Gig report: 2/25/23 Planets in the Ocean at the Substation

Show 4 is in the books. Originally planned as a 2 band bill between Planets and Chris Sloan and the Dirty Birds, a third band was added late, Of The Heavy Sun. The show was slated to start at 7pm, with a soundcheck starting at 4:30. We all thought that timing was odd as who needs 2.5 hours to soundcheck?

Evidently this club does.

After loading in and setting up, we ran through Perspective at soundcheck. I had my Orange Terror Bass and Avatar 212 cab with this band for the first time. Though I played through it in Tacoma last month with the Sunset Grooves, that was a less loud show. For this show, I cranked it up a bit and it just felt weird. It seemed like I could hear the bass from the mains in the room more than I could from my rig behind me. The room itself is a giant concrete box, and with no bodies in the room to soak up the sounds, the bass I heard was honky and all mids, not ideal. But I trusted Carlos, the sound guy, and went with it.

Though we were going second, we soundchecked first for some reason. But I'll take it! We moved our gear aside and let the other bands check. Chris Sloan's band did a chill song that was befitting his image. He had on a black fedora, black vest, black jacket and pants. He reminded me so much of my old bandmate, Emilio, who also loved to put out a badass image. Chris really backed it up, though, with some killer pipes and stage presence. OTHS was as their name indicates: heavy. Just a three piece, they were wicked loud and energetic, if a bit nascent in their songwriting abilities.

As mentioned, they budgeted 2.5 hours for soundcheck. Even with all that time, the show still started late. Go figure. But ultimately, Carlos had all the bands sounding really good.

I got a chance to catch up with some old friends from the Embers days. With COVID acceptance seemingly coming around and our bands playing out more, people seem to be coming out more. People I hadn't seen since the last Embers shows were out seeing us last night. For the first time, I had some people come up who I didn't know, asking if I was the bassist for Stereo Embers. The guy had some nice words to say about us and was excited to see us as PITO.

I spoke with the bassist for Chris Sloan, I think his name was Jake. He played a J through a GK 210 and sounded tight. He had all the riffs for soundcheck and I could tell he was gonna be a solid player. Turns out, when I introduced myself, he knew me from about 20 years ago, when his band and my band Ethyl shared a space at the Foundry! He mentioned dudes I knew, but sadly (I didn't tell him), I didn't remember him or his band. But I think that's more about my memory than him being unmemorable.

Another guy named Matt came up after the show. He also remembered me from the Ethyl days, being friends with Johnny Low and Fred and crew. He invited me back to the Substation for a show that Upwell will be playing in April to celebrate Fred's birthday. Johnny's flying up from CA for that, so maybe I'll have to stop by.

OTHS took the stage and destroyed it with their volume. For a 3 piece, they were so loud. They have a skinny guy on bass. Very wiry, very thin, playing a red Ibanez bass with a thumb pick! I'd never seen that before. It almost looks like he's slapping, but he's strumming and picking with his thumb. I talked to him after his soundcheck and he does it as he is a left handed guitarist playing bass. He played guitar with a thumb pick, so he just transferred his skills to playing bass. He had kind of a clanky, bright, new-strings sound that suited their music (modern rock), but wasn't my taste.

We got on stage and hit the ground running with a new song called Nomenclature. It's fast and I drone on the A at the 12th fret for all the verses. It's got 3 parts and we blast through it. Felt pretty good, but I need to work on the stamina and picking accuracy of my right hand. Standing still at practice, it's pretty easy to perform. Trying to be bouncy and energetic on stage makes things different.

Our second song was The Loud Silence and that went pretty well. I have started singing backing vocals on our songs now, pretty much in the last week. I realized I hadn't been listening to our studio recordings, which feature backing vox, so when I did, I started throwing them in. It adds a layer of complexity, but I love doing it.

At the end of the song, Carlos jumped up and said he was getting distortion and static out front from my signal. He had a DI into my Tone Hammer, so we removed that and went direct into the Orange. That seemed to fix the issue, so that's good.

I still had on-stage audio weirdness, but I think it's all in my head. I don't know if it was due to the new amplification or if it was being too accustomed to in-ears or what. I felt like I was either too loud or not loud enough on stage. Whatever it was, I just dealt with it and motored through the set. We did our 10 songs with minimal fuss and it was ultimately fine. I did have to jump on mic after Splinter and before Darla's Song as Robb has to set up his keyboard. So I told a story about how Splinter is our hit. It was OK and not too corny, so that's cool.

We should have some great video from this as there were several folks with cameras, that I saw. Crowd was good from the stage, we definitely had the most people there. As we got off stage and Chris Sloan got up there, the crowd dwindled noticeably to about 1/3rd of what was there.

CSATDB got up there and did their Nashville country/soft rock thing. Very polished and tight, but not my thing. But Chris, man, he can sing. He should be on the Voice or something. He's a Daughtry type guy, I think and can excel, but I don't think fronting a band like this is his thing. Then again, what do I know?

At the end of the night, I was told each band took home a whopping $66, since the club takes $200 off the top for "room rental," whatever that means. I hit up Dick's on the way home for a Deluxe and fries, got gas, and then booked it for the Eastside.

Woke up this morning with a gig offer for 4/6 at Tim's Tavern/Drunky's, which would be a fun one. Maybe this PITO thing will take off after all. Last night's turnout is hopefully a good indication. Onto the pix!

So much media, not enough time

There is so much quality stuff coming out this year. Every time I read a book or something, I see another book coming out by someone I love. Same with movies and TV. Crazy.

Books to read:

• Exiles by Jane Harper. I saw this the other day at the book store and was like, dang, time to reserve a copy. It's on hold, with a 10 week wait time.
• Somebody's Fool by Richard Russo. A continuation of Nobody's Fool and Everybody's Fool. I learned about this when I finished Straight Man yesterday. Coming out 7/24.
• Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. I don't remember his last book, but it's been awhile since he's had anything. This is out 4/24.
• The Discreet Charm of the Big Bad Wolf by Alexander McCall Smith. I am currently reading book 3, The Man with the Silver Saab, which I just realized is not book 2, which I should be reading. But I'll go with it. TDCOTBBW comes out 8/14.
• The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Preston/Child. This is out already, but I didn't know it, so it's 6 weeks out on wait list.
• City of Dreams by Don Winslow. This comes out 4/17 and I need to prep for it by reading City on Fire again. Better put that on hold as well.

Not included on the list is Michael Connelly's book in Nov. I think it's a Mickey Haller/Renee Ballard book, but put that down too. So many to read, yikes.

Movies to watch. Not as many, since we are not theatergoers, but the big one is 6/30, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The name is goofy, but so far, I am not put off by the trailers. That's a day one in the theater showing for me!!

TV to watch:

• Currently, The Last of Us. Highly entertaining and the accompanying podcast is solid as well.
• Straight Man, March. Based on the aforementioned book, I read it because of this show.
• Daisy and the Six, or something like that. I guess it's based on chick lit, but due to the musical background, I may check it out.

I can't think of any other shows, but I thought there were a bunch.

Video games:

• I just finished Star Wars Jedi Knight: Fallen Order, or whatever it's called. Really enjoyed it, with its Tomb Raider style exploration and gameplay. The sequel is coming out in the next few months, but it is XBOX Series S/X only, so it may be time to upgrade soon. I'm caught in the console upgrade hole, where I can still play most games, but some of them are coming out that pretty much need the higher horsepower.
• Hi-Fi Rush. Playing on GamePass and it's great, but it's cloud only (see above console woes), which means latency issues, and in a music based game, that's not great. Even so, it's a lot of fun and it's beautiful. But I was smitten with Jedi Knight, so this game sat.

I guess my issue is mainly with books. Nevertheless, there's a lot to do this year. Good thing I have plenty of time to do it all until I find a job.

Work/no work update time

Huh, blink an eye and it's been 2 weeks since I last posted. I know it was Red Door related, but beyond that, not much has changed.

Still unemployed, but am currently getting unemployment payments, so that's good. What's surprising is that despite taking a pay cut of more than 50%, we seem to be making it work. Meaning that with Marci's pay handling the monthly mortgage (and then some), ESD seems to be handling the rest of the expenses. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it doesn't seem like it will. YNAB to the rescue, I guess, thank goodness for budgeting.

Doesn't mean I don't need to find a job, but it's not a urgent as I thought it might have been, for now. What this revelation has done is given me time to think about what I want to do. First off, I still need to apply for jobs to fulfill the ESD obligation. But, it gives me some time to pursue this Red Door thing. With zero call backs or phone screens, let alone interviews, all I can control in the job hunt process is how good my resume is. For now, I think it's pretty good, but it doesn't seem to be working.

With the Red Door stuff, I'm able to put some time into posting/marketing, and for this month, at least, with 4 people I've helped, it's been slow, but it's something I can control. And there is something really cool about that.

So over the past several days, I've been thinking about what to do. And it seems like really, I just need to DO it. Like get over my fear of whatever it is I am fearing. What's the worst that will happen? Same as what is happening now: nothing. My focus for RD needs to be getting the word out. Posting on Nextdoor or Facebook. Asking those I've already helped to post about me. Asking for referrals. Getting into senior homes. Branching out.

As of now, nothing on the horizon, but I haven't posted anything for a couple days. Let's put something out, see what happens.

One week later with RDTS

Ok, Red Door Tech Services is somewhat off the ground. After last week, I got 2 customers. One was Matt B.'s mom, whom I've known for years. She saw the Nextdoor post and reached out. I visited her and helped her with her issues for several hours. She was very fair and paid for my help and was happy with the service I provided.

I also reconnected with Matt's sister, Jill, while I was there. Not much has changed with her and her mom. They are perfect roommates for each other and what is wonderful about that family is what you see is what you get. They speak the truth and pull no punches and it just works.

I had another person reach out via Nextdoor. This person was new to me, named Lisa H. Her son's Dell desktop was having issues and after talking to her, it sounded like maybe a corrupt profile in Windows, as well as maybe a CMOS battery issue.

Sunday was when I agreed to meet her. I went to her house, which was close and beautiful, and met with her son, Finn. Turns out he goes to NHS as well and knows of Riley (though Rye said he didn't know Finn). He had some guitars and basses and I broke the ice with music talk.

Working with his computer, I found the 3 orange/1 white blinking light indicated a failing CMOS battery. His profile was a little tricker, as it was intermittently booting into the proper profile, and most of the time booting to something that was failing. I determined that I could probably fix the profile, but it would take a bunch of time booting and rebooting, waiting to get into the appropriate profile, before migrating to a new profile. Instead, we stopped at an hour, and I gave him some guidance on how to continue. Lisa was super happy with my service and I was on my way shortly after.

I've been putting some posts on Facebook as well, and my friend, Alan, from the Close Seconds, messaged me. His law firm's IT guy recently passed and he needs someone in the interim. I talked to him yesterday and it seems like there may be stuff I can help him with. He was to talk to his team yesterday and get back to me. I hope to hear from him soon.

I headed back to Jill's house yesterday as well; she was going to give me her old MacBook Pro. I took it home and have been spending several hours getting her data off of it, and trying to simply get the most updated OS onto it. The Mac is from late 2011, and though it's not rocket science to work with, it is challenging as it is pretty new to me.

The good news is, she hardly used it, so aside from a jacked up power cord, the computer itself seems to be in great shape. My plan is to use it as a macOS learning tool, more than anything else. Currently, I'm trying to unbrick it after I formatted the HDD into something the old OS couldn't recognize. It seems to be working, and I'm hoping it'll be close to factory condition sometime soon.

Last night, I created a new Facebook "business" page. I should have just started there. Using Nextdoor is a giant pain, but I understand why I need footprints on both platforms. I'm also taking Riley's old iPhone and will be getting a SIM card for it, using our family's 5th phone line, and start using this phone to conduct business with, if I can ramp it up.

I'm currently waiting for the FB invites to go out; for whatever reason, even though I've tried sending 3 times, FB keeps saying they'll be sending the invites out soon. I just hope people aren't hit up 3 times; that would be awkward.