistent arrangement and the song had a lot more confidence to it. It was cool to see the evolution of the song over the course of a few shows.
The show went great. The room was fairly large and had some bounceback, but the sound was OK, and I think the band was feeling more comfortable on our 4th consecutive night. I got to meet some cool people backstage, including photographer Bob Minkin whose photos are featured in this post. Thanks Bob!
No comments:
Post a Comment