Eric's House Of Ego

We played
Daughter Of The Red
Untitled
Out Of The Rain
Then, on the insistence of a few folks
... Rain

Then came Bryan Baker. I sat in with the laptop snare on his werewolf song, and then the electronic kit for ... Ahem ... Play That Funky Music ... Yeah, really

Standards
Hand Above The Water
FPN

I think this is the last time I'm going to do FPN there. I have yet to get a laugh. I also told the story about the friend with the tattoo leading into Hand Above The Water. The audience looked like a dog I had just showed a card trick.

I'm slowly going back and relearning some older songs. Hand was easier than I thought it was going to be. Almost Beautiful gave me fits, it has some tricky chords. I'll probably do it next week.

I updated the webpage tonight. I now run the official Paul K page, but I can't find any of my original files to re-edit. I need to go through some discs, it's been 4 years since I changed anything and it needs a major revamp.

My page now includes a video page. There are no videos on it, at least not till I work out how to embed them. I'm bad at html.

I'm headin to Billy Joe's in just a bit.

I'm going to the Billy Joes open mike

A little loose tonight, but a decent set. I need to play more guitar. I did
Last Ride (Nixon/Coleman)
Hey Dad (with a new verse)
Marilyn Monroe (Dan Bern)
FPN

Several folks came out to hang out with me, which is always a nice thing. And I broke a few people with FPN. I'm home the next couple of weeks, but expect to be back there in three weeks, maybe with some new songs, so come out and see me ...

Heaven Out On The Highway
Side Effects
FPN

Both of the new songs went very well and FPN got the best reaction I have gotten at this open mike.

The lyrics for the two originals need a little touching up, they aren't quite there yet, but the music for both seems to be solid, and they are possibly the best I have done vocally. I may get back to playing solo shows again, locally even ...

It was a Christmas theme, so I learned a couple of Christmas Songs, and something WILDLY not Christmas, mostly because there was someone in the audience who I wanted to hear it.

Christmas At Ground Zero - Weird Al
Last Ride - Toyboat
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer - Elmo and Patsy

I was pretty bad ... my lack of solo time onstage really showed. I need to get back up there more

I will be at Billy Joe's tonight, if anyone is interested.

The open mike went well. I had stirred up some stuff the week before with my comments to the rather rude young man, but it amounted to nothing.

There were only a few players there, so I got 2 sets.

Low Self Esteem
Trophy Wife
Color Of Your Eyes

WYSIWYG
How Can I Miss You?
Hides

Safety sets, but just as well. I did mess up the bridge of Color Of Your Eyes, but I covered fairly well.

The amusing part of the evening was the sound guy lecturing me on how to work a microphone. I've spent a lot of time working out my microphone technique. I put the mike fairly high, so my head is a little back, so my throat is more open. Then I sing a little below it, so I don't pop it. These guys wanted me to sing right into it, cause it's "real directional". Yeah, I know that. I had them laughing by the end of my description of what singing right into it would do.

I think I am going to an open mike at the Alpine next week, which runs every other week. If that's good then I'll switch back and forth. But I do think this will be a regular thing now. Playing is a good thing.

I went to the Open Mike last night. It was good and bad ...

First the bad
My guitar's electronics went out, I have to get it into the shop today. I was miked instead, which brings up bad #1
A condenser mike for the instruments, in a loud room. Especially with the nylon string guitar that came after me, miked guitars were REALLY bass heavy. He needs to ditch the condenser and get an SM57
Bass heavy generally ... he needs to ride the EQ a little, get rid of some of the low end.
The final guy in the rotation went over half an hour, with just jam-bandy sort of rhythm guitar stuff, which may have been cool if there had been someone to solo over it. Oh, and it was three songs, any of which would have made their point in 3:50.

The good
I played a pretty good set, even if I forgot the 70s verse in Hey Dad. I got a good response, and I played much better than I had any right to after so long off.

Only Coffee House
Bang My Bald Spot
Hey Dad !!!

There is a lot of talent there, the younger performers are very good, if a bit derivative, but that's to be expected. There is a lot that sounds like the very earnest 90s singer/songwriters, typical AA radio stuff. But good. I'll probably make this a regular thing, unless the bad outweighs the good, which right now it doesn't. They will need to clamp down on time soon, instigate the 3 songs or 15 minutes rule, then come back when the rotation comes round again.

Oh, and I got to hang out with ka_klick, who I haven't seen since Demicon.