Last Saturday night was my first gig in Santa Cruz in 4 years. I played at The Ugly Mug in Soquel. There were quite a few people in there studying when I started. My friends started rolling in a little after I started: Andy brought her friend Laura, Jacob and Jen came in, said hi, and ran off to grab a burrito before they both sank into blood sugar comas and came back afterward, and Robin and Bruce wandered in late because they got the time wrong, God bless’m, and of course Kirby was there to show his support even though the poor guy has heard my songs 1,000 times. It was a nice night. I tell ya, it makes all the difference in the world to be playing for friends and family. The audience was very appreciative though and the tips were really good. As a venue,… eh… the seating arrangement is really odd but the vibe is good, and it’s always nice to be in the Cruz. We all went out to dinner afterward at Mobo Sushi and closed the place. It was a great night.
Tonight, I did the featured artist position at Red Rock Coffee’s open mic. That was nice because I hadn’t been in there since the new ownership took over. They put in actual stage!! That was awesome. It also got a much needed paint job. I really liked the new seating arrangement for the open mic and Scott and Steve were just great. I really like it there. It was nice to see some old faces in the crowd too. Autumn and the Fall Guys Chris and Hank were there, along with Andrew whom I haven’t seen in ages. Props to Bill for hooking that up. He gave me Steve’s email addy and I mentioned that Bill gave it too me and he’s like, “Well, if Bill gave this too you, I don’t even need to hear you, I’ll go on Bill’s recommendation.” I’m like, “Damn Bill, got any connections at the IRS?” Bill did the harmonies on Helplessly Hoping with me which seems to be our cursed song. We jacked it up one night at BRS, totally my fault, just couldn’t hear the harmony. Tonight’s catastrophe: Two people sitting in the front of the stage decided to sing along with us. I just kinda fell into a trance listening to them listening too us when suddenly I realized that Bill and I were not singing the same lyrics. The people whom I started following weren’t singing the correct lyrics! It was quite comical but I stopped the song and started over. It’s just too pretty a song to butcher. The second time around was much better.
I’m playing Frescaroma this Friday night. First time there, I haven’t even seen the place before so we’ll see. They’re supposed to have a bit of a hip hop flava to the place so I’ll be playing more uptempo, higher nrg stuff. We’ll see how that goes. I’d sure like a percussionist. Anyone, anyone?
