2026-06-06 Planets in the Ocean at Conor Byrne

Last night was way too fun. I wish I had a reality TV crew following me around to capture all the people that were there, the music made and the good vibes overall. I made a strong effort to pump the socials and text and reach out to folks. It worked out well, let's see who came for me (or at least confirmed they were coming with me): Michael P, Taylor H, Elizabeth D (+2), Jose C (+3), Evan C (+1), Marci!, Christian S (+3), Dusty H, Eric J, Brian H (+1). Maybe there were more? But overall, there were so many people for us. Hell, with Stag and the Rallies in the building, we couldn't help but have a good draw.

Marci came out and I was stoked for that, but it was gonna be a long night. I-5 north was closed from I-90 all the way to 45th, so we left about 4pm for a 5pm expected arrival time. It was lame. She shopped for a printer the whole time. Cheaper to replace the stupid thing rather than buy new ink, I hate that.

Stuck in traffic with my favorite person!

Anyway, an hour later we arrived at my new favorite club, Conor Byrne. As mentioned in last month's recap, the room sounded so good. Would it be the same for this show? Unsure. Last time, I played through Charlie's Ampeg 610 and it was thunderous. This time, I provided backline with my new Orange 112 powered by the old Ashdown, for its first show. Despite Mark the repair guy saying to not trust it at a gig, over the past 10+ hours of rehearsals and home practice, it's been fine, so I figured why not? I did tell Pete Nordstrom to bring his Orange Bass Terror just in case...

I pulled up and Ben London was unloading his car. Lee Brown pulled up after us. Ben Heege was already inside. Cass showed up a few minutes later, as did Tim. It was like reunion day at the old folks home. All the homies were there. Not only that, we had all the Embers heads show up: Charles and Cyndy, Lisa G and her husband, Lisette, Stephanie P, maybe some others. Tim had Kim and Chris show up, Rebecca Young, Kay, probably more than that. I got to talk to Cathy Pants (I don't know her real last name!), Jonathan Plum, Bob and Tina Lang, Steve Reeves, Alan W and Dan, Jan Fox from Model Shop (who was just walking by), Elizabeth, Jose and his family. It was all so great.

I got the little baby rig on stage and of course I forgot to take any pictures. It powered up and Ben got his bass plugged in, a hollow body Washburn and it sounded round and full. Pretend this picture is from sound check instead of the show:

Check out the cool Ashdown VU meter!

After I set up, Marci and I went to grab a quick bite. We went to a place called Situ Tacos. I had a taco salad bowl of some sort and it was tasty. And not a comment on the food, but I noticed afterward that a tooth that had been intermittently painful for months had broken. Don't know where the rest of it went, but luckily it doesn't hurt and a call has been made to the dentist. I'm guessing a crown is in my near future.

Dinner before my tooth broke.

We walked back to Conor Byrne, but not before stopping in a doorway to have Marci look into my mouth. Surely we didn't look any weirder than the other people walking around in Ballard, right?

Back at the club, it was just a nice party. I socialized with as many people as I could, like I mentioned. I helped set up our merch table. I spent some time this week creating a QR code and price sheet for stuff. I guess it helped, we generated about $200 in Venmo purchases, so that was quite cool.

Gotta take some lessons from the Rallies on how to do merch

A sweet woman named Dineen (don't know the spelling), who is a friend of Stag's, ran merch for us all and she was fantastic. It was nice to not have to worry about running merch. My only regret is not getting a Rallies record and some more Stag stuff. And after seeing all their stuff, we should look into more swag. Or maybe after recording again.

Enough small talk. Rallies took the stage and show us all how a real tight, professional, harmonic band plays. They are just fine gentlemen and musicians and they played to a very appreciative audience. Check out the crowd!

The Rallies!

I regret to say I didn't see much of their set due to getting my social on. But what I heard did sound excellent. Bradford, the sound tech at Conor Byrne, is so good and the room just sounds great.

Stag took the stage next and of course, they just destroyed. And they are fine folks, each one of them. I've said things about them before and it's still true. Nice dudes and wonderful performers!

STAG. And the club was packed, just not from this picture.

Once Stag got off the stage, we got the ball rolling. We decided to play all the songs from the record, including Darla's Song, which meant Robb had to get his keys setup. Which was fine, but there were problems. He had no sound, so that meant I got to get on the mic and be stupid. Did a bunch of talking because he couldn't figure out what was going on. I thanked people, the bands, a bunch of nonsense. Sad thing is, I sort of love the attention. Doh! We finally played and then he had to switch to his guitar rig. And of course, something went weird. His guitar didn't sound right, so I jumped back on the mic. A few minutes of that and he finally got things up and running.

Cass did up the setlist and had us starting with The Loud Silence, which is a nice, chill way to get into things. I tried warming up a little, mainly by stretching my hands and arms, and not starting with something like Nomenclature helped.

Audio on stage sounded great! The Ashdown/Orange baby amp was fantastic. I could hear my bass and it was lovely. Robb's amp was to his left and leaned back 45°, pointed right at his ear, which also meant it pointed right at me. It was ok, loud, but not too terrible.

We worked our way through the set, there was a full house, and it was fucking awesome. I wish I took some pics from the stage, but I didn't. We had Derrick Miller and Devin Creisler in the house and they always shoot full vids, so those should be upcoming. But Mike Mitchell was there taking pics, as were a bunch of others, so here's some of those. All the PITO pix are a bit too red so imma fix those before posting.

Full house!

Mike Mitchell with me and Tim

The set was fine. I could've been tighter on stuff I did. I felt sloppy. Monitors were better last month but still good; I could hear myself pretty good. I think we all had some awkward moments, but overall went well. People loved it, they really did and it felt so good.

They especially went nuts when Timmy jumped up there. We started with All Amounts to Something and it hit when he started the riff. Really fun to play that with him and get the Embers train back on the track. The cheers were loud and a pretty good preview of what to expect when we play at the Sunset in September. Should be great and well attended.

Next up is Planets with our pals Square Peg, Royal Blunder, The Rallies and Full Life Crisis at Hidden Hall on a Saturday afternoon. Will be a great time!

2026-01-31 Planets in the Ocean at Slim's Last Chance

First show of the year, gonna be hard to top this one! It sort of fell in our lap. We got our new records and sent some to friends and as soon as Ben in Stag got one, he asked us to be part of this show. Pretty awesome as we've played with Stag many times before and they are not only swell dudes, they have excellent songs and bring a great crowd.

It helped that Slim's had recently announced its closure and as a result, shows were being well attended anyway. When I saw a show there a few weeks ago, it was quite packed and great to be a part of. I expected this one would be the same and was not disappointed.

Prior to the show, last Sunday, I woke up and felt a weird pain in my left foot. Long story short, after a trip to urgent care, I was told that I had a "well-corticated lucency through the base of the third metatarsal on the oblique view." In layman's terms, I guess there's a tiny fracture on my middle toe. Fast forward to the end of the week and I have felt no pain since last Sunday. I wore an orthopedic boot during the workday all week, but had no pain other than the pain in the ass of wearing that boot.

Anyway, I had asked Pete Nordstrom to borrow his bass gear since I thought my foot might be dumb, but in hindsight, it was not necessary. That said, he has an Orange Bass Terror (as do I), so I knew how to dial it up for maximum good tones. Plus, he had a sweet Bergantino 212 (so light) and it was a nice paring.

Pete's Orange, Bergantino and my BASS.

Showing up at the club, there were a lot of familiar faces: Mike and Amy, Lisa and Neil, Ted L., Ben and Brian from the Rallies, Jeff Barlow, Steve and Salena, Alan, Bob W., Steve N., Andi W., Dave and Paul from Pop Cycle, Chris E., Jimmy C., among others. Always good to see these folks and added bonus, more bodies in the door!

Even though it was a rock show, there were only us and Stag on the bill as bands. The opener was a DJ, which was actually quite cool as he played tunes we all knew, and it wasn't super loud, so people could talk and mingle beforehand. Right at 9, we took the stage and as always, I wish I had warmed up a bit. Robb wrote a setlist that started off with a couple bangers, and off we went.

I was a tiny bit concerned about my foot, but after those two songs, I realized it was fine. I didn't do any gymnastics but did my fair share of bouncing around. It ended up being fine, no pain, no nothing, all good.

The new G&L BASS (LB-100 body/L-2000 neck marked "BASS") performed excellently. Pete's rig was great as well, though I think I was pretty loud. Robb brought his two new amps, running in stereo and luckily those weren't blasted too much at me. My biggest gripe was the vocals; I couldn't hear myself really well and I think Robb couldn't hear himself at all. Either that or my own lack of hearing had me hearing things that weren't there. People said we sounded fine, so I guess there's that.

Pic by Mike Mitchell

It's 2026, people need better cameras. :D

We debuted a new song called the Mean Machine, that old SE bassist Ben Brunn wrote the lyrics to. It's our first new song since I think the Unraveled/Sit and Spin/Nomenclature trio from a few years ago. I hope there are more coming, as MM came up pretty quickly. It still needs some fleshing out, like adding more to the second verse, and figuring out transitions, but it has some legs and sounds like PITO.

Lots of fun on stage, lots of people enjoying our stuff. We had a couple flubs here and there, but nothing terrible. Robb did come in early on the 2nd verse of the Loud Silence, and Cass and I had to catch up to him, but we covered fine. I think Robb may have had one pop too many prior to us taking the stage, but it's all good.

We got off the stage and lots of kudos. Michael Markley, as he's said before, really loves my playing in a trio setting. Andrew K, the photographer, said he thought playing in Sunset Grooves elevated my playing. He said that in SE, my playing was much more subdued. I told him I played that way so I didn't intrude on Tim's stuff, but in PITO, that's more how I usually play. I don't know if he was goofing or not; he took pictures of us in the studio, so he has seen how I play, but he seemed genuinely surprised. Maybe he forgot?

Stag took the stage next and showed everyone how a really good band performs. All guys, Ben, John, Pete, Rob and Steve, are all so good at what they do individually. Put them together in a group? Really good vibes, that's for sure. They played a fun, loud and heroic set and we all left satisfied and better for it.

The Mighty Stag!

Overall, we sold a bunch of records, gave away a handful, sold some shirts, and had a bunch of talk about doing more shows down the line. Always positive, but we'll see how it shakes out. It's usually a bunch of talk, but who knows? Let's let things happen how they happen. In the meantime, next up is our actual vinyl release at Sleight of Hand, but before that, in early March, I have 2 sub gigs with my old pal Greg Hoy, coming out from CO to play a few shows.

Stay tuned.

COVID and me

Four years in, I finally got COVID. Luckily, 3 days after testing, I feel pretty good. I think it's morphed into a sinus infection, actually.

After my last two weeks of gigs and get-togethers, I guess something got to me. I played a show on Friday with Del Vox, and then on Saturday, made a last-minute decision to go to Tim's to see Craptastica and STAG with Marci.

That ended up being a lot of fun, seeing a lot of friends and musicians, feeling like part of the crowd for a change. I saw Andy, the guy I bought my P bass from a few years ago. He was there to see his guitarist playing for Craptastica. Saw a bunch of other folks as well (Steve/Salena R., Ric, Max, Andi W., Billy M., Chris/Kim, Pete N, Steve M, Stu M), which was cool.

The Mighty STAG

That night, going to bed, I felt a little bit of a sore throat. When I woke up on Sunday, I definitely wasn't feeling great, thinking I had a cold or something. Enough to keep from having adult time with Marci, which was a bummer, but in hindsight, probably the right call.

I went through my day chillin' and thinking about calling off SG practice, but ended up taking some meds and feeling OK enough to go. During practice, we played pretty well, which was good (our last show at the High Dive was not great; videos showed that we were quite rough). I felt pretty good for the most part, kept a mask on, could play and sing well enough. Finished up and headed home and took an expired COVID test and, boom. Two red lines almost immediately.

That test was way expired, though. So I took another test, which was less expired, which also came back positive. I felt like a jerk for not testing earlier and therefore keeping my bandmates from being exposed, but we pretty much stayed apart from each other (despite a quick hug from Jen as I left).

I woke Marci up and she tested at midnight and that was thankfully negative. I've been sleeping in Riley's room since then, holing up downstairs during the day. Work told me to stay at home through Thursday, so that's what I've been doing. Playing Division 2, watching Fallout, resting and trying to feel better.

My symptoms haven't been too terrible. Fever (slight), sore throat (that's gone), stuffy nose (still there). I had a tough night sleeping the first night, but it's been fine the past few nights. Occasionally I feel short of breath, which triggers some light coughing, but overall, it's been no worse than a bad cold. I've had flus that were worse.

I will take a test today and if I'm negative, one more day at home and then work on Friday, probably with a mask on. In the meantime, it's Division 2 time.

Gig report! 8/7/2021 Stereo Embers at Slim's for STAGFEST

There's a wonderful glam/pop/rock/dad band in Seattle called STAG. They have their Summer Stag Party on a yearly basis and we were added to the bill for this year, along with relative newcomers (as a band, but not individuals), the Kathy Moore Super Power Trio, as well as Mark Pickerel and the Peyote 3 (local scene legends in a super group).

Slim's is a biker themed bar in south Seattle, 3-4 miles from the stadiums. The bar/seating area does have a stage, but the cool thing is in the summer, they host shows outside in their "backyard," where the outdoor stage is an old flatbed truck.

Usually they backline equipment and this time, I was glad they did as my Trace Elliot amp took a dump last show. For this gig, I had an Orange Bass Terror and an Ampeg 410 at my disposal and needless to say, they functioned loudly and I left quite satisfied.


The first band up was the Kathy Moore Super Power Trio (please excuse the sound guy and obscured bassist). Aside from an excellent band name, the three women that make up the SPT are stellar musicians as well. Kathy is quite the shredder and threw down on many of the songs in their set (including one in 7/4!). The matching outfits were the cherry on top!

We followed with a powerful set of our own. As I was sharing equipment, I left the amp where it was (high hat side) when usually I'm on the ride side. It doesn't affect me much, but my guitarist is not a fan of being on the opposite side of the stage.



As we started our set, it wasn't dark out yet, so I could see fine. Trouble was, just in front of me on the floor was a LED light that was blasting on and off and was in DIRECT LINE OF SIGHT to my fretboard. It really became an exercise in muscle memory and hand/arm placement by feel for many songs. Add in the fact that I wear my long hair down at shows (not in practice; i should change that!) and I had a definite recipe for not being able to see much of my fretboard.

On a couple of our songs, we hit certain points and I get a little hoppy. The suspension on the aforementioned flatbed truck definitely took the hits of me jumping up and down and transmitted directly to my drummer, who said he had to bolster the snare by squeezing it between his knees! Oops!

We finished our set and reassembled in the crowd to many handshakes and backslaps and selfies. 99% of us were mask-free and going with the flow. I must admit it is a little weird, but I'm getting over it, being so close to everyone and yelling in their ears to be heard.


STAG followed us and, as always, they blew the joint up. They have very finely crafted pop/rock songs and, for Stag Fest, bust out a couple of horn players to supplement. So cool and so well done. So well, in fact, they blew the power for a second and had to source different power about 3 songs in. After that was done, the show continued with more lights, fog and high leg kicks.



Rounding out the night was Mark Pickerel and the Peyote 3. Very excellent alt-country story rock with a very vintage, thumpy bass offered up by Drew Church. They were a nice little post-rock dessert with their pompadour and professional delivery.

Great to be back amongst the hopefully vaccinated masses. Luckily where we live and perform, that is most people and so far, no one is making a big deal of it at the venues yet.

I did get a wildly effusive compliment (possibly enabled by several adult beverages consumed by the complimenter) saying that my playing reminded him of Ronnie Lane, Jack Bruce and Paul McCartney. I can't say I'm influenced directly by any of those men (didn't know who Ronnie Lane was; never got into Cream; only know the big Beatles hits as a casual fan), but was quite humbled by the compliment.

For 18 months away from the stage, I missed it a lot. Having 2 shows in back to back weekends is a great way to get back in the game. We're doing it again in Sept, with back to backs once more. Maybe next time I'll remember to take more pictures (and of food) instead of borrowing off of friend's facebook feeds.