8/29/2025, Planets in the Ocean at the Central

Exciting poster at the door

At this point in my musical career, I think the place I've played the most is the Central. Good, bad, indifferent, a gig's a gig and the Central's always been fine.

This show was set up months ago by a guy named Will. He does some local booking of bands and is in tight with a band we've played with before called Purusa, out of Portland. The guys in the band are stellar dudes and the band is pretty awesome.

As always, early doors at the Central. I showed up around 6:30 and the headliner, My Next Planet, was setting up their gear. They are a 3-piece pop/punk band that also works with Will and they traveled heavy. I think they're local and they've been playing a ton of shows. On stage was what looked like an 8x12 cabinet, a couple Marshall cabinets, a huge-ass drum set and a bunch of MNP signage, lights and a banner. A little overkill, IMO, but they had a 4th member that seemed to be handling a lot of admin type duties (merch table setup, promo, sound check ears in the crowd, etc).

Isku ran sound for the night. He checked for Sunset Grooves a few months ago, then did our private party in July, and he'll do another for us in Sept. For Planets, it was comforting and we sounded good enough, I suppose.

First up was Purusa. Kris, Zach, Dave and Andy, and they are all excellent musicians. Tight band, Kris with golden pipes, and they just tore it up. A pleasure to watch and hear, I only wish there were more people there to appreciate it.

Purusa tearing it up

Pretty much the extent of the Purusa crowd

Purusa finished promptly at 8:45 and we got setup to go. No sound check for us, just line check and play. We had no set list, but luckily I had an old one in my bag, so we used that. I only brought one bass (butter) and my pedals. I used the house GK 410 and it was fine. I did bring my IEMs but didn't use them. Maybe I should have after listening back. It's just so hard to hear some parts if the monitor mix isn't dialed in properly. The wedges were loud enough, but man, there are some moments that are challenging for me.

We had a bit of a trainwreck on "Sit and Spin" with Robb doing some improv and then getting lost at the instrumental bridge. It sort of worked, but it was sloppy and his note choices weren't great. If you didn't know the song, it was OK. There were other moments as well, but that was the big showstopper. As mentioned, my backing vocals were meh. Some good parts, some not so great parts ("Panic Attack" ugh). Even off the bat, with "Unraveled," it was pretty rough. Isku had me dialed in hot and though it's nice to hear in the recording, there's no denying it when they're off.

We slogged our way through it and we all felt pretty gross afterward. It was weird. I mean, I wasn't in my feels, but both Cass and Robb were pretty down about it (via text at least).

Rounding out the night was My Next Planet. They had a nice crowd, maybe 25-30 people? Don't know how they did it because the tunes were pretty bland. It was more pop emo than anything punk related. They were really good at it, but not my thing. Weirdly, they had some backing tracks that seemed to double some bass, even when the bassist was playing. I don't know, I don't think they were mixed all that well out front. No pix of them.

Good to hang out with Cass afterward. Robb jetted pretty quickly, but he didn't miss much. Saw an old Embers fan, Stephanie, and chatted with her for a few. Aside from that, it was a pretty uneventful night. We made $85 and that's that.

8/16/25, Sunset Grooves at El Sid

We played the big room at Kings Hall a few months ago and made enough of an impression to get us invited back, this time to kick off their new, smaller room downstairs. El Sid opened last week, a "punk" themed room in the giant building known as Kings Hall.

outdoor decorations at Kings Hall

We saw a local business rag's post about El Sid last week. It was a nice enough little fluff piece, but there were some disparaging comments underneath about the "punk" aesthetic. The room itself isn't punk, necessarily, but more of a vintage vibe bar with a bunch of framed photos of punk pioneers. Some cool art and lighting and that was it. The comments were lame, the room was cool enough and the people were great.

Punk or not?

I did enjoy this wallpaper, yes.

Lucky for us, and unbeknownst to us, a local high school was holding their 20th year reunion there, for the class of 2005. It sort of blew my mind that 20 years is a long time, and then I had an additional 15 years on those grads. I count it as lucky because without the 60 or so people there, it might have been a pretty lonely night in that room. Side note, as I was walking to our green room, I heard my name and turned and saw a woman I used to work with about 13 years ago. We work for the same large tech company, only she's thriving and I'm simply surviving. Turns out she was attending that class reunion with a friend, only because the friend was giving her "cool bird facts."

We did a quick setup on stage and then absconded to the aforementioned green room, where, as they did last time, hospitality treated us all to dinner and drinks. As with last time, I got the burger and it was great.

Lots o fries.

Cool stool.

After eating, we got dressed and did a quick sound check. Awkwardly, we didn't do it before the reunioners showed up, so we had to do so as they were all lined up next to us getting drinks from the poor single bartender in the room. Also, being that this is a newer room, they don't have a permanent PA set up yet, so it's akin to what we use when we do private parties; a couple Mackie PA speakers on stands and I think a sub in the corner. The mixing board is awkwardly also in that same corner and the poor sound engineer needs to squeeze himself past whomever is on stage right there to access it.

Stage is to the left of the arch.

Our stage. Me, Jen and Dennis stood on the floor most of the night.

Played the Hog all night. There's the sound mixer to the left.

My setup was same as usual, B2Four with the G&L L-1000. IEMs for monitoring audio and Ethan, the sound guy, dialed me in pretty well enough. It's tough when the PA speaker was right next to my head, but I could hear what I needed to. In fact, I thought my vocals were more prominent than I usually have them at rehearsal.

I felt like I played pretty well. I had planned on running some songs during the day but ran out of time. As we started our set, though all the songs are memorized, I had to let muscle memory take over; if I thought about it too much, that could've been a problem. Luckily, things worked out fine.

The stage setup was a little snug. I had to be aware of Jen next to me, I didn't want to hit her with my headstock. When I wasn't singing, I'd jump on the stage, so that gave her some more room. For the first time in a few years, Marci and Haley came to the show, mainly because Hay's roommate Siri and her family (they live in the area) came by as well. I guess Siri's mom had bought 8 tickets, but only 3 people (her, Siri and Dad) came. Oh well, we still get paid, I guess.

We powered through set one, took a quick break, then made our way through set two. The class reunion pretty much flowed in and out between our barroom and the room adjacent. Sometimes it was light, but Jen did a great job interfacing with people and bringing them into our area.

Not sure what our take home was last night, but we ran into the owner and he liked what we did, so we'll probably be back. He admitted that he's a construction guy and knows nothing about marketing and promotion. I think they could have a nice thing going there, it seems to be one of the few spots in town, but he really does need someone to help him figure out that aspect of things.

Nice night, happy to play for my girls, run into an old friend and play tunes with my mates.

Up next, Planets in the Ocean at the Central.