An hour past showtime. I will never, ever, ever play into microphones outdoors ever again in my career as a bitchy little folk singer. The student tech crew could inexplicably not get either of our guitars to come in via our pickups, so we had to mic them both with microphones. Now, i dunno if you’ve ever seen me play before, but i shimmy around like a belly dancer with a cricket put down the back of my shirt, so giving me a stationary microphone to play my guitar at is the worst idea you could ever have. Furthermore, they couldn’t even get our vocal mics to come out of the monitors in front of us, so i couldn’t hear Gina singing anything directly, just from off to the side. After sitting there strumming a G chord for ten minutes while the sound guys did everything but get us any sort of monitor mix we could hear, we finally decided to start and see what happened.
“Punk” was a thankfully quick crash and burn, though at that point we were assuming the monitor problem would get fixed. In our naivety we managed to get some good harmony going. However, the set took a downturn during “Deadweight” when two obnoxious guys were standing directly in front of us having a conversation and we still couldn’t hear ourselves playing. I, of course, started directing all of the lyrics right at the conversationalists – which wound up getting their attention rather quickly (they especially looked up when i screamed “i can’t get rid of you even if i want to, cause your deadweight the way you serve no purpose”). “With or Without You” was quick and rather painless for me because Gina was singing, but i couldn’t hear her guitar so i didn’t know what the hell was going on. “Lost” sucked because i couldn’t hear my guitar over the reverb of our voices (which finally found their way into the monitor), so i basically just played it quick and angry (which generally works well). I stalked off to retune after that and Gina bravely attempted “Landslide” solo while the wind dueted into her microphone, after which i came jogging back onto the stage for a very brave attempt at “Under My Skin” (in which the solo was rendered totally moot because Gina had no pickup for her acoustic guitar so we couldn’t hear what she was playing). After that we were supposed to play another 20 minutes of songs, but i was basically just muttering “fuck” under my breath inbetween every lyric and Gina was totally frustrated, so we hammered out “Can’t Do” and walked right off the front of the staging area without even saying thank you. Yep… i’m a rock star in training; i’ve got the attitude and everything.
The next band’s instruments all plugged in fine and the band sounded wonderful, even though they had too much reverb. There was a chick guitarist in the last band, but i was too pissed to hang around much longer. Somehow i managed to sell fifteen demos in the midst of all of this, but that leaves me with mucho extra copies, so get your orders in now. Ugh.
performance
The concert countdown is now officially underway! Seven and a half hours and counting until Gina and I take the stage awash in fame and record high temperatures. Am i nervous? Possibly; i’ve basically invited everyone i know to come see us play this tiny acoustic set of songs and we’re playing in the midst of some Drexel bands who i’m a minor-league fan of. And we’ve never done harmony on “Punk,” “Under My Skin,” “Never Say Goodbye,” or “A Perfect Day” live before. But, no reason to be alarmed – after all, part of the charm of acoustic musicians is their ability to entangle and then unknot themselves from oddball onstage situations without ever breaking a sweat. Or, at least, they don’t break a sweat from the stress. The heat might get to them, though.
Errr… right. 5:30 today between Market and Chestnut & 33rd and 32nd. 42 demos available for a to-be-decided price. And me pretending i’m a rock star.
Um, so, i’m in negotiations to play the Benefit for the Philadelphia Dyke March. Yes, the Benefit for the Philadelphia Dyke March – it’s honestly been referred to that several times during my discussion with its organizers. After some amount of intra-office discussion with my supervisor, we decided that in the office i’ll be referring to the event as the “Lesbian Fundraising Gala.” Maybe i can convince her to refer to it as the “Lesbo Ball” on casual Fridays?
In tangentally related office news, the ceiling above our administrative secretary partially collasped early this morning, and facilities has yet to do anything about it. It’s a drop ceiling (mostly because the old ceiling is too damned high to effectively light a room), and the hypothesis currently floating around the office is that one of the vertical supports gave way, cause the ceiling to sag downward where it’s no longer held up. Our secretary escaped to an empty office down the hall, but her fish has been relocated to the relative safety of my desk. He is a beta fish, and he does not look very happy, but that’s sort of the novelty of beta fishes anyhow.
Fridays here are odd.
And, finally, Tiffany (yes, Tiffany) will be playing a free Drexel show on Monday at noon between 32nd and 33rd streets under Market street. I’ll be there on my lunch break pretending that i’m reliving the 80’s as someone old enough to appreciate their irony rather than as a six year old who really enjoys watching She-Ra. Feel free to join me.
I’m starting to feel famous. Or, more accurately, people are actually starting to know and recognize my songs. Sure, it’s not hundreds of people, but i have enough of a market for the upcoming disc that i’m actually looking into getting it printed rather than just burning them one by one. The fact that i played “Under My Skin” last night twice and that people sang along makes it that much better. Amy thinks it’s an ego thing, but honestly i’m just happy that all of my sonic toiling is finally having an effect on people. Not quite a rock star yet, but i’ve got some years left before i get my diploma to work on it :p
I started playing “Hold on Me” and Selina walked into the shop halfway through the first verse. Have you ever played a song written about your ex-girlfriend while you still really liked her in the same room with her after the breakup? Well… you’d think it’d be really fun, but really it was an exercise in subtly changing lyrics to reflect the current situation, and keeping your eyes pressed shut tightly so you don’t have to look at her. After i launched immediately into “Splinter” Selina eventually left the shop, and Gina got me to lay off the mean relationship songs. However, we then played “Under My Skin” again and i performed the “i don’t miss you anymore” extended mix (much to Gina’s confusion and delight). The first time i ever sang the song in this fashion was to Selina when we first started seeing each other, and the “miss you anymore” was my way of telling myself i finally was over Laurel. The demo version is much more conflicted at that point of the song, because it was physically sung to Laurel, who i was over but still very pleased to serenade. The version last night brought me full circle back to sitting in Selina’s dorm room with my guitar, pouring out my heart to her. It was empty for a while, but i hear refills are free.