2026-03-07 Greg Hoy & the Boys at the New Frontier Lounge

Night 2 of our SEATAC tour is in the books. Another long evening/night at a club, but so much fun, that I didn't care. Once again, the night started with me jumping in the car. The NFL is about 30 miles away from home and I was a little nervous as it was going to be my longest roundtrip in the new car when it wasn't properly charged up. I've been trying to save some money on electrical by not charging every night. Monday and Tuesday nights I didn't charge, and on Wednesday, I had my normal commute to work, then to Dave's house for rehearsal and back, which added another 25 or so miles total. I charged that night, then had Planets practice, which adds about 35 miles to the daily. Same with Friday night, playing in West Seattle. After charging Friday night and driving Marci's car around Saturday, I left for Tacoma with just about 100 miles on the battery. Lucky for me, the route for the gig was about 60-65, so we made it home just fine. But, I digress.

Traffic wasn't bad getting down there, I made it in good time, but I did have a terrible time finding parking. I heard there was high school basketball championships at the Tacoma Dome across the street, so where normally there are hundreds of streets spots on any given night, last night, there was next to nothing. I tried squeezing the car into a fenced in tiny lot behind the building, but after a few tries, it was just too tight, so I moved on. I drove around the area for about 10 minutes before I found a spot about a block away, so I lucked out. I only brought my bass and a cord, since Tom's amp sounded so good the night before. Dave ended up parking about half a mile away, so no complaints from me!

After the brief load-in, I said hi to some of the fellas and ordered some food. Hot dog for me, no picture. I took to the stage and got set up, quick and easy. I decided to bring the Hog. I didn't even bring the pedal board as I didn't use it the night before at all. I brought my stupid clip-on tuner and a cord and it was pretty cool to travel so light, not gonna lie.

This beautiful beast

As we line-checked, I played a few notes and Brian from FLC was in front of me and marveled at this bass. Planets had recorded a video at his house in October and I played Goldie. He sort of did a double-take and was all like, "you have to bring that bass over and we are going to record it." All from a few notes, I thought that was funny.

I brought another phone to record the festivities, set it up on a table near me and hit record. I figured, "how often do I play with horns?" and wanted to let it rip. Max and Ric had nearly matching blue shirts and I got to stand next to Max this time. They are a great combo and they have tons of gigs. It was really cool to connect and play with them for these two nights. I'll see them again down the line.

I really enjoyed playing with Dave too. When we were kids in high school, he was decent enough and he really grew into a solid and quirky drummer. His jazz-type roots over the years really defines his style. His fills and feel are so different to me but they work and I loved how he added to what the band did.

Both nights, it was tough to hear Greg. We sort of blasted through sound check and I neglected to tell the sound guy to put guitar in my monitor. I could hear his vocals for the most part and everything turned out fine. I had a trainwreck in one song, forgot to go to a B-section, but figured it out quickly enough. I also forgot to warm up, so for the first song, a pretty quick bouncy number, I made it out alive, but it was tricky.

Oh yeah, before all that, Sean Lundblad and Val showed up. Was great to see them, even if Val didn't want to be in our picture! They are great and really enjoyed catching up with Sean. He said they'll try to make it out to Seattle for the Planets show on Friday.

Lund Bros. rhythm section, 2026.

Following us was Square Peg and I thought they sounded better on this show. Maybe it was the room, who knows? Steve said he didn't play that well, but I thought they did just fine. I guess I forgot to take a picture of them, but just scroll down to yesterday's post.

The night before, Brian said they were going to do their grunge set. They kicked it off with a blaster that I didn't remember hearing the first night. It was a cool tune and set the tone for their set. Steve R. said Brian had crafted a different set, their heavier one. And it was! Tom sang a bunch of the songs and inspired me to want to sing more. He was great and Brian was great and they were all great. Nice tight band and cool songs. I personally like the heavier FLC better and they'd pair good with PITO, but Brian is trying to move in a less heavy direction, more dynamics, etc. All good, they were great and such good dudes.

Wanted the sign in the shot

After the show, I talked to a bunch of the dudes for a bit. Love talking to FLC, Dan from SP is a cool dude, a very friendly hugger. Met a cool guy named Dave who plays drums for a Latino rock cover band. Hope he can make it out next Friday. Stereo Embers/PITO fan Nick Kennedy was there also; I guess he lives in Tacoma and was happy to see me/us in his town.

All in all, a fun two shows, fun four days of music for me. Wish more weeks were like this! Now I have two more next week and then some chill time until what, May? Who knows. Let's get after it!

Next up, Planets at the Sleight of Hand SODO to release our record! I'm feeling like the turnout is gonna be good!

Sub gig time

Greg Hoy, who I subbed for 2 years ago, texted me recently and asked if I'd do it again. He's coming early March and I said, sure, why not? Dave will be on drums and Greg has also recruited local horns, Ric and Max to play trumpet and sax, respectively.

I recruited Steve Reeve's band Square Peg and Brian Chase's band Full Life Crisis to play as well. We will all be playing at the Skylark on one night, then at the New Frontier in Tacoma the next night. We'll get one rehearsal at Dave's house on Wednesday, PITO practice with Tim on Thursday, then the double-header.

I just got the song list from Greg and there are only 3 songs I know from the previous set. This dude has a lot of songs and I really dig 'em. They are easy and catchy and fun. Great melodies and harmonies, but he gets around, so whenever he comes to town, I'm happy to jump on.

Here are the tunes on Spotify. We're doing a Tears for Fears cover as well, so that should be fun.

Looking forward to it!

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

Last Friday at the New Frontier

It's been almost a year since we last played Tacoma, so we figured, why the heck not? There's a new club there, cleverly named the New Frontier, and it was our CD release party. Plus, we hadn't gigged out since mid-October, so we were overdue for a show.

Sean had checked out the New Frontier and mentioned to me that it had much the same vibe of the Skylark in West Seattle. I will agree with him on that. It's a nice little place, with a stage on one end and a bar along the side of the space. The bathrooms are by the entrance, though, so if you gotta hit the head, the whole club doesn't have to see/know about it like they do at the Skylark, where the bathrooms are literally stage left.

Chris had set up this show and had gotten Girl Trouble on the bill. Way back when, GT kind of took us under their wing and got us in with some of the more established bands in town (see Unsmashable crew), so it was cool for them to want to play our CD show. Unfortunately, we had a hard time coming up with a third and went with a band suggested by GT, called the Drug Purse.

The DP was a 4 piece and they took the stage first. They had a real 60's/garage rock thing going, complete with snake lights on the drumset and a mood-setting rotating light thing on the bass rig. They were pretty loose and, well, garagey, and sadly, not too memorable except for the fact that the guitarist changed a string during the set. He sat on the floor and made it happen.

GT followed DP and they were a fun time. Their surf rock thing was energetic and KP was just great as the frontman... until he took off his shirt. Ugh. But, it was rock and roll after all, so no one minded. At one point, he put his mic in his mouth and barked like a dog. I mention this because one of us was going to have to sing into that mic later that night. Yikes.

After GT finished, we took the stage. We had a good amount of people, but I can tell you the amount of people who came down for little old me was zero! I wasn't expecting much, as it was in T-Town and not up here, so it was no big deal. I just hope the representation is better in Seattle next week.

As it was, Chris and Sean's friends filled the place. What was cool about it was they all seemed to know each other since high school days. They all grew up together and got married, etc, and it was just peachy! It made me a little green with envy; I have close friends from those days, but for whatever reason, the music connection wasn't there. Chris and Sean's friends are all into the tunes and have watched them perform for years.

Anyway, we got up there and played and, I gotta say, I think we played pretty well. I had to share a monitor speaker with Chris and the sound guy, Alex, had us dialed in really nicely. I could hear everything and sang with reckless abandon!

I also tried playing a little differently. I had my stage volume pretty high and tried to dial back the finger pressure. So often, when playing my beloved SB-2, especially on the bridge p/u, where the string is tighter, I get big ol' blisters. This time, being conscious about what I was doing, plus the louder stage volume, seemed to help that. In addition, I mixed up some of my basslines and tried to sprinkle some noodling in here and there. It kept me on my toes and hopefully was cool to listen to as well.

We played an extra long set, with some songs we hadn't played in many months, including 2 songs (Feel and New Horizons) which we hadn't even rehearsed. People got up and danced towards the end of the set and kept us entertained on stage.

It was really good to get out again and see the peeps and play some rock. 2.5 months between rock shows has got to stop. Luckily we have another show next Friday at the Mars Bar, once again for our new CD. I'm gettin' the word out to clubs for other shows, so hopefully we can play out more than 7 times this year (what we did last year!).

Up next: Mars Bar 2/13. Be there! It's the return of LLAMA!!

Gigs gigs and more gigs

What's with the once a week posts? I don't know! I guess I've been busy. Lame excuse, but true, I suppose.

I wanted to throw down a music update. You wanted gigs? I got your gigs right here:

1. Jan 30 at the New Frontier in Tacoma. Lund Bros releasing our brand spankin' new CD, Songbook IV, with our old friends, Girl Trouble.

2. Feb 8 at the Comet on Capitol Hill. It's the Scheme and some other bands on a Sunday night.

3. Feb 13 at the Mars Bar on Eastlake. Lund Bros, Llama, Guns n Rossetti and the Riffbrokers doing our big Seattle CD release. That should be a whole bunch of funs!

4. Feb 21 at the Mars Bar on Eastlake. It's the Scheme again and I have no idea with whom.

I have rehearsals in between and it's all good. I also had a huge inspiration for a cover for the Lunds and I to do. I think we could totally pull it off, and even ask a guest to play rhythm guitar for us. All the bands we play with do covers and they're killer. Small Change > Faces "Stay With Me", Sgt. Major > Cheap Trick "Hello There", I Love Myselfs > Uriah Heep "Stealin'" (I think). Could Lund Bros. be in there with this song I'm thinking of? I think so. We'll see what happens.

Thanks again to Byron for the quick posters. He's the best!