my Steal Your Space book

Thursday night at Carroll’s and we had to start at 9:00 because Carroll’s was booked with several acts that were filling the studio with lots of people.  When we got there we faced a bunch of dressed up Fiddler on the Roof / Charles Dickens / Amish child actors who all seemed overly happy.  If you ask me, I think they were Scientologists.  In any case, they had enough pull to bump Deadstein to a 9:00 start.  At the beginning of the night Scott was wondering if that meant we could play till 1:00 am.  I’m sure we could have played till 1:00 if we wanted, but come 11:30, Scott was dead on his feet, all sorts of puns intended.

Hey, if Scott was dead on his feet at 11:30, I was Dead on my feet at 9:00, battling a cold that was just past its peak.  January was a rough month for me.  At least my foot felt good.  Yeah, I came in with a bad cold, kept to myself all night, trying not to contaminate others, and the entire evening was foggier than usual.  Usually it is foggy the day after, but I was in a fog during the whole night.  Focusing and reading the book was nearly impossible and my brain was all over the place leading my fingers down paths with no escape.  It was tough to play but I was trying to take it in stride, not letting it bother me too much and in the end I had a good time.  Singing on the other hand was tough. The dry air mixed with the fluid in my lungs lead to many a choking moment.  My sides are hurting this morning from so much hacking.

Al D. joined us as our guest for the night but he had to scoot out by 11:00 or so to catch a serious 11:30 massage; the tough life of Al D.  Good to see him.  The other Alan, Al W., was sporting his Strat, wammy and all.  Rich was totally decked out for the night sporting an upright piano, instead of the traditional grand, and he also got a Korg B3 simulating keyboard, with drawbars and all.  It was a nice soothing sound through the night.  Scott had the nice maroon kit on the maroon Oriental rug and Kevin is still wearing ear plugs and a beard but the facial asymmetry is virtually gone.

For all the sounds we had going in the room, it seemed that we were all open to letting it happen without overpowering it and we had a surprisingly good mix throughout the night.  I was able to hear both keys and the vocals out of the monitor to my left and sonically I was pretty comfortable throughout the night, considering my physical condition.

We meandered into a Dancing in the Streets as our first song and Scott sang us through the whole thing.  It was a nice way to get our feet wet and warmed up.  Somewhere in the middle we pulled out the If I Had the World to Give sheet that I updated earlier. It was an OK first effort at that write-up from a song structure perspective.  I was fairly happy with it.  Unfortunately, the spaghetti in my head at the time was a tremendous hindrance on my ability to lead us through it precisely.  Nevertheless, I’m happy with what happened.  Forever Young was the knockout blow at 11:40 that made the Scarlet that closed the night a song that was also dead on its feet, pun fully intended.

If you want to hear what we played, it’s available at the following:

Looking forward to some clear crisp night to close out the winter.