West coast tour?

I got a Facebook message the other night from Shaun Crawford. He said he had a friend's band needing a bassist for a West Coast tour in late June. He's played with them and said they were pretty cool. He linked me some music and initially, though not something I might listen to on my own, the more I listened to it, the more it grew on me.

I'm trying to do more of the "get out of my comfort zone" type things, and potentially touring with dudes I don't know and music I've never played before is one of those things. Of course, the first thing I did was check in with my imaginary friends on TalkBass to see what they thought. I wrote:

A musical acquaintance of mine reached out to me yesterday about the possibility of subbing for him on his band's upcoming 9 date Northern CA tour in July. Here are some of my thoughts, in no particular order.

Networking opportunity. This guy that called me is pretty connected in the Seattle scene. He's in several up-and-coming bands. The reason he can't do it is because one of the up-and-coming bands is touring Spain for the second time in a year. To be on his radar is a positive sign.

Never toured before. In all my years of playing, I have stayed local, except for three there-and-backs trip to Oregon (Portland and Eugene), and one time in Los Angeles. This would be my first "real" tour, though I only know dates and towns so far, nothing else (assuming it's by car/van, however).

I'm available. I'm in 2 bands now and neither has shows booked, but I will triple check to avoid any conflict drama. I am also unemployed, so there are no work obligations, but I would need a computer and internet access to continue to look for/apply for jobs.

The music is good, but not my typical thing. I love rock, pop/rock, yacht rock (duh), stuff like that. This band's music is described as "psychedelic rock," which I don't agree with. I hear a lot of indie country (lap steel, horns, twangy guitar), but I don't dislike it; it's not necessarily something I'd seek out to listen to. That said, I have it playing now and I don't hate it. Despite not immediately clicking with the music, it's hip and I can see the yoots loving it with their twirly moustaches, sleeve tattoos and stovepipe jeans.

I don't know any of the band members. Outside of my friend who contacted me (who I think is a sub for them himself), I don't know them. But, if he's vouching for them, I think they'd be cool. I'm pretty easy to get along with as well, but 10-12 days in a van would definitely affect things, I think.

Speaking of road trips, I love the idea of them, I'm not a huge fan of the reality of them. From the schedule I saw, it's starting in San Francisco on 7/1 and ending in Arcata, CA on 7/11, 9 shows in total.

Moneywise, I would love to make some, but I think I'd be happy to just break even as this is more about the experience and exposure than the money.

Anyway, I'm gonna reach out to the BL for more details, let's see what happens.

For the most part, all the responders to my thread were positive and said I should do it. Long story short, after listening to the music, clearing it with Marci, and double checking to see about any conflicts, I got the OK and told Peter, the band leader, that I'm in.

As it turns out, Eric, from the Sunset Grooves, played drums with the band for a bit and vouched for the guys. I talked to Peter and he sounded like a cool dude. I think he and the other mates are in their mid-30s. He's toured the West Coast before, as well as taken the same band through the Midwest and back.

As mentioned above, for me, it's almost risk-free. About the only thing that could screw it up is if miraculously I get offered a job that starts during the time I'd be away and they wouldn't honor me being gone until early July. But I don't see that happening anytime soon; I have irons in the fire, but more people feeling me out than really being interested in hiring me, I think.

After talking to Peter, he wants me to learn 8 songs for now, with a total of around double that, as one or two shows will need two sets of material. I worked on 4 and am familiar enough with them now to feel comfortable. The music is not complex, but some of the basslines are complicated, if that makes sense. He sent over some Spotify links for the tunes, and also some isolated basslines. That works OK, but I'd prefer full mp3s to download and then manipulate in Moises.ai. Currently, I have to jump back and forth between Spotify and my media player and it's a bit clunky.

Additionally, the recordings on Spotify are really retro, sounding like they came from the '60s timeframe. Admittedly, the music is described as psychedelic rock and I guess it sort of is, but less experimental. That said, there is flute, glockenspiel and other non-rock instruments on the recordings. With all that variety, the bass is mixed pretty quietly and blandly in the recordings. The isolated bass sounds good, with a picked J with flats tone (think the bass tone to Drive My Car - Beatles), but I'm hoping he won't care if I play one of my L1Ks without a pick (for now). We'll see.

I'm keeping the band name out of things for the time being, until we get more down the road. Yes, I've accepted and he's confirmed, but it's still brand new and I haven't heard from him today at all, so it's sort of weird. I'd like to get the details and times and places but I won't rush it. I suppose I'll learn more when I meet the guys on Sunday and hopefully we all get along.

I messaged Faith S the other day, as she's traveled with Acid Tongue and is herself touring at age 50-ish. Her words to me a few weeks ago were, "If I don't do it now, I may never have the chance to do it again," or something like that. And I really took that to heart because, after all the years I've played music, I've never done something like this. And to have minimal input on the logistics and all that behind-the-scenes stuff? Shut up and play bass only? Yeah, I can do that.

The travel will be a grind, several hours each day in the van. Hopefully we have good (well, not bad) lodging and bathrooms. Otherwise, I think I can manage. Maybe last year's traveling experience will come in handy for this. Though, packing for a nearly 14-day road trip will be an interesting challenge. What about laundry? Showers? Do I bring a sleeping bag?

I'll be reaching out to Shaun and Faith for more tips and pointers, that's for sure. For now, I'll be practicing the other songs to get ready for Sunday and we'll see what happens after that.

Gig report: 5/13/23 Planets in the Ocean at Tim's Tavern

Another day, another gig. I love gig days. I hate the waiting.

Anyway, headed over in the afternoon to Tim's in White Center. Second time playing there this year, first time with Planets. Tim's Tavern was located in the Northgate area, but the owner's of the building sold it or something, which left Tim's owners without a location... until this one, formerly Drunky's Two Shoes, became available. So TT's owners purchased/leased the DTS location and fast forward a few months and Tim's Tavern is a go in White Center now.

The bill consisted of Tiny Jackets (from Portland) and Guest Directors, with Planets in the Ocean headlining. We pitched it as our digital EP release show, but really, it was just a headlining show for us. We had competition all over town, with Fleetwood Mac tribute Wild Rumours playing at Sleight of Hand, and the Pop Cycle, Tripwires and Boss Martians playing at the Sunset in Ballard. Throw in the nicest, warmest day of the year, and getting people to go to indoors shows might have been tough.

Luckily, Tim's has a covered outdoor space, so we were good to go either way. Though the stage was hot, the outdoor area was super comfortable. Water cooler nearby, I was happy. I brought my Avatar 212 cabinet and went with the Trace head. It was the debut of the new casters I got for my birthday and I am happy to say that they worked great. I will have to use the wheel locks pretty much at all times when not moving it, as the wheels really glide easily; on any unlevel surface, the cab wanted to take off.

Soon enough, Tiny Jackets jumped on stage. They are a 4-piece from Portland and they looked like they were from Portland. 4 handsome, thin and stylish lads. Bassist fronted the band with a black P bass, sporting a Mike Dirnt body, with a Japanese neck that he put on it. Through my rig, his bass sounded great, if a little quiet. Vocals were a little quiet too; not sure why the sound guy was dialing in things like that. But, despite those issues, the band was great. 3 part harmonies at times, with really tasty guitar pop.

Robb knew Kelly (the bassist) from a band he was in 20 years ago called Thistle. Many of the songs apparently were old Thistle songs and Kelly and crew continued performing them. There's a lot of interesting history there, but Kelly was a very nice dude and I really enjoyed their songs and performance.

Next up was Guest Directors. I have heard these guys' name all over the place but have never seen them. One of their guitarists is Gary Thorstensen, who I played with in a band called the Navins from about 2014-2018. In that band, Gary played Rics; in this band, he's playing a powder blue Fender Jaguar. He did some lead vocals as well and it was great. The other guitarist, Julie, sang lead on most of the songs and I liked her vibe a lot. Their drummer was powerfully creative and tasteful and overall, their vibey, shoegazey rock was super cool.

Since we were headlining, we had a bit of a longer set. Over the past few weeks, we learned and added 3 new songs to our set, and would be debuting them. I tried to get my stage sound dialed in and it just sounded weird. I don't know if it was because I had IEMs the night before and was expecting clear sounds, but the bass just sounded super boomy, with no definition. I thought it was due to the 212 cabinet, but I've used it before and hadn't had that problem. I had the sound guy put some bass in the wedge in front but that didn't help too much. Vocals were hard to hear as well, but I just trusted in what the sound guy was doing and what I could hear in my head.

I think we played pretty well, considering. I felt sloppy at times, mainly due to trying to put on a performance, rather than just playing. I always have a tough time trying to balance the two. By being more physical, it can affect the accuracy of the music. But overall, I think the performance was positive.

The new songs went over pretty well also. One of them, Misguided Head, is tough because I play a bunch of melodic lines and when I was trying to learn them, I couldn't believe I was playing them off the top of my head at practice. It's a bit busy, but I like it and it's fun to play.

After the set, I talked to the sound guy about the boominess on stage. He said it was because I was standing right next to the main PA speakers, which had a subwoofer at the bottom. That was really adding to the bass and he said it was an issue he was aware of, but didn't have the budget to address. Next time, I may bring IEMs or adjust my EQ (I was a dummy; I increased my mids instead of bringing the bass down on the amp) differently.

We finished the set and it was over too soon. It's such a joy to play and perform for people and I'm always happy to finish, but then bummed it's so long until the next show. But lucky for us, the next Planets show is June 8 at the Sunset. Good times!

Merch spot

Gold L-1000 after the show

Trace Elliot GP 12 Series 6 on an Avatar 2x12. New orange casters are awesome!

My watch strap broke before the show. :/

Guest Directors!

Tiny Jackets w/ Mike Mitchell

Tiny Jackets

Only at a music venue

pic by Mike Mitchell

Gig report: 5/12/23 Sunset Grooves at the Aurora Borealis

Finally, another gig. Seems like it's been a bit, and now, back-to-back shows. It was my first time with the Grooves where we played a club, instead of a party or private thing, so I didn't know what to expect. Also, first time playing at Aurora Borealis, which, even without traffic, is about 30 min away. But of course, Friday night in Seattle means traffic, so it took about 45 minutes to get there.

Show started at 8pm and I had to be there by 5:30 or so for load in and soundcheck. I decided to go light for this show, no amp or cabs for the first time ever. The club did have a MarkBass 12" combo amp, just in case. I brought my 2 L1Ks (in a new Protec double bag!), my Zoom B2 Four, and a garment/clothing bag. Easy load in!

Soundcheck was great. Tim, a former guitarist/singer for Sunset Grooves, ran sound and did a great job. I don't have a wireless IEM receiver, so he ran a line to my spot on stage, where I had my Rolls headphone amp and then I boosted that signal to my ghetto instrument/headphone extender cable. He gave me my specific IEM needs (my vocals and bass way high, drums middle, lead vox, guitar and keys just enough for reference) and then we sat for the first band.

Ordered a burger, was decent, not photo-worthy. And it was on the house, so that's always appreciated.

The first band was a Prince tribute band called DSMR, which stands for Drugs, Sex, Music and Romance, and evidently is in a Prince song somewhere. Admittedly, I am not super familiar with Prince and his music, but of course I recognized a lot of the songs in their 90-minute set. The band was great, with a guy named Robert playing a Jazz bass. That dude had serious chops and was super solid. Some of the tunes were fairly boring on bass, but when he got to shine and riff, he did not disappoint. His tone was killer as well.

Our new guitarist, Dennis, also plays in DSMR, and it was great to see him from that perspective. He is great in our rehearsals, but to see him performing as an observer, I could really see how talented he is. Played awesome, sounded awesome, good stuff.

We took the stage after them and I debuted my beautiful new vintage polyester shirt, complete with JC Penney tag still intact! With my white pants and shoes, definitely a great look! Because DSMR had folks dancing, we shifted our opening song from Baby Come Back (slow tune) to something with a bit more energy (Come and Get Your Love). That was the right move, as people loved it and were dancing the whole night.

Aurora Borealis has a great stage and lighting setup. They also have cameras all over the place and screens onto which they broadcast those cameras. While playing, I could see the screens and it was a little distracting, but ultimately cool. Plus, they provide us a copy of the videos and audio tracks if we want them, so that will be a good learning/promo tool in the future.

I felt good while playing. My mix worked well in my IEMs. Prior to starting, though, I adjusted my Zoom, trying to get a little more grit in my overdrive pedal setting. I upped the mids and we started the show. As it went on, however, I found there was too much grit, so I had to back off on how hard I'd hit the strings. Overall, it was OK. I didn't end up using the MarkBass combo, as my IEMs did what they were supposed to do.

The crowd was really energetic and into what we were doing. They were singing along and dancing and just having a great time. I heard the bartenders said they had a great night as well, so hopefully they'll have us back in the future.

Not the most attractive venue, but to be fair, this is on the backside of the building.

I played the 84 L1K tonight. Vintage tunes get a vintage bass!

Soundcheck and us on the screen opposite us.

My Zoom B2 Four and the Rolls amp. Cable mess.

Unused MarkBass combo, which sounded good when I plugged it in.

DSMR before us.

Setlist

Me and Jen.