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!

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

1999 Fender Standard Precision Bass

I forgot to write about this bass!

After playing a few shows last year and then having some fun bux saved up from Christmas and Chinese New Year, I thought I wanted a bass. In the $300-700 range, there's a lot of options, but mainly, I was looking at getting a P bass.

Back in the early 2000s, I bought a purple P off of eBay. Someone had repainted it and when I got it, I tried to use it, but for whatever reason, I could never get it to feel right. Maybe it was the wide maple board on it, but I think more likely, it was because I couldn't get it to sound how I thought it should. I ended up selling it somewhere to someone and I can't remember where or when. I do have a video of it, I think, in the Ethyl days, maybe at a club in the U District? I did do a recording with Starchief with it, take a look:

That's a purple P with a black pick guard.

Listening to it now, with one of my favorite Johnny Low songs, And You Lean, and the bass sounds freakin great. Sits in the mix and is fat and round. Maybe I shoulda kept that bass.

Then sometime in the late 2000s (?), I traded away my Sterling for a Lakland Skyline (Korean) Duck Dunn P bass. It was beautiful! Candy apple red, rosewood neck with block inlays, matching red headstock. The original pickguard was white but the previous owner put a black guard on it and it looked incredible.

That's a good lookin' bass!

Same thing happened with that DD, though. I couldn't figure it out. I'd bring it to shows, but I'd end up playing the SB-2 instead. Since I was in 2 bands at the time, Lund Bros and the Scheme, I ended up using the DD with the Scheme (LB would tune down to Eb, so it was easier to have a bass per band).

I did do an EP recording with the Scheme and though not as fat as the Starchief song, it still sounds pretty good. Maybe I shoulda kept that one too. I ended up trading that one straight up for a Lakland Skyline Decade, which I just did NOT bond with, so that ended up getting traded in and cash for the Reverend Thundergun.

Anyway, all that to say, I decided I wanted another P.

I started looking at Reverb.com, Facebook Marketplace and, ugh, Craigslist. There were plenty of options, but I was thinking if I wanted something worthwhile, maybe I needed to buy new, like a Squier or something. Lots of great reviews of the new Squiers, but I also sort of wanted something "vintage."

After some searching, I found a really cool looking black P with a killer pickguard and pickup and bridge covers. The seller was in Tacoma and he was letting it go for $400. I ended up going down on a freezing late January night and met him in his garage.

He had some old flats on it and I played it a bit and really liked it. He said he put in some '62 Fender Custom Shop pickups in it (though I couldn't tell one way or another). I was a little bummed to see that though the bass was black, it was spraypainted that way. Not a great paint job, but from far away, one can't tell.

After a few minutes, I bought the bass. He threw in the Fender strap it was on, as well as a white pick guard. But the whole reason it caught my eye in the first place was the cool aftermarket pick guard he put on it.

As I brought it home

Paint run

I went through a quick phase of buying some tools and the like to set up the bass. I kept the flats on it as I kind of liked how they sounded and felt. It was never meant to supplant the L1K, but man, I kept playing the P and I liked it more and more.

When I checked the serial number, it indicated it was made March 1999 (despite leading with an 8, which would mean 1988), which I love.

It is Mexican and it just sounds great. The s/n also says that the original color is brown sunburst, which equates to this:

I don't hate that, but I do hate what I'd have to do to try to unearth that. Maybe I'll leave it to the professionals. Or maybe I'll try it sometime. I just don't know. Right now, that bass is a great #2. I'll most likely use it in the Sunset Grooves as I'm really riding the T-Bird hard in PITO.

The P did get its moment in the sun when I played it at the SE final show. Bob M. made a cool GoPro video out of it.

Gig report: Kathy Moore Super Power Trio at Jazzbones 5/7/22

Ahoy mateys!

As I discussed here, last Wednesday, I was offered a gig with no drummer and never having played with this artist that was happening Saturday (yesterday). Luckily it came together, with a drummer I've played with many times, after one rehearsal on Friday and then it was off to the show on Saturday.

From my house to Jazzbones is about 25 miles or so south via I-5. I was able to draft a pal (another bassist) to come along for the ride. Back and forth chat made the ride go by quick and by 6:15, we were there.

The headliner, the Hector Tellez, Jr. band were setup and about to start soundcheck. As I rolled up, my drummer texted and said I didn't need to bring my amp and head. Because I'm super lazy, I left my gear in the trunk and headed in with my pedals and a couple basses (G&L L1K and MIM P).

The back door opens directly onto the stage and I got to speak briefly with Dune, the other bassist of the night. I'd seen and played with him before, when he fronted his band General Mojo's, several years ago. I recall him being a stellar player and singer, but never got a chance to meet him. I thanked him for letting me use his setup (Orange Terror amp into a GK 4x10) and got off the stage so they could soundcheck.

Hector Tellez Jr and band at soundcheck. Left to right: Dune Butler, Hector Tellez, Jr., Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees/Mad Season), Peter Buck (R.E.M.).

They were tight and sounded great. Dune's T-bird (Gibson) really sounded nice, but also seemed to get lost a little. Lead guitar could have come up a bit as well, but there literally was no one in the club but us, them and some club staff. Plus I'm not a sound engineer, so I trusted the guy to do his job.

We took the stage for some sound check and it was fine. My L1K seemed to sound wooly and I didn't know if it was the amp or the settings. I zeroed everything on the amp and used my preamp and it still sounded weird but I went with it. My band, the Kathy Moore Super Power Trio, was missing its bassist and drummer as they also play in a band called Acid Tongue, that was on the eastern side of the state at another gig. Me and my old drummer pal Gregg jumped in and were super stoked to work with Kathy.

She led us through a couple parts of a couple songs, and we worked on some of the transitions. Kathy uses all sorts of pedals and loops in her show and this was no exception. The only thing we did to keep it simpler for Gregg and I was to not touch any of her odd time signature tunes. We'll do that at a later date with some more rehearsals, for sure.

After sound check, it was dinner time. I didn't get a picture of my Big Mouth Burger, but it did take forever to arrive. I did get a photo of this fine gentleman and his suit, however:



Incredible. His shoes looked like they were chrome, they were so shiny. Apparently he has many suits like this; the bartender says he's a regular and never seems to wear the same suit twice.

After eating, we took the stage at 9pm. Kathy's songs for this project are fairly simple. First song is pretty much a groove vamp in E, and then a walk down during the choruses to C and then back to E again. Me and Gregg just tried to stay tight and back her, but she did give her blessing to allow us to "express" ourselves however we saw fit. In other words, there was some noodling and flourishes, but, in my humble opinion, everything fit the songs and her solos.

On stage, it was strange to play in a trio after 4 years of being in a 4 piece. Also, to be out from under the constraints of a former bandmate that passive aggressively pushed his agenda onto me without me knowing until it was too late. He'd always stuff like, "I think we're playing too much/too many notes/need to dial it down," and then tell us it needed to be more like the Black Crowes or Petty or Sloan or Elton John.

Eventually that stuff stuck in my head and I'd literally just play a root note to see what would happen and after the song, he'd still say "we" were playing too much. But, I digress.

I felt free to do what I wanted on stage and it was awesome. And playing with a super tasty, chops-filled drummer was great as well. Our set was short, about 35 minutes, and over too soon. I could tell Kathy was super pleased with how Gregg and I played. We were really tuned into her solos and reading her body and musical cues.

Sadly, no pictures of us on stage last night but my aforementioned buddy did shoot a video from in front of the soundboard of us playing Cortez the Killer. While that uploads, please enjoy a picture of my outfit for the night.



And here's the video:
https://youtu.be/WFztNnTkccM

Hector Tellez and his band was up next and they were super solid. Was cool to see a couple legendary musicians on stage. Barrett Martin was a great rock drummer. He really owned that drumset and was totally in charge. Peter Buck stayed on rhythm guitar and was pretty subdued, so much so that my buddy thought Peter was very under utilized for the set. Dune on bass was a lot less inspired than I remember. He was solid and competent, with a few cool riffs here and there, but it seemed he was really locked in to supporting the bandleader, and not getting himself off. It worked, but it seemed lacking to me. And Hector Tellez Jr is the real deal. Great guitarist, great singer, looks incredible on stage. Songs are a bit meh to me, though. I think, given time, his songs will grow and evolve to match his talent, but after two or three tunes, they sounded all the same.

That said, Kathy, Gregg and I were super excited about what we did and we are looking forward to the next show in July. Thanks for reading!