2026-09-25 Sunset Grooves at Silver Cloud Hotel

The same night I played with Stereo Embers a few weeks ago, Sunset Grooves were also offered a show at the Fircrest Golf Club in Tacoma. I didn't want the rest of the mates to not get paid so I reached out to Dave S., who played bass in Point of Sail. Outside of a few messages on FB, I didn't know him but hooked him up with Dusty and crew. Anyway, at that gig, at which Dave was fine, they were offered this gig for a local insurance agency's yearly awards party.

Pay was good and I only had to rehearse once. I brought out the new P bass after I had fixed the input jack last week. It worked fine at rehearsal so I figured we'd be OK. I took off from work a few hours early, came home, took the dog out, then headed down with a 1:15 commute to Tacoma.

Got there, loaded in, and it was like playing in an MPR at work. We had a little stage and that was just fine. They gave us a ready room where we could dress, so that was cool. Before hand, we got to hit the restaurant and I got me a ribeye steak. The guy who hired us told us to order anything we wanted; I took him at his word. It was huge and delicious!

very tasty

After pounding that steak (I did share some with the mates), we got dressed and took the stage around 8pm. I didn't take many pictures but before we started, I did pretend I was the keyboard player.

So many notes

Here's my pedalboard, big deal.

Same old, same old, but I put my tuner back on because I don't love the tuner on the wireless

And then here's outside the windows to our stage right. Once it got dark, it was just black, so this was the best view.

There were better angles, but this is what I got

The gig was weird. Plenty of people, many of whom said how excited they were to see us. We played a few tunes and had a few dancers, but no one was ready to dance the whole time. During one song, Jen stepped on my DI cable and I tried to move it out of the way. When I did that, my bass went out. I still got signal to the wireless, but it wasn't transmitting from the pedalboard. I replugged at the snake and that seemed to help.

A few songs later, bass was dead. Still had the signal, but Dennis came up and swapped XLR cables for me, which seemed to fix the issue. The first set continued and it was... fine. The room was muggy and people were not super interested in us it seemed, so we finished the set and took a quick break.

At the second set, there were some dancers and people started getting into it. I felt weird on stage because it was sort of small and it was just weird energy; it wasn't the type of night to get too animated, it seemed.

Towards the last half of the set, the dancers stayed and some more people joined, so it started to hit its stride. We finished and Larry, the owner, wanted us to play our "favorite" song, but we were tapped out so we played Escape, which we skipped on the first set. It was fine.

Despite the lukewarm crowd, Larry and his leadership team seemed to really like us. They said they're doing it again in Dallas next year and who knows, maybe we'll get an invite. I won't hold my breath, but would be interesting if it happened.

That's it for gigs now. Cass and Robb have DJL in the next month or so, and Cass has Love Battery in December. Maybe I see if anyone needs a sub. In the meantime, I need to work on the Planets' website and see if I can keep that viable.

2026-08-15 Sunset Grooves at Snohomish Block Party

Gig 1 of 2 on this day. We were booked a few months ago after I had already had a gig booked with Planets. Luckily, it was early enough that I could do both.

Marci and I left around 12:30 and, on the way up north, drove by her new school for a minute. Then it was another 20 minutes or so to the Snohomish air field, where the Block party was held.

For the show, I brought the gold L1K and the yellow P. No rig, as they had a Fender amp and cab available for my use. We parked and walked to the "backstage" area, which was a tent behind the stage. We were the first ones there and got a chance hang for a few. We met up with the backstage manager, a guy named Tex, who hooked us up with backstage bracelets and cash for food at the food trucks.

Marci and I walked around and checked things out. As we did, the clouds started to thin out a little; it was cloudy and cool when we showed up, but it started warming up for sure. Before long, Marci was overheating a little, so we got some food (meh popcorn chicken) and headed to the backstage area to eat.

By this time, the rest of the band had showed up, so we all hung out for a bit.

Walking in with my roadie

Backstage with the bandmates

The Fender amp was failing and the Aguilar was the backup

I didn't use the Fender and chose to go direct instead. We all had IEMs, except for Eric, as usual. We gave our devices to the sound crew and sat back to wait for them to get set up. It seemed to take a minute longer than usual. The previous band went a little long, and then by the time we were ready, it was 10 minutes past our start time and the sound guys were still messing around.

They had some people announce something and then they announced us, but we weren't ready. So we stood around trying to get things going. Eventually, the guy got audio going, so we started, but our levels were all weird.

I had Marci sit by the audio tent as there was shade there and she was roasting out in the open air. She said the sound guy, Ted (ironically), was muttering that we had too many IEMs and he was "doing all he could" to get them working. Overall, it worked fine for me.

My view from the stage. Marci ended up to the right of the tent.

Before starting the show

Once we were dialed in, I felt pretty good about things. The front of the stage was in the sun, so I kept going back towards Dusty and Eric to stay cool. Luckily, there was a nice cool breeze coming from the north (stage right), so that felt pretty good.

My wireless rig worked great. I'm starting to fall in love with the freedom, and since I adjusted the input, it's been working perfectly. It's a little fussy to get the transmitter on my strap, but once it's dialed, we're good. I do wish the cord was a little shorter, there's a lot of it that just hangs when I wear it.

Had a good time playing through the songs. There were a few people dancing, plenty of people watching, and if the first band was any indicator, we should have sounded pretty good out front.

Despite the monitor issues, I think we played decent. As always, there were some vocal issues throughout, but we made it through.

Forgot to get a picture with Dusty!

The Snohomish people gave us all 2 guest passes, so I got Marci in and also Daniel from work. I got to give 5 more away as no one else had people come, so I gave them to Cy from Cupcake. She said she had a bunch of people going anyway, so I got them to her. They did come, but long after we played; they wanted to see Queen Mother. Sort of annoying, but whatever, free tix are cool. Glad to save them some cash.

I packed up, talked to Daniel for a few, said hi to Kathy, Richard and Patrick from Wild Rumours, then headed home to drop Marci off, where she made me a PBJ for dinner. After that, it was time to go to Ballard.

2026-08-08 Sunset Grooves at Aurora Borealis

When I left for this gig, I forgot the freeway heading north was closed, so all northbound traffic was routing other ways, including down 119th. Added 20 minutes to my drive, so that was great. Luckily it was still early enough that I got there in plenty of time.

Tim was running sound at Aurora Borealis. He was a guitar player for Sunset Grooves before I joined years ago. I hadn't really talked to him, but he was super nice and accommodating to all of us. We got set up and did a quick soundcheck and it was fine.

We were offered another gig in September that I couldn't do, so I reached out to Dave, who played in another YR band in town. He came out last night to check out what he's gotten himself into. He was nice to chat with, so we chopped it up for a few.

Got some food and chowed down, free from the club, then got dressed for showtime. I rolled with the new wireless pack, the pedalboard, Goldielocks and the HOG. I figured I'd play Goldie for the first set, with a couple slapping tunes (Somebody's Baby and Peg) and the HOG for the second set.

Exciting pictures. I need to switch back to the square format, these tall 16:9 style pix are lame.

We started the set and the crowd was pretty chill, as usual. After a few songs, they started dancing. I thought the first set went pretty well. I could hear what I needed to hear for the most part. I kept an eye on the wireless input. With my 2 hottest basses, I didn't want to drop signal due to a fat input, so I dialed it back a little on the pedal. Happy to report there were no issues with signal drop.

First set went pretty much without a hitch. Felt good, get distracted with the screen in the back, projecting us on it like a live heat check. We took a break and then got back on for the second set.

We started with Caribbean Queen, which went pretty good. Then we started Maneater and though I was playing the right rhythm, for some reason I started in the wrong key. Once Eric came in, I figured it out and adjusted. We had a goof up in Don't Get Me Wrong; Jen forgot to come in on the quiet bridge part, we continued on and she came in doing the bridge, so we had to adjust on the fly. She also came in early on Tide is High. Most everything else was OK. I recorded on video and watched a little back. I think the vocals were a little tough, as usual, though hard to say who it is.

Nice comments from folks afterward. I didn't stay to chat much, was tired and wanted to get back home. Only took me 25 minutes to get back, so that was fantastic, I guess.

Next up, Snohomish Block Party on Saturday, with Planets at the Tractor that same night. Gonna be a fun and busy Saturday!

2026-07-21 Sunset Grooves at South Whidbey Community Park

What's this? Sunset Grooves first show since November! Over the last few weeks, we have gotten together to rehearse for some summer shows, but also to get a new guitarist in the mix as Dennis is moving to Poland in the fall. We had no gigs, so there was no big rush, but with these gigs coming up, we started moving forward with a kid named Robby. Early 30s, came out with a blue Ibanez and a fun, youthful energy. Helps that he's a solid player and a cool dude.

Fast forward to yesterday, when we played our first gig this year, on Whidbey Island, of all places. We got drafted to play on a Tuesday night, outdoors at the South Whidbey Community Park. Logistically, it was sort of a pain. We had to be there around 3:30 to setup the PA and stuff. But we also had to catch a ferry. I could have worked half a day, and then left for Mukilteo, but instead, I took a few days off to hang out with Marci at home instead.

Headed out the door about 12:30 to catch the 2:05 ferry. Got to Mukilteo around 1:30 and got on the ferry about 1:50, which I guess was the 1:30 ferry, which was running late. Whatever. I ended up on Whidbey Island around 2:15 or so, it's a short ride.

A ferry from the ferry

Did I mention that this would be the hottest day of the year? I got to the park and there was 0 shade. Trees all around the place, but none where we would be setting up and playing. I parked under one tree in a corner and waited for the other guys to show up.

After 45 minutes or so, Dennis and Eric showed up, followed by Robby, his girl Terry, and then Jen and Dusty. We parked and proceeded to set up in the blazing sun. I brought my bucket hat just in case and boy am I glad I did that.

My view from the stage

Before the gig, during soundcheck

Had a tent during setup to take shelter and hide the guitars

Before setup, we were on top of that retaining wall

We finally got dialed in, then did a quick soundcheck. Jen's daughter Erika ran sound. Too bad Riley isn't in town, he might be able to do the same thing for us, make a few bucks. Helen, Jen's other daughter, was there as well and she sang a few songs with us. Her and her pal also ran around on the lawn getting the crowd hyped, it was pretty funny.

I went in with my new wireless rig again and this time, I put the pack on my strap at a thicker part. Happy to say it lasted the whole gig and had no drops. I was able to move around and it was really cool to not worry about the cord. In-ears sounded pretty good and I had a nice show. But for real, it was so dang hot. By about song three or four, I had so much sweat pooling up in my eyes. Luckily, I brought a bandana to wipe sweat, but instead, I tied it on my head during the intro to "Hooked on a Feeling." That thing saved my eyes, for sure.

So hot out

I also brought a fan and had that blowing behind me for the whole show. Poor Dusty had nothing. He got a blister on his hand as well, wrapping it up with gaff tape during one song, then getting it stuck on his hand during one of his acoustic numbers. It was pretty funny.

Robby did great; he and Dennis have great chemistry when they play and it is really cool having a second guitar to fill things out. But, Dennis' last show with us is in a few weeks, when we hit the Aurora Borealis for his goodbye party. He'll be missed, but Robby is a more than adequate replacement. Like I said earlier, he is energetic, eager, and loves to play. He kept saying how much fun he had yesterday simply setting up gear.

With him in the band, he may bring in a new network of fans and friends to check us out. As it was, he had a friend and his wife from work come to check us out. This guy may or may not be affiliated with the Seahawks and he really liked us, so we'll see if that pans out to be anything interesting.

As it stands now, if we can get some gigs and if Robby can inject some new life into the band, I will stick it out. I was thinking of bailing, but then these gigs showed up, so that's cool. I will have to miss a gig for the first time; I have an Embers reunion scheduled at the same time, but I found a sub for them, a guy who played in the other yacht rock band in town. Hope he works out (I don't think he sings, though).

We finished up and packed out in the sunset, which was way nicer than doing it in the dark. And then I bailed. The guy that booked us said to catch the 9:30 ferry, otherwise we'd have to wait an hour for the next one. I jumped and got there in time to get on. And then it was 45 minutes to home from there.

Anyway, it was fun to play the show, it was a hot long day, and I hope we get a decent payout soon.

New Year's Resolution: failed

In my defense, Feb was a short month, only 28 days... and maybe I broke my foot in late Jan... but those are excuses and I didn't make it to a show.

Thought about it... but didn't.

Oh well.

I'll make up for it by playing in 3 shows this month. As mentioned in a previous post, playing with Greg Hoy this week. We are rehearsing tomorrow, and then doing it for real on Friday and Saturday, with local horn legends, Max and Ric on trumpet and sax. Thursday we're having Planets practice with a special guest. It's gonna be a fun couple music days.

Next week, we'll do one more practice with special guest, then our long-awaited vinyl release at Sleight of Hand. I've been going nutz making IG posts and the like. I am no pro, but they're cool, mainly because of Mike Mitchell's pictures.

Got a couple more shows in May and June, but that's it. Everything quiet on the SG front for now. Dennis is leaving the country this year, we haven't talked about replacing him, but supposedly we have a gig lined up in August? We'll see what happens...

2025-11-09 Sunset Grooves at the Central

Based on our last gig at the Central, they asked us to come play a Monday night after a Seahawks game. But then they switched and had us play after a Sunday game, so there would be only one band per night. We played last Sunday, after the Hawks destroyed the Cardinals, something like 44-21.

We showed up around 3:30 for a 5pm-ish start time. Lucked out with great parking, brought in my gear and got set up. We had about 2 hours of music and by the time we got sound checked and ready, the game had ended and people started streaming by. A couple people working the Central said to get started to capture the people, but some of us were still getting dressed, so we missed a bunch of people.

Prior to starting, Eric wanted to be stage left, where I usually play. Part of the problem of the Central stage is that there's a support beam stage right, which means little to no room for anyone but a guitarist. And Eric didn't want to be in the back by the drums as he's sensitive about his hearing, so up front he went. Not that big a deal, there was plenty of room for me on the drum riser.

I brought the black P bass and the Hog as a backup. I had recently put some rounds on the P and figured I'd give it a go. I think it sounded pretty good, except via my IEMs, because there was some wild interference in that corner. Unless I stood a certain way, I would get what felt like delay or cutting in and out of my IEMs. I don't know if it's the control plate on the bass or what; usually ol' Goldilocks gives me that sort of trouble. I played through, it was OK, I guess.

I think the first set went pretty well. Marci, Hay and Blake showed up towards the end of the set, so I chatted with them during our break. We started the second set ok, but had some goofs throughout. Keys starting in the wrong key, drum breaks not counted properly, vocals missed during a band break on "Silly Love Songs," that type of thing.

Despite it all, we had some fun. Cathy Pants showed up and sang a little on "Evil Woman" and we plowed through and finished. I guess we did well enough for some rich dude to say he wanted us to play his birthday in Cabo in Feb. The band chat is all lit up with talk about getting our passports, etc. I'll wait to see if we can get a date and deposit. As of now, I'd say there's a 25% of something happening.

Keeping it short; I'm writing this on Wednesday after the show and it's getting late. Time for bed.

9/27/25, Sunset Grooves at the Old Stove Brewery

This one was a private party for a 40th birthday. We had never played the Old Stove (didn't even know what it was). The husband hired us for an 80's themed party so we tried to dial up our 80's tunes. Left the house at 2:40 and headed to Jen's to load out.

We had to provide a PA and lights since this brewery didn't offer either, so we had to load out all the stuff. It's a pain, but it's what we do. Our sound guy also bailed at the last minute, so luckily Dennis was able to handle the duties.

The Old Stove is only about 5 minutes from Jen's so we got there and loaded in. The place was ENORMOUS! They had the brewery/event space where we were playing, a more proper bar/restaurant, and then on the other side of that, a outdoor garden/patio space. The host had rented the event space and that's where we set up.

Halfway through setup.

Once we got the gear ready, Dennis dialed us in. Since the place was all hard surfaces and concrete, it was SUPER BOOMY. I really had to dial back the bass frequencies on my guitar. I cranked the bass knob to about 10% and just trusted the FOH sound. Sounded fine through my IEMs so I just went with it.

L-1000s for daysss.

As we were handling that, people started showing up. Lots of kids. The party planner had put out a tub of inflatable musical instruments (guitars, saxophones, mics, etc) and before long, these kids started running around and smacking each other with them. It was quite hectic, but they had nothing else to do while they waited for the party to start.

Madness.

We planned 2 sets, as well as throwing in "Birthday" by the Beatles. We've played a few birthday parties and never had a birthday song set, so we learned this one a few weeks ago.

Set one we played in full. I felt pretty good about the performance overall. For some weird reason, though it wasn't hot out (mid-70s) and indoors wasn't bad, I was roasting. Sweating like crazy. And my hair was all in my face, so that was annoying as well.

The Hog sounded fine in the IEMs. I had single-coil switch on the whole time to reduce some of the bass tones. It seemed thin at times, but I just worked with it. Everything else was fine, it was all fine.

We took a quick break, hit some of the buffet food (mac n cheese, nachos, chili, cornbread), grabbed a drink, and then back to work with "Birthday." As we played more and more, it was pretty clear people were leaving as it had been a few hours by now. Kids were still running around and going nuts, so we cut a few songs from set 2 and then ended it.

The husband and wife (her birthday) who hired us were super stoked for us and it was nice to celebrate with them. Overall, it was a nice night, but they never get any shorter, do they? Another 7.5 hour event, from leaving the house to getting back home.

After load out.

Next up, Monday Night Football with the Sunset Grooves at the Central, 10/20. Stay tuned.

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.