Post-Red Room, pre-Failed Economy Show post. Will do another post-mortem after the Failed Economy Show. (The band will need to discuss how we did, I think.)

Red Room gig went well. Don the blues harp player wasn’t there, but lead guitarist David was, and we were okay. Even lead guitarists have to practice, though; we (and he) could have been better. We had better control over the sound this time, and even though it was a Thursday night we had a good crowd. (And just like last time, the majority of the crowd left after we were done. I don’t know if they were there to hear us, but they sure weren’t there to hear the other bands.)

The two “bands” on after us—an electric guitar soloist, and a drums-and-electric-guitar duo, were way too loud, and we didn’t stick around even to pick up our “pay” (which we expected, like last time, to be minimal). My video camera didn’t work, and Sharma’s got lost, I think, in our haste to get out of there and away from the noise, so no video. It’ll be a little while before I find out how the audio recording came out.

I don’t know where the Portland band is going to go. Perhaps nowhere; it consumes a lot of time, and don’t make a dime—and right now, there isn’t a lead instrument. Maybe I should just go back to concentrating on soliciting solo gigs in the Portland area, and when I get one that has to have a band, re-assemble the band. In the meantime, we can play occasionally for fun. (And I do want to encourage Sharma to play bass.)

We won’t have lead guitarist Jeff at the Failed Economy Show—I had rather expected that, having left messages for over a week that didn’t get returned. I did reach him at the last minute—that’ll teach him to answer the phone without checking who’s calling, I guess. He admitted he’d been avoiding me, feeling guilty about not doing the gig (I didn’t chide him—I have a tendency to do the same avoidance thing). I think Dick, our blues harp player, will do just fine as the lead instrument, though I’m sure people will miss Jeff, and ask about him.

Down the road, I think we can find us a new guitarist; John knows one, and I know one, and we’ll ask ‘em. Or maybe it ought to be a different lead instrument. Any “non-whiny” lead would do—banjo, mandolin, dobro, pedal steel. It really doesn’t matter. (I think I know a banjo player, too.)

On the positive side, the lady who usually films the county commissioners and suchlike public meetings will try to be there with her video equipment; she’s excited about the idea of doing a food bank promotion on cable TV covering two counties (I’d hoped she would be). We’ll have Dick’s video camera there, too. And John got his new mixer—came three weeks earlier than they said it would—and it’ll be better, he thinks, than the Friday Night Group’s PA (and it’s a teeny fraction of the size, too). We’ll have the afternoon to play with the sound if we need to. Maybe time to practice some of the songs again as well.

I have all the songs memorized, I think, having spent every waking minute singing to myself for several days. Can I do them in order in front of a crowd? I hope so.

Jeff’s departure from the local scene does mean there’s an opportunity for a weekly performance at the Ghost Hole tavern. I don’t have a PA system, though—but I know someone who’s getting a new one, and I have let her know I’d be interested in her old one, if it was cheap enough. (She is aware I am waydam cheap—and unemployed to boot.) With that, I could do it—and maybe attract others. There is a crowd—a small one—that has gotten used to having live music at the Ghost Hole on Wednesday nights. It’d be good to not disappoint them.

Joe