4/26/2024 Greg Hoy and the Boys at the Blue Moon Tavern

Gig 2 of 5 in 3 weeks is done.

Last night's venue was the legendary Blue Moon on 45th. It is old, it is grungy, but it is friendly and it is a really great sounding place. No stage pix, but some flavor shots of the venue.

uncomfortable booth with no view of stage

back hall to reach restrooms

stage on other side of that door, men's room to the left

some dork in the mirror

No food pics because I ate at home (take out Thai). Commute to the Blue Moon was 20 minutes longer than usual thanks to a big ass backup on I-90 on Mercer Island. Whatever.

I brought the same gear as the night before, the P and my pedals. Easy enough load in.

Roster of bands was the same as at the NFL, but we traded Matt and the Monsters for Dave's project, the Greenwood Music Collective. Kelly was there, all dressed up like the frontwoman she is. Looked great, sounded great!

First up was Roman Angelos. He says his stage last name with a hard "G," as in "An-Gelos," if that makes sense. Dave, Greg, Kelly and I debated if it should be pronounced with a soft "G," as in "Los Angeles." Who knows?

Greg Hoy and the Boys followed and I had a great time. Highly entertaining, better than the night before. Felt a bit more cohesive and totally pleased with it being only the 3rd time we'd played together. The small crowd liked it enough. I really enjoyed playing through the Ampeg BA-115. It sounded full and round and paired great with my P bass. Totally competent and dare I start looking at one?? Yikes.

these dorks

Speaking of that P bass; something about it is starting to click. I've been playing it more at rehearsals and at these last two shows with Greg. Maybe it's the flats, maybe it's the pickups, maybe it's the amp? I'm not sure, but it just sounds good to me. I've been saving up for a Nate Mendel P, but maybe this P is enough for me? Or maybe I get another less expensive one to have rounds on it. Whatever the case, I have options now.

After we finished, Kelly jumped on stage and just murdered a couple of her own songs on acoustic guitar. She has such a beautiful voice. Power, tone, personality, it's all there. Really love it. AND she plays guitar. Of course I asked about her and yacht rock and she said she'd be interested in the summer, when she's not teaching.

Michela Miller, so good

Kelly did her two songs and then me, Dave and Greg jumped up there. Greg had only played through the songs with us one time on Wednesday, so he was all eyes and ears on stage. We started with a pretty basic song of Kelly's, with 4 chords on repeat. Then it was songs that I knew and had to guide Greg through.

Dave jumped on keys for a few songs and those were a bit more challenging for me as he's still working out the kinks of the song structures. He's also fairly new to playing keys so with the singing, keys and remembering how his songs go, it was tough to follow what he was doing. Luckily we didn't have any train wrecks and got through it fairly unscathed.

We did a quick and fast rendition of "Dreams," which I play in Sunset Grooves, but way slower and true to the recording. With GMC, we sped through and skipped the little middle part. It worked out fine, and we finished with another Kelly original, and then called it a night.

Hotels jumped on stage and they were great. I guess they've had some time to hone their act over the last two years and it's pretty clear. They're good at what they do. The bassist, Blake, played a Fender P/J into a Fender Rumble 500 and that sucker sounded so good. No pedals, just plugged directly into his amp. He's a great player and that sound was something else.

Hotels and the tasty sounding P/J

Good times playing 2 shows in 2 nights. Now it's onto learning about 8-10 songs for Del Vox next Friday again at the Blue Moon, but not before the Sunset Grooves play at the High Dive.

4/25/24 Greg Hoy and the Boys at the New Frontier Lounge

Gig 1 of 5 in 3 weeks is done.

After meeting Greg Hoy on Wednesday and playing through his songs once, we took our act to Tacoma, where the New Frontier Lounge awaited on Thursday night. My old mate from high school, Dave, was driving through horrid rush hour traffic to pick me up to go an additional 30 miles to the City of Destiny.

For about 5-6 years, I made the trek to Tacoma to play with the Lund Bros. 80 miles round trip about once a week. And these days I complain about a 36 mile rounder on Sunday nights. I'm a big baby.

We got to the NFL and basically sat around and waited as we were the 4th band out of 4 acts to take the stage. It was fine to hang out; Greg is a really cool dude and one of Dave's old friends, Kord, came by and we had a nice chatty crew to talk to.

Greg, it turns out, is from the Bay Area now, but Western PA originally. He has been doing the DIY tours for 5-6 years now, funding them from tech money he made and is making. I don't think he's doing it by calling old friends last minute for places to stay like last year's experience with Forest Ray. Greg has money and is spending it on hotels and food and the like.

In terms of food, he bought us all dinner, and for once, I took a picture.

A hot dog and a whole bunch of tots. Good eatin'

Greg is traveling with another musician, who is a multi-instrumentalist playing to tracks on a laptop. That guy, Rich, opened for us, though he had a different stage name. He is from Brooklyn and did some cool loungey numbers to get the night started.

Rich from Brooklyn. Not a great picture, admittedly

Once Rich finished up, a duo called Hotels got up there. Guy on bass, woman on vocals. More computer loops, but it was overall a more engaging experience than Rich. The bass sounded great and the player was very adept at what he did. He made his complicated playing sound quite simple and elegant. Very nice.

Hotels

Following Hotels was a youngish band, college age, maybe? They were a four piece and they had a nice cohesive sound. Their musicianship was top shelf, but their performance was a little bit low energy. Not much stage presence or movement. They sounded a little Coldplay-ish to me and they did it well. They also brought a good amount of people for a Thursday night. Also, I don't remember their name and I'm too lazy to look it up. Something like Matt and the Monsters. I have no idea.

Matt and the Monsters? Who knows?

Rounding it up was Greg Hoy and the Boys, featuring me and Dave as the Boys. What little I know about Greg is what I wrote above. However, what I didn't know was how funny and charismatic he was. He is super friendly and accommodating as well. I think he's quite grateful that Dave and I are playing with him and I have enjoyed hanging with him the past two nights.

The sound guy had my vocals dialed in pretty well so I did my best to sing along. I played my P (which I'm sort of starting to fall for...) through Dave's Ampeg combo. I did have a compressor and preamp pedal engaged and was approached by two members of Matt and the Monsters, who told me my bass sounded huge. Then again, the sound guy did have that room dialed in nice; all the basses sounded great!

P purchased in Tacoma, playing a gig in Tacoma

Nice little Ampeg 15" combo

It was interesting playing with Dave. I had not played with him or heard him play since high school. He cut his chops in a local band called Inflatable Soule in the 90's, that had a nice following. He branched out to NYC after that, where he met Greg. He's bounced around in other bands and got into jazz and less rock type bands.

Greg's music is power pop/indie pop and the songs are pretty basic but quite catchy. Usually a verse and a chorus and an occasional bridge. As a trio, when Greg soloed, I'd try to make some noise to fill in the space and hoped Dave would do the same, but he had really dull "studio" cymbals, so some of that additional noise was not there. He also played with a light touch, but overall, we played well and it was a lot of fun.

We do it all again tonight, but I am double dipping, sitting in with Dave's band, the Greenwood Music Collective. One of the members I rehearsed with, Jack, is out due to a family emergency, so we scrapped his songs and will add a few covers with Michela (Kelly), the other member of GMC. She has a gorgeous singing voice and it will be fun to play with her on stage.

For those that do the Facebook thing, the Blue Moon does stream their performances, so you can watch here: Livestream

Rehearsal for upcoming gigs

My old mate Dave H. from high school reached out recently and asked me to sit in with him and his old pal Greg Hoy. Additionally, Dave wanted me to sit in with his project, the Greenwood Music Collective (GMC), as his bassist was out of the country for a few weeks. Since I had no shows lined up in the immediate future, I said yes.

Over the past few weeks, I've met up with Dave, Kelly and Jack at Jack's house in North Seattle. We were able to get dialed in on a bit of their tunes, which consist of all three of them singing their own tunes. Kelly has a really beautiful voice and her songs are pretty good as well. Jack plays guitar and banjo and brings his own flavor to things. Dave is on drums and he's an aspiring songwriter who is excited to play his new songs out (and on piano, no less!) for the first time.

After two rehearsals, it turns out that Jack had to bail as his mom has recently passed, so we are revamping things, including having Greg play a few tunes with us. Additionally, I am filling in for Jack on a bass gig with another band called Del Vox, but that's next week.

Until Wednesday of this week, I hadn't played Greg's music with anyone but myself. That all changed as Greg was in town for the start of his tour and we met that night at Dave's house in Woodinville. Dave's house has a large rec room/loft space above the garage that he has all his gear in. We got plugged in and got to work.

Brought the P and played through the 15" combo

Dave's playroom

Greg rolled into town with nothing but a carry on, with the world's tiniest guitar pedal, about the size of two full size candy bars. We started off with his songs and for the most part, they went really well. I tried to sing backing vox on what I could and Greg was super encouraging about what and how we played.

It was interesting playing with Dave; he and I played in a band called the Roundabouts in high school. We were a three piece and despite me not remembering, we did at least play one show outside of his house (there are pictures).

Over the years, Dave was more of a jazz, less rock, drummer. Playing with him was fun because he was solid, but very different than I'm used to. I was able to get through it and we were pretty much ready for the show.

Kelly showed up and we worked on some of her and Dave's songs. Dave's songs are a little challenging as the structure to his songs aren't as traditional as I'm used to. He's learning the art of songwriting, and though I'm no songwriter, I haven't quite latched onto the feeling he's going for on some of his songs. But for the most part, they're do-able and we'll be just fine.

I have 5 gigs in the next three weeks, so I'm pretty excited about that. Good times!

Free watch haul featuring Bulova Accutron 218D

A few days ago, I saw a post in a local FB group. Someone nearby was giving away a handful of old watches his dad had. The photo was not great, but I could see some watches I was interested in. I told him I'd take 'em and he replied right away with his address.

From this picture, I could tell the gold digital (lower left corner), the gold Bulova (second from right) and the worn Casio (lower right corner) could be fairly interesting.

Since it was in a neighborhood group, I figured he'd be close, but not less a than a mile away. Marci, Koder and I took a quick walk to his house and picked up the watches.

The original pic he took didn't show how well-worn the watches were. Of the 9 shown above, there were two Timexes, a Tag Heuer quartz, and a couple of no names, all likely from the 90s. The gold one in the lower left corner I was hoping was more of a name brand, but it appeared to be a Fairchild. I happened to have some batteries for it, and though it did light up, it appeared to be stuck in some sort of test mode, and it was dead the next morning.

The Casio in the lower right corner was called a Data Bank Computer (DBC) and it was in pretty rough shape. It looked original but it was grungy and the buttons on the calculator face were completely worn out. I gave it a courtesy cleaning, but after a quick eBay search, it would be easier to just buy a used unit as the face is tied to the unit. No easy button replacement.

The most interesting watch to me was the Bulova Accutron. I was able to ID it via the original photo and when I finally got my hands on it, it looked pretty good. The expansion bracelet was not the original, but a Speidel, and the watch itself was not running.

After grabbing my watch tools and a light, I popped the back off of the Bulova. It did have a battery installed, but obviously it was dead. I unscrewed the crown and turned the hands and they moved smoothly enough. Removing the case was interesting; there is a silver ring around it, where the case removal tool would grab, and then that ring rotates independently of the actual cover. The ring is then removed and the cover then comes off.

The Accutron as I received it.

The back, with its silver retention ring.

After removing the case, I got the tiny screwdriver out and removed the battery retention bracket, as well as the battery itself. Sadly, I did not have the correct battery for the watch, so after cleaning the ring and back cover, as well as the bracelet, I let it sit overnight until I could get a battery the next day.

With its case off, reads USA Bulova 218 D.

Admittedly, I did not know much about the Accutron watches, other than something about a tuning fork. I knew it was quartz and battery powered, but apparently, just because it is battery powered does not necessarily mean it's quartz as well.

I spent some time watching videos and reading a little about the watch. In the picture above, the two things at the 12 o'clock position that look like opposite brackets - ][ - are actually the tuning forks. They move at something like 300 vibrations a second and allow for a very smooth sweeping second hand, rather than the less smooth movement of a mechanical watch.

The "D" in "218 D" stands for date, of which this watch has. When I moved the hands, the date would change every 24 hours, but I didn't know how to quick change the date. After watching a video, it appears that once the crown is pushed all the way in, the date is quick set from there. And simply turning the crown in that first position confirmed it. My date is now set correctly.

After work, I picked up a battery and brought it home. I put it in and screwed the bracket back on and... nothing. Watch did not fire up. I was a little disappointed, but for a free watch that I put $5.99 into for a battery, no big deal. I went upstairs and had dinner.

To my surprise, after I ate, I picked up the watch again and it was running! Not sure if it needed a few minutes to fire up or what, but I was really excited to see just how smooth that second hand swept. Putting the watch to my ear, I could hear the high-pitched vibration of the tuning forks as well! I put the cover and screwed the ring back down and set about putting the bracelet (after scrubbing and soaking it) back on.

I wore it to work yesterday and spent a few minutes adjusting the bracelet to fit me better. It is an easy wear and I thought I wouldn't like the gold. Turns out, I did like the gold. The crystal is in good shape but needs a light buffing with some Polywatch. A new leather band may be in the works as well, in case I want to dress it down. But the vintage 34mm size fits my dinky wrists and now I'm doing some deeper dives into the world of Accutron watches.