Yesterday, I spent some time noodling around on the HOG in the basement. Video evidence here: YOUTUBE LINK. It was fun and I liked what I heard from both amps. I decided to bring the Orange and see how it went.
Planets shirts were done so I picked them up as they were sort of on the way to Tim's, which is now in White Center, where Drunky's Two Shoes was. I got stuck in a 15 minute 1st Ave S drawbridge opening backup, but got to the gig in plenty of time.
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| Literally putting up the new sign when I got there |
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| That's Elvis, the tavern dog |
Kathy lives in Anacortes now and it took her 3 hours to get to White Center! Granted, the Mariners were playing their first game of the season, but still, that's crazy. She had also invited her friend, Kate Olson, to play sax on a few songs, and she was kind of winging it as she had not rehearsed with us, but had played with Kathy plenty of times before.
The first band to play was the Palatine Trio. Though there were 4 of them, they called themselves a trio, like a "baker's dozen," I was told. But I think they added a 4th member after starting as 3. They had a really tall singer named Zach, a very youthful bassist named Seth, and a very energetic guitarist named Lawrence. The drummer was mega talented, but I didn't get his name.
Anyway, off they went and though there were vocals, most of the music was instrumental. Seth played a custom Jazz bass, maybe a parts bass, through a SVT 7 Pro and a 410 (I think). He had a bunch of pedals and an effects brain. He had a really deft touch and it was clear he had been practicing his scales. I don't think he missed a note. He chorded, he did arpeggios, he picked. About the only thing he didn't do was slap.
The rest of the band was quite good as well. Tight, efficient, great at counting odd time signatures, but to me, ultimately boring. It wasn't a noodle fest, but it did seem overly complex for complexities sake. And their stage presence wasn't great. They sort of just swayed back and forth and gave us nothing to feel. Kathy liked them, which made sense; she was really feeling the space they were in, but I just didn't get it too much.
I did tell her that I wasn't used to being the second-best bassist in the room. This kid Seth was good. I told him afterward that I needed to take lessons from him and asked if he studied bass. He said yes, I said I could tell. He was super modest and nice, so at least there's that. He was also kind enough to let me use his rig, so I took my stuff up there and got set.
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| There's the rig behind the singer. |
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| And there's Palatine Trio. |
We took the stage and started playing. Kathy forgot to do setlists so I had my phone off the side of the stage to check song order. It was chilly in the space despite the ceiling-mounted heaters. I had my jean jacket on and I was wearing ski gloves before getting on stage, my hands were that cold. I wore my glasses as well, figuring it wouldn't be too hot, and to be honest, I was too lazy to put in contacts.
I was a *tiny* bit nervous about playing just because the kid Seth was that good. But where he excelled in being an incredible bassist, I was a better performer and an OK bassist. There were some moments of bad notes and wrong parts by me. After how tight PT was, I wanted to at least be clean there and for the most part, we were. Part of it is also not fully getting Raoul's style. He played a lot of flashy stuff that he normally doesn't so at times, it was up to me to stay stable and find the one.
Having Kate up there was cool, but I couldn't really hear her. She had a cool matte finish sax. And the pretty decent Thursday crowd was really into the music, so that was appreciated.
HOG-wise, the bass seemed to sound great. When Seth played through his rig, he had a real nasally, mids-heavy bridge plucked sound. Not my thing. I zeroed out his EQ on his amp and used my pedals. At times, I felt my bass had TOO much bass, especially in OMG mode. So I'd dial it back, but it was just loud! No one seemed to complain and the one video I saw in the wild, short clip as it was, the bass sounded really good.
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| Kate, Kathy, Raoul, some rando |
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| The HOG makes its debut |
The night ended with Shaina Shepherd singing with her band. She showed up fresh off of singing the National Anthem at the Mariners game. Pretty epic.
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| Shaina in the Jr jersey |
She really has effortless command of the stage and whatever she's doing. She plays pretty much all the gigs she can and it shows. I stayed for about 5 songs before I was beat and had to head home.
Another successful show with Kathy in the books. Love playing with her and can't wait to do it again. Making connections and meeting people outside my circle is great too, so good times.
Next up: hoping 4/14 for PITO, but looking more like 5/12 with SG and then 5/13 with PITO.
