Virgo & Pisces Show Last Night, comma, Why Blog

Resolved: the Ramble-logue will be used for honest consideration and reflection of where Renegade Minstrels are at as a band--I want this to be genuine and real as the music is, and not an internet ploy that advertises my band. I'm going to bet that the Ramble-logue will be much more interesting and engaging if I tell it like it is, like my great folkster forebears did and do, n' taught me to, than try and sell you on what we want this band to be. This is the Great Compression we're living in--front all you want, the seething webs will ultimately reveal who you are.

That brings me to last night's gig at Virgo & Pisces Restaurant. There was no way to know two months ago, when I booked the show, that the Blazers would be playing a do or die game 6 on Thursday, May 30. But they were, which meant that by 9pm when we were due to play, the place was fairly full of people who had just sat around for 2 hours watching the game on a big projector screen. We started to play, our six friends stayed, and a few strangers stuck around to check us out.

Dang, we're getting paid a percentage of the bar tab, we're not going to make a dime, there's barely 10 people here and few passing through. At least we got free food. The fact that it's a rather nice little place on the corner of a busy intersection that has a stage and its own sound system makes it more painful--"Damn, wish we could had a good night here in order to get asked back." We play our first set, during which my high E string snaps = awkward pause to put on a new string... You probably understand by now that the gig ain't lookin' too good.

Somehow, it turns around. The bartender, Brian, who booked us, is generous and buys us a round of drinks, and at night's end he pays us $20 apiece and says he thinks we rock, he'd like to have us back. I talk to him and we both understand that playing a show on a Last Thursday (meaning big crowds across town up on Alberta St, few folks on NW 21st) the night of the Blazers' last game of the playoffs is less than ideal. We're going to set something up for a weekend gig there in June, and there's even talk of perhaps a monthly Thursday slot.

Now my challenge is to find a clear and concise way to lay out these overlapping stories of the different places we play and how each venue changes the times that we get asked back, how one gig leads to another, how the audience waxes and wanes, the personnel fluctuate, the press won't give us the time of day, rehearsals are never a chore or a bore, the recording studio becomes a mighty frustrator, the interactions between bandmates, the clashing visions, the flashing moments of stiletto harmony... Is that a story you'd like to hear? Because I will tell it true.

Fortune is a strange beast. I love that I never know where our music work will lead.