Oh what a night! But first, job update

The day was fine. First early wake-up since starting the job. BTW, happy leap year! Today marks a month on the job and I am really enjoying it. It really is EBC 2.0, with a lot of autonomy and freedom, but preceded with my reputation, which seems to be really good.

We had an event at the IEC supporting a cyber security conference for the morning. I was tasked with taking photos of the attendees and event. I had to do that a few weeks ago and it's been cool dusting off my DSLR skills with the Sony Alpha 7R or whatever it is. Super nice camera, don't know if I love the lens.

Event went well, saw some old homies from the EBC and Cindy told them all that they couldn't steal me to the EBC. As things stand now, I'm happy where I am and the truth is, I don't think they're gonna come get me.

I was able to leave early today because the event was over and I wanted to get to band practice on time. The last two Thursdays have been 60 minutes or more on my commute home so I bailed on both. I got home by about 4:15 or so, which was great, but the commute was still 45 minutes. :/

I was chillin for a few and Marci called me to tell me her car seemed to be making a weird grinding/whirring noise and her engine temp was at 280, which is in the red! For the last month or so, she's had a check engine light on, which threw a P2681 error, which the internet tells me is a coolant sensor error.

To see if it was a cheap fix, I bought some coolant and topped it off, but that didn't do it. We've been driving on it ever since and tonight's commute may have been the last straw. I told her to hang at Factoria, which is where she was at, and I drove down to meet her.

Heading down 119th, I got almost to the 3-way stop and a bus was stopped. There were two cars behind it and a woman was talking to them. As she got to me, I could see flashing lights ahead. I thought there was an accident, but she told me that there was a house fire and it was pretty intense. I could see the smoke ahead, so I turned around and went the back way down 119th, which was fine at the moment.

I got to Target in the pouring rain and met Marci and we decided to get a quick dinner at Panera while we waited for the car to cool off. Dinner was nothing special and luckily, we had a $10 off coupon, so that offset the price a bit. Sidenote: Panera is pretty meh. I don't think I need to go there anymore.

After dinner, I jumped in Marci's car and she jumped in mine and traffic was atrocious. We were unable to go up 119th as it was blocked when I came down. Her car's thermostat started heating up immediately and I figured we wouldn't make it far before I would want to pull over again. So I parked at Target and jumped in my car and we fought traffic and finally got home around 6:30 or so.

Poor Kodo was at home all day, as usual, so I took him out for a bio break, then got back in the car with my gear to head to Robb's. Luckily, traffic wasn't too bad then, but by the time I got to his house, I had been driving for about 2 hours since I'd left work. Needless to say, it was great to play some tunes, but after a quick rehearsal and catch-up, I had to head home to get Marci to do one more chore and bring her car home.

Her car was nice and cold in the 38°F weather (it's been cold; it snowed a little tonight), so I felt OK driving it home. Halfway up the reopened 119th, though, the temp started creeping past the 1/2 way point. Even though the heat was on in the car, I put it on full-blast to draw as much heat as I could from the engine and, surprisingly, the thermostat started going down. By the time I got home, the temperature was reading normally, so that's a nice find.

Tomorrow, Marci will take my car in to work. I had a dentist's appointment planned since last year, so I will drive her car with heat on full-blast to Redmond. After that, I made an appointment at VW of Kirkland. Hopefully it's not too expensive and they can get me a shuttle or loaner to get home.

Stay tuned.

Gig report: 2/2/24 Sunset Grooves at the Tractor Tavern

Two months into the year, two gigs at the Tractor Tavern. Not a bad start to the year so far, same as it ever was.

We were asked to play this show via Dennis, who also plays guitar in Coool Babies, a Talking Heads tribute band. Maybe Seattle is a tribute band town, but I find it quite interesting that one of the best clubs in town, the Tractor, makes a habit of booking bands like CB, the IRS (REM tribute band), Wild Rumours (Fleetwood Mac), HalloQueen (Queen), and now us, a yacht rock band. Though we aren't the headliner, still a nice get for us.

As always, soundcheck is scheduled 4 hours prior to first note, which seems excessive. I left the house at 4:45 for a 5:30 arrival and the CBs hadn't finished setting up yet. An astounding 9 members to this band: singer/acoustic guitar, 2 backing singers, bassist, keys, drummer, percussionist, guitarist and guitar/keys. Outside of high school band, I have never been in a band that big. Imagine the scheduling drama! But they got their sounds checked and they sounded great.

Coool Babies

We finally got to sound check and it was what it was. I had my IEMs with me and my Zoom pedal; no onstage rig for me. All the sounds were working, I could hear Jacob (the sound guy), as well as my mates, but to me, it seems like getting sounds dialed in an IEM setting vs floor wedges takes more nuance and time.

Lucky for us, Jacob had worked with us before at a couple of private gigs and is also super patient. He got my bass and vocals up front, with everything else lower for reference. Adding to the difficulty of getting a perfect mix was being right next to Eric, who does not use IEMs, and had a floor wedge blasting up at him. It seemed quite loud and I could hear it in my IEMs, but I was able to work around it.

We did a couple song run-throughs, then got off stage to get some food. Headed a few doors north to Hattie's Hat for a burger and a water (no pix), chatted with Dennis, Jen, Dusty and Jacob (Eric stayed behind with a salad) for a few, then headed back to the Tractor.

We were unsure as to how many people to expect. I hardly ever, EVER, have people come out, and my mates don't have many either. We were hoping to have a built in Tractor crowd, and whatever Coool Babies/Talking Heads fans there were. Getting back inside, there was a nice crowd milling around. We got changed into our denim tops/white bottoms, and then hung out for a few more before hitting the stage.

I was pleasantly surprised at how large the crowd was. I'd be fooling myself if I thought they were there to see us. Regardless, it was excellent to play to that many people. I had sunglasses on and though I could see what I was playing, I couldn't see the crowd that well. The few times I peeked over the lenses, I was excited to see how many were out there.

We started with Don't Stop (Fleetwood Mac) and I felt really good about it. Nice, easy start to the show with a crowd pleaser. Folks were dancing, but still a little shy; they stood about 3-5 feet from the stage. No stage banter to start, or after that song, as we jumped into Brandy (Looking Glass). After that tune, we said howdy and we were off. The crowd really got into the songs; I could hear them singing along and having a great time.

Because we were the opener, we had a relatively short set, around an hour. We blasted through I Feel The Earth Move (Carole King) and Couldn't Get It Right (Climax Blues Band). Things felt and sounded great. Jen looked great in a little white dress, denim shirt and cowboy boots. She held it down and did her thing. Dennis ripped up his guitar parts, Eric threw down on Evil Woman (ELO) and Dancing in the Moonlight (King Harvest). Dusty and I locked in the grooves in Maneater (Hall & Oates) and Reelin in the Years (Steely Dan). We finished the night with Hold the Line (Toto) and Ride like the Wind (Christopher Cross), and before we knew it, we were done.

I got my stuff off the stage and got a Mexican Coke from the bar. A few people offered some nice words and thanks for our efforts. Getting back through the crowd was challenging; so many people, no room to maneuver and did get an accidental elbow to the cheek by a guy who was energetically dancing to one of the Coool Babies songs.

Once I got back to the side-stage, I got a few pictures of the crowd.

After we got off the stage.

Coool Babies on the stage.

I have never been a Talking Heads fan. I know the hits from the radio and pop culture, but never got into what TH music is about. I did go in with an open mind, but to me, the songs are fairly static, and the vibe that is created is lost on me. Clearly it's a "me" issue and not an "everyone else" issue as the joy and happiness on the crowds faces while they sang and danced along was very evident. I really enjoyed watching Lauren and Kathy, the two background singers, on stage. They had some choreographed moves and great, fun energy. The other musicians were all excellent and they played really well and did the songs justice. Roger, the singer, even came back later with the trademark HUGE suit (no pix).

At the end of the night, we got to all chat a bit and trade numbers, etc. The members of CB are all quite cool and us in the SG hope to collaborate with some of them to fill out our sound more from time to time. Don't know what the payout is yet, but hope it's a nice chunk. Hope we get some leads as well; I heard people were asking about hiring us for future parties, etc.

Really fun night at the Tractor. I talked to a young photog who had a giant Canon pro lens on her camera. She said she was an apprentice shooting with a "famous concert photographer" named Wayne. I didn't get their info, but she said she'd be getting us pictures soon. Hopefully that's the case, we seem to never get pics or videos unless we do them ourselves. I'll post them if I get them.

In the meantime, up next, Planets at Darrell's Tavern in a month with our pals, the Pop Cycle, and new friends, the Rallies (of which their bassist is the same guy, Ben, that played with Coool Babies).