7/11/2025, Sunset Grooves at the Central

It was 80s night at the Central with us and the Valley Guys, a five-piece fronted by Fred Speakman. Our pal, Cathy, did backing vocals and badass stage presence with them as well. I left the house around 5:45 because we were supposed to start at 8 and with previous sound checking experiences at the Central being less than awesome, we wanted to have ample time to get ready.

Traffic wasn't too bad, about 30 minutes, and I found a parking spot a few blocks away, so I'll take it as a win. There was a show at nearby T-Mobile Park, with My Chemical Romance, so there were a lot of people walking through and around Pioneer Square. Made for a fun, quick people watch on the walk to the club.

Nothing beats a great parking spot. Car is back there somewhere.

I got to the legendary Central and all my mates were there already. Dusty was backlining drums, so he was getting setup. It was fairly toasty in there, but we'd be OK. Having played there a million times and never having seen a green room besides the scary bathroom situation, I came dressed for the show: white pants, new vintage-y t-shirt, checkered Vans and a bandana around my neck for some flair. Jen had a little white Levi's jeans jacket turned into a vest with a bunch of patches on it that I wore as well.

We started with sound checking and four of us use IEMs and Eric uses a floor wedge. For whatever reason, despite the ubiquity of IEMs, we seem to have hit or miss luck when it comes to the sound guy dialing us in properly. I suppose it makes sense, since he's got 4 separate signals he has to untangle, as well as the monitor. Though I don't know what difference it makes if he's sending those signals to his in-house monitors vs IEM transmitters. Then again, I am not a sound engineer.

Anyway, despite the early arrival, we were told to chill for a minute on the sound check as (insert reasons here, I don't remember). So we got to see the downstairs, where there's a sort of green room. It was basically a basement/workshop/kitchenette/storage area. There was a water closet and a couch and a giant mirror. At we had a bathroom that wasn't the gen pub one.

Speaking of the stairs, back in the day, bands would load in via the back door, which was at the bottom of said stairs. I do recall lugging my old Trace 410 up and down those stairs. On my way up them last night, it was wild to think that they were the same stairs that I went up and down 25 years ago or so.

Watch yer step!

We continued with setup and sound check and it was just an exercise in patience. We had troubles getting Dusty's IEMs to get signal. The sound guy would say something into his mic and I would hear it but not Dusty. Sound guy had the transmitters mixed up. Or maybe we did? I have no idea. Then we did line checks and got sounds, but getting our individual mixes up was challenging. I don't know if we are being too picky or if the SG was having issues. I feel like when wedges are in the mix, as long as I can hear my vocals and some contextual audio from the others, I'm good. I didn't have on-stage bass as I went with my DI, so I needed that in ears. Ultimately, my mix was loud, nasally bass (don't know if that was my fault or the send from the board), super loud Jen's vox, loud keys, no guitar, no Dennis BGV, some Dusty BGV and barely any of my own BGV. It was aggravating, but at the risk of burning out/pissing off the SG, we all settled for what we got.

They pushed the start time back to 9:30 or so, which was a little weird, given we were all there so early, but the manager gave us some nachos and tots and it was fine. We chatted a bit, our friends Mike and Amy showed up, but I got a picture with Mike and Fred instead.

Fred, Mike, and I guess my hand is broken.

We finally got on stage and started our set. Due to the 80s nature of the night, over the past few weeks we learned 5 more 80s tunes/less yacht rock tunes. We started the set with "Tempted" by Squeeze and got the ball rolling. Our second song was Jackson Brown's "Somebody's Baby" and there's that signature guitar lick at the intro of the song. For some reason, there was very little stage lighting and add in sunglasses, well it's hard to see. Luckily for me, I play one note. Unluckily for Dennis, he plays that lick and unfortunately, it was a little rough; off came the glasses.

Setlist, duh.

We got to "Africa" and Dennis has been singing that. We've been playing it great in rehearsal lately, but we control the mixes also. At the club, I could barely hear myself and rather than singing terribly, I tried, but then just backed off the mic. I think one of the boys was singing my part anyway, so I just dropped out.

There were some performance snafus in "Evil Woman" and "What a Fool Believes," but we've all been there with those sorts of brain farts. Going down the set, we also added in some sax tunes, for which we invited up a guy named Rick, who tore those up. It was great having that addition, but I really had to rely on the song structure as I could barely hear him and his cues. "Harden My Heart" and "Baker Street" were both new and went over well. "Heat of the Moment" is also new and we did it pretty well, but with the frenetic drum part at the end and the lack of solid mix, Dusty said he got a little lost, but we eventually got there and made it work.

From stage left.

My side. Red lights are the worst.

Mike Mitchell w/the snap.

Mike Mitchell w/the snap.

After we finished, the Valley Guys took the stage. And they took a while to get their audio dialed in, even using the in-house wedges. Anyway, they had a fun set with songs by Dire Straits, Eddie Money, Men at Work, .38 Special, and others. Cathy was great as always and Fred delivers with musicianship and humor. Their bassist, Brent, played uniquely, with pick and fingers during the same song. He'd hook his pick under his pointer and play with his middle and ring fingers, then switch to pick and back. I talked to him after and he said when he plays with pick, his thumb cramps, so he's learning to play with fingers. And then he showed me that he lost a bit of the tip of his pointer finger in the past, so it doesn't quite reach the strings. Pretty interesting! He had a Dee Dee Ramone signature P bass through an Orange OB-1 series amp through the house GK 410. Killer tone, with just enough growl to make it nasty.

Fred and Brent, Troy on drums.

Carrie on keys, Cathy on bgvs.

Due to our late start, the Valley Guys got a late start at 11pm. I felt bad for them, but they got a nice walkup crowd due to the MCR concert getting out. It seemed most people hung out by the bar, though, but there were some dancers and people sang along and enjoyed the music.

We helped load out at the end of the night and I finally got home about 1:30. Rumor has it we'll have made $40/each, unless each band got $392. Though I heard that might be split between all 10 members. We'll see what happens.

Up next: back-to-back private parties. First up, back to the Sand Point Country Club, where we played a few summers ago. And then the next night, a private party at someone's $6m house in Medina. Let's GOOOOO!