Calvin's Weblog

Yawn... must blog... so sleepy... must blog now...

No, I'm not sleepy - I'm just lazy. Or more acurately, I just think I'm probably doing y'all a favour by NOT telliing you about the wonderful crepes I made this morning, or the movie I watched yesterday.
But occasionally, I realize that maybe my life's not really as blase as I think it is. For instance, I feel like I've had a pretty laid back weekend with not much to write about - well, we visited David in the hospital yesterday, and we went to Carole's step brother Chris' engagement party last night, but other than that I've either been drunk, hungover, sleepiing, watching movies, or cooking crepes.

Of course, there WAS the Scarecrow Balcony gig at the Marine club Friday night... now THAT was fun! I honestly did not have very high expections of the gig... I know it's a small venue, we got really late notice and didn't tell many people that we were playing, plus the other two bands were accoustic, and I really didn't think that our style of music would go over well with their crowds. I envisioned us getting through a song or two, before the whole place cleared out.
Well, I learned something new about people that night... because we got the best reception, the most compliments, and the most amount of people up in front of the stage bouncing around than I have seen in a long time.
Anyway, since I was so sure that the gig would likely turn out to be a glorified rehearsal in front of an empty room. I had kinda started drinking at lunch time annd didn't really stop or slow down until we went on stage about midnight-ish. I honestly never drink much before going on stage, but this time I thought aw, there's nothing to lose - let's just see how I do... so by time I stepped up, I had about a case of beer in me. We played the whole first song with Wayne and I in two different tunings, and so the gig started off exactly as disasterous as I had imagined. I must confess, by the end of the 2nd song, I really didn't even want to be there. There were a lot more people in the crowd that I thought there'd be, and I was convinced that I was making a fool out of myself - but then something strange happened - we played a new song that we haven't really ever been able to get down smoothly - in fact, in rehersal, more time than not, we can't even finish it - I said we should do it anyway because I figured fuckit, nothing to lose now - but we actually pulled it off, and really well too! A couple of people came up to the front of the stage to 'dance' (if yo u can call it that) and all the people hanging back were boppin' their heads and pumping their hands - it looked like we were actually entertaining them!
Collin from OmegaCrom brought a round of beers to the stage for us - I always love it when someone from the audience buys the band drinks, though I was already kinda spinning... we just played harder and faster, and though we had some pretty good mistakes in the first half of the set, we miraculously made them all sound like they were supposed to be part of the songs. By the second half of the set, we definetely had a vibe going.
We had planned a surprise ending a few nights earlier when we were rehearsing. A guy who works with Ron dropped by for a quick beer, and he said "Hey, you know any Sabbath?" - Well, we all know lots of Sabbath, and we've agreed never ever to play Paranoid again, and while we all know a bunch, we'd never tried to play anything other than Paranoid before. I started playing a riff that I remember ed was Sabbath, but I didn't even remember what song it was - in fact, I didn't even really know the song - I only knew the riff... Wayne instantly came in with the guitar part, and Ron was right there with the drums. We pulled it off near flawlessly, and when we were done, and the guy was all "woo hoo, that rawked! that was great!" - we had a good laugh at the fact that not a one of us had ever played that song before - it's just one of those songs that we've all heard so many times that every change, every note, and every word was ingrained deep in our brains. I had to asks though, "Okay - what was that song called?" I think everybody put me in my place in unison: "N.I.B., dude!" ... hey, wouldn't it be kewl to close a a show with that song?
So anyway, back to the stage... I surprised everyone by pulling a wah pedal out of my kit bag and slapping it inline just for the last song - I think I did it surreptitiously enough that nobody noticed... in fact, Carole told me later that when I started, a friend of ours, Dr. K. leaned over and said to her "Calvin's playing a Wah?" and she said - No, he must be doing something with his fingers... he doesn't play bass with a wah" - aha, even fooled my wife :-)
So for those of you that know the song, you know N.I.B. starts off with a bass solo called 'Basically' - I didn't know it any more than I knew NIB, but I think I had the gist, and while we hadn't rehearsed it, it only took about 4 notes with the Wah before someone in the audience shouted "Oh Yeah!!" and jumped up hootin. By time it kicked in to the actual NIB riff (even before guitar and drums start) about a half a dozen more people had figured out what I was doing and started cheering their approval, and by time everyone kicked in to the song, half the crowd had moved forward and was dancing in front of the stage - IT FELT GOOOOOD !!!!!

It was one hell of a way to end a night. It's what being a musician is ALL about, And it just goes to show you that a drunk pessimist can still be taught a thing or two about people. And we even got paid - how cool is that?

So Sage - this entry long enough for ya? LOL - I'm just kinda rambling right now - but I must admit, it's pretty fun to remember that show, even though a half an hour ago, I was thinking that the weekend has been pretty boring.

Oh, gotta run - we're catching the Matrix matinee in an hour. Talk to everyone soon!