Punk show last night

Last night I went to a pretty sick show at the Sugar Mill Saloon. The show was sponsored by Demon Candy Promotions. I was around for three bands. All great. 

The first band was Kittenhead. They're a female-led group consisting of a white chick frontwoman singer, a black chick guitarist, an Asian chick bassist, and a white dude on drums. Talk about diversity! I actually haven't seen a band like that live before. The guitarist and bassist kept switching off instruments. They were proficient at guitar and bass, both of them. However, the Asian chick was the better guitarist. But the black chick was funkier. 

They reminded me of the 90s bands fronted by women like The Cars. But they had a more punk rock edge. The three girls sang vocals and sometimes they switched off between lead vocals. The black chick even had songs where she rapped. And she was good. And funky with her guitar playing. They weren't terrific or remarkable in any particular way. Rather, they were the perfect rock band. Perfect in the sense that you know that these musicians aren't remarkable on their own. However, when they come together as a band they are greater than the sum of their parts. Wowie zowie! 

The second band was called Rosemary Reyes. Loudest band I've ever heard in my life. The guitarist even told me outside the bar that he couldn't hear himself. "Did it sound good?" Sure did, buddy. Okay, first of all, this band is one of a kind and I will never see another band quite like it. For starters, the band is fronted by a 72-year-old woman! 

The guitarist was quite good. He was playing an old 1950s guitar, possibly a Silvertone from the looks of it. He had a Vox half stack setup. He had a great fuzzed-out guitar tone emanating throughout the place. Honestly, his guitar playing was carrying the whole band from start to finish. The old lady singing was doing a punk rock snarl throughout every song. I couldn't understand a word. It was all gibberish. So much for punk rock. BUT...the fact that she's fronting a punk band at that age is freaking inspiring. She's a true inspiration. Even though I wasn't a fan of her vocals she looked cool and even sounded cool. 

I was very impressed with the guitar player. He was playing punk rock so his guitar playing was limited to just hardcore rhythms, power chords, and open chords. He did do one solo but it was like maybe ten seconds long. But he made it sound so good. His guitar was an old 1950s model. It's quite fascinating how those old guitars from the 50s actually look futuristic like they could've been made in 2020. Those were the days. They were so loud. I've never seen a band play there that sounded so loud. It was quite good. The young drummer killed it with a lot of hardcore fills. The bassist was very good as well. Talk about fuzz tone.

The last band was Swords of Fatima. The group consists of a girl singing and playing guitar with just a drummer. Because it's just a duo it sounds more rock and roll, more visceral, more raw, more punk rock, maybe even more blues. I didn't stay for the whole set but the drummer was on point. And her guitar playing was great, especially her rhythms. 

It was late and I called it a night. A good show indeed. You can listen to these bands on YouTube but those videos aren't as good as the real, live, thing. Women in rock and roll are pretty damn cool. 

A Hard Day's Night

Salutations. I just wanted to jot down some notes about a good open mic I played last night. I performed with my friend Jason Thomas. He's an excellent alto saxophonist player. The night started early for us. We got to the Sugar Mill Saloon bar around 10 pm. We ended up waiting until nearly 1am to perform. We had beer.

There were a lot of performers. Most of them were comedians. Terrible comedians. But there was one fat comedian who kept making jokes about how he's bisexual. Things got pretty awkward. However, he was the funniest comedian so I give that guy props. 

Eric Shaffer played a terrific set on his shiny Stratocaster guitar. He does improv with loops and pedals. He makes beats by drumming on his guitar and sliding his hands on the strings. He's quite good at it. He even wears a suit coat.

We ended up going on around 1am. There was still a decent amount of people. How the heck does this bar bring 15-20 people on a Tuesday night? Even staying till nearly one in the morning? I guess the open mic is getting popular. I used my Hagstrom Super Swede Les Paul and a bass amp. However, my guitar tone was super clean, too clean, because I plugged in my guitar in the low input jack. A female friend of mine who's also a good musician said my guitar tone needed more bite. Should've brought a distortion pedal she said, lol. Clearly, she's clueless? Lol.

In terms of my guitar tone, I thought it was good for what we were doing. Which was straight-ahead jazz. We played Footprints by Wayne Shorter and Freddie Freeloader by Miles Davis. 

Jason's tone was good per usual. You can hear him on my recordings from Soundcloud. However, a good musician friend of mine said that when he was soloing and I was comping, that it seemed like we were just getting into it when I returned back to the theme and ended the tune. It's good criticism but we also had a time limit. I was limiting the songs to about ten minutes each. We played for a considerable time. Considering.

Are you supposed to feel great after a performance? I usually feel really great after playing an open mic, and then the next couple days after. It's the one outlet I have to perform music in front of an audience. I really need to be playing in a band but I've not the organizational ability to form a band nor the time to really invest in a serious gigging band. One day soon I hope to play in a band. That's really all I need. I have the talent already.  

A lot of times after performing I critique my playing pretty hardcore. I would say that my friend Jason is a better musician than I am, certainly a better jazz musician. But I also think that because of his conservatory training, sometimes when he performs live, especially with new people for the first time, he comes across kind of stiff. But that's okay. At least our set sounded great. We've only been rehearsing for a year together, lol. 

After the bar shenanigans, a bunch of us went to an after-party at a friends' house. I usually get home safe and sound through a friend of mine. But she was in a rush to get home so I ended up sleeping over and taking off in the morning. I live a few blocks away but carrying my amplifier and wearing my guitar on my back was rough walking home today in the hot afternoon sun. I tried to get my friend to call a lyft ride for me but he claimed his phone was dead. You don't get to party all night long hard without facing some repercussions. So I guess the moral of the story is that when your lady friend checks out for the night, you should always go with her. 

And that's all she wrote.