The New PA Thing

Full disclosure: since the Eyewitness Blues Band sort of happened by accident, we never really had a proper set of gear. We've begged, borrowed and stolen PA gear for our gigs from Day One.

Thank goodness my brother Craig has quite a stable of audio gear (and has been willing to let us use it). But patience has its limits.

Back in January, Doug and I popped for a pair of JBL monitor speakers and stands, just before we played back-to-back gigs. The speakers performed spectacularly. The same can not be said for the PA amps we hauled with us to the second gig.

It was a near-disaster, saved at the last second when we pressed a drastically-underpowered backup amp (also borrowed) into service and worked without the stage monitors that backup amp was supposed to power. Not a very pleasant way to perform, worried that the jury-rigged setup would crater at any moment.

So now, we've taken the next step. We just bought a Yamaha powered mixer which should take care of us in small-to-medium sized gigs (anything bigger is guaranteed to have a house sound system we can use). It's a slightly-modernized version of the unit Craig had been loaning us, so we already sort of know our way around it.

Got a great deal, too, through an eBay seller in San Jose. But you have to wonder about karma: the reason the guy was selling the amp was because he'd bought if for his band, which broke up before they ever used it.

Whew!

Well, the show lasted almost as long as Woodstock, but at the end of the day (and I do mean the end of the day; it was almost midnight when we cleared out), I think a good time was had by all. At least the ones still awake.

I mentioned in my last post that I was nervous about performing without the safe, snug security blanket of the real musicians in the Eyewitness Blues Band. It was just Mike Sugerman and me, plus harmonica whiz Steve Rubenstein of the Chronicle (in photo with me) and a "house band" led by Alameda piano legend Kelly Park.

Turned out fine. In fact, better than fine. Sug turned into our front man and absolutely killed. Rubenstein knocked it out of the park. And Kelly and his crew really made it work. They took our songs and added a little here and there--I felt lucky to be in their capable hands.

We raised some badly-needed cash for the effort to keep elementary school music education alive in Alameda. We got to hang with some great musicians. And I think the audience enjoyed it.

Check out Ed Jay's photos here. And if you can, help out the cause here.

Headliners!

So it's come to this. Somehow, Mike Sugerman and I have become a headline act. I don't mean the whole band, just Mike and me.

Careful listeners will have noticed that Sug and I are the least-talented members of the Eyewitness Blues Band. But everyone else is working or traveling, so, somehow, Mike and I are going to try to perform.

It's a good cause: we're trying to help raise money to keep elementary school music programs alive in Alameda. I managed to finagle San Francisco Chronicle whiz Steve Rubenstein into joining us to play harmonica. But that leaves us a drummer, a bassist, and a lead guitarist shy of a real band.

Not to worry, said the organizers. We'll provide you guys with our house band!

Great, except that means I have to explain our songs to real musicians. When it comes to speaking "music", I'm about on the level of a guy scanning his Japanese phrasebook while trying to communicate in Tokyo.

We will meet the "house band" for the first time a few hours before the show begins. We'll see if we can communicate musically well enough to make it work. I have this scary feeling that they'll look at us and say, "You posers! Put down those instruments right now!"

One good thing: we're playing our two songs very early in the show. If it goes badly, everyone will have forgotten by the time the curtain falls.