Still Pluggin' Away

Despite the debacle in Grand Coulee, and the cancellation of the Tukwila gig, we have survived, we're still a band, and even after a lengthy hiatus, we still know how to play music.

So far as I know, we have only one gig in the pipeline at this time, but thankfully, I don't have to worry about the gigs any more. I'm happy to announce that Cheryl, our principal guitarist, has consented to serve as the band's business manager. This is a good thing, because a) I'm terrible at it and b) I have more time to deal with the music from a bandleader's perspective.

That's all I have to report at this time.

World Tour!!

SMALL PET ADVISORY
WORLD TOUR 2007

July 8 - Federal Way, WA
August 5 - Lacey, WA
August 11 - West Seattle, WA
August 19 - Lake Morton, WA
August 24 - Grand Coulee, WA
September 19 - Tukwila, WA

Now hiring roadies. Get on board, y'all.

Wintergrass

Who ever heard of an indoor bluegrass festival? For that matter, who ever heard of an bluegrass festival in the winter? Well, here in the pacific northwest, we have Wintergrass, which is an indoor bluegrass festival held in February in Tacoma at the Sheraton and other nearby venues including a church and the Marriot. A subset of the band (Barb, Joe, and myself) and Laura Grace attended Wintergrass on Saturday, and we had a pretty good time.

Having been to Adventure Bluegrass last summer, we were not new to the idea of a bluegrass festival, but since the venue was indoors, we were not entirely sure what to expect. It turns out that Wintergrass is much larger and well-attended than Adventure Bluegrass was (though, to be fair, Adventure Bluegrass is under new management and they're still trying to grow it), and as such, there were a lot more shows and vendors and there were workshops, too. Being indoors, I think, makes it easier to hold lots of workshops, so I think it works.

The cost for the single day was $60 per adult, which seems steep, but probably is not bad if you attend workshops all morning and then see all the shows. However, Saturday, at least this year, was not the best day for workshops; all the really good ones were on Friday. Although we spent about eight hours at the festival, almost none of that was at workshops; I spent about 1/2 hour in the "How to get a custom guitar" workshop because it sounded interesting. We wandered around all the vendors, though, and Joe and I both entered the raffle. He was trying for the Beard Resonator, and I for the Deering Maple Blossom banjo. Who knows? I'd love to win a free banjo. Oh, and it was pretty cool that Dusty Strings, my favorite Seattle acoustic music shop, had a large booth at the festival.

So, we spent the rest of the time watching shows. We probably should have stayed and seen more shows, but frankly, by the time we were done with the three we saw before the dinner break, Laura Grace was asleep and so were the rest of our butts. Owing to that, we bailed at the dinner break.

The first show we saw was Lee Highway, which did a bunch of old-timey traditional bluegrass tunes. That meant I was tickled pink, and Laura Grace was ambivalent. They did a whole bunch of old Flatt & Scruggs tunes, including "Earl's Breakdown", which was awesome, along with some Bill Monroe and all manner of other old bluegrass standards. My favorite was "God Loves His Children", where the banjo player put down his banjo and picked up a flattop (just like Earl) to add his picking to 4-part gospel harmony. If I could learn to pick that way, Small Pet Advisory could totally do that song. In any case, I really liked this band.

The next band was Crooked Still. They're kind of a weird band; I would describe them as "newgrass". They have a singer, a banjo player, a cello player and a bass player. They border on bluegrass blasphemy, and yet I not only don't find them objectionable, I quite enjoyed their show. Laura Grace really enjoyed their show; she perked right up and paid attention the whole time. Mostly, I think she liked watching the wacky cello player who got really wild on the faster songs. We liked this band so much that Joe went and purchased two of their CDs, one of which has been looping in my card since we left the festival. Every member of the band exhibits mastery of their instrument. The cello player can really play the hell out of that thing, and the bass player was one of the best upright bass players I've seen to date. The banjo player plays with four fingers instead of the usual three you see with Scruggs style players, which gave him a speed advantage. I'd liken his banjo playing to something like a cross between Doug Dillard and Bela Fleck.

The final band we saw was Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, a band that apparently has been around for 35 years or so. They were very polished and professional. They came out on staged and immediately started up and played three songs in quick succession before any of them said anything. It was pretty impressive just how well they had their act together, given that it was still before dinner. If this was before dinner, I imagine the acts after dinner were probably quite superb. Not only were they good musicians (and I mean good), they had really good comic timing as well. I'm sad to say, I couldn't tell you even one of the songs they did, but they were all really good. I'd definitely recommend this band to anybody that likes good solid bluegrass.

So, all the shows we saw were really good. I'm a little bummed that we didn't stick around, because Uncle Earl was playing around 8:00, and I really like them. But, even if we only saw three stage shows, we got to hear a lot more music than just that. Just about anywhere you could fit three or four people in the lobby of the hotel, there were impromptu jams going on. There were all kinds of people there with their instruments (not us, we just wanted to spectate today). There was even a group of kids playing Cripple Creek. Well. As in, way better than we play it. It was both heartening and discouraging. I mean, I liked watching them and all, but these were like 7-8 year old kids, and they were good.

All in all, I'm glad we went, and I want to go next year, only next year I'm taking Friday off and I'm buying a weekend pass and I'm going to have the whole Wintergrass experience. I hope the rest of the band wants to go, too.

Lessons learned!

The way I figure it, every band train-wrecks a gig at some point. (Not every aspect of every performance at this gig qualified as a train wreck, but I agree with Herr Kapellführer that the overall impression wasn't what we were going for.) Anyway, not to be too Pollyannish about it, what's important to me is that we figure out things we can do to deal with the things that went pear-shaped. Sometimes that's "fix them" and other times it's "accept that this will happen".

Problem 1: Travel

We might not be able to do gigs in Tacoma on weeknights.¹ We all had to leave work much earlier than we can regularly afford to do, and we were all late anyway.

I also need to not get the bandleader lost.

Problem 2: Audience

Masonic audiences don't really "get" performance, and we can't expect them to. The Most Worshipful Grand Master isn't going to understand, or care, that trying to shake hands with a performer in the middle of a song is an appalling gaffe on his part. We do need to figure out what level of "performance mode" we need to be in, and act accordingly; i.e., brushing off, as politely but promptly as we can, chatty people when we are getting ready to go on.

Also, I am pretty sure that a half-hour set is longer than any Masonic audience will tolerate. (I'm thinking back to how squirmy people get at the Friendship Dinner.) Our patron might have wanted a half-hour set and not understood, himself, that his crowd would mutiny. At Masonic functions, we should probably plan for much shorter sets (20 minutes) and have backup material for "encores" with the understanding that we probably won't be asked to play encores.

Our leader shortened our set perfectly. It's no fun to have to do, but we did it exactly right.

I'm not convinced that playing for social hour or refreshment is a good idea. Our older members don't like background music. I don't enjoy doing it. On the other hand, every band has to learn to deal with playing in a noisy environment where no one is listening. :) And, it was a great opportunity to test out our shaky songs.

Problem 3: Logistics

If we are playing for social hour, shouldn't we and the social hour be in the same room?

Let's insist on knowing the exact schedule with exact times: when we should arrive and set up, when dinner will be served, and when we should start playing. Let's be more precise than "after dinner". Oh yes, the schedule will slip; I've never seen a Masonic dinner served on time. But it gives us all an idea of what to expect, what to aim for, and where to try to be when. Laying out the full schedule for our patron might alert him that the set he's requested will make the evening run too late, and it may prompt him to be more communicative with us if there are changes to what we're expecting.

We should allow ourselves time beforehand for a real warm-up and sound check.

It might have been better if we had eaten quickly and gotten on stage earlier, maybe after the entrée dishes were cleared and while dessert was being served.

I felt rude packing up and leaving right after we finished, but I'll defer to the wishes of the band if we all agree that that's how we want to do it. :)

Problem 4: Material

Songs that seem to be of a reasonable length become way too long when we play them slowly, e.g., Arkansas Traveler. We should time them in rehearsal and either speed them up, trim them down, or cut them from the set.

If we don't all have our breaks solid enough to play them very loudly, the instrumental and breaks-heavy songs turn into very very long muddy runs of nothing but rhythm. Seriously, the audience has no idea what's going on or why we're still playing rhythm, because they can't hear any melody happening. We should attack this in a variety of ways: shoring up our individual breaks, shortening the breaks, trimming breaks out of songs if they're not ready, learning to play a lot louder, and dropping marginal songs from the set list altogether.

It's a shame to put our best songs toward the end and end up having to cut them, but there's probably nothing we can do about that.

Problem 5: Stage fright and other realities

Let's make our "dress rehearsal" environment closer to a stage setup. We sound different when we are all facing the same direction rather than in a circle. We're further away from our music stands when we're onstage and we didn't realize they'd be harder to read. We need a set list to be visible somewhere at all times, in large print, and our lead sheets might need to be in larger print also.

Our bandleader got used to doing the break-order from memory in rehearsal, but casual memorization failed under pressure. Either memorize it rigorously, or force yourself to use the lead sheets all the time so you're in the habit of it...?

Don't try to rewrite the song while playing it. :) If you miss a section, it's over, let it go. The FMB debacle shows why it's important to pick the song back up as you've practiced it to get yourself back on track as quickly as possible.

We should consider having a no-alcohol policy. It didn't calm my nerves at all, it just messed me up more.

Let's figure out ways to encourage each other and keep our energy up when the audience's responsiveness is low.

Problem 6: Morale

I'd really like it if we could build in time afterwards to go out (for coffee or whatever) and briefly regroup/postmortem immediately after the show, rather than individuals going home and moping about how much worse they think they did than was actually the case. :)

________
¹ Yes, I've accepted gigs in Tacoma and Coupeville on weeknights in February... but those are events I have to go to anyway and I'm prepared to solo 'em if need be. Those might not be suited to the entire band for that exact reason.

Our First "Real" Gig (or Confessions of a Frustrated Banjo Player)

We had our first "real" gig tonight. By real, I mean that I got cold-called by somebody who had heard about us second-hand, and wanted to hire us. Also, by real, I mean we had a two-part show, the social hour when nobody would be listening to us and the Big Show after dinner where the room would be quiet and all eyes would be on us.

We accepted the gig, but made sure our patron understood we wouldn't accept payment, because frankly, we're not there yet. I don't know about the rest of the band, but I was just happy for the opportunity, and it was pretty cool that this particular person thought of us.

We have worked for about the past month on learning some new songs, so our set list went like this:

Social Hour

• Keep On The Sunny Side
• Banjo In The Hollow
• Cripple Creek
• Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms
• Dooley
• Boil The Cabbages
• Clinch Mountain Backstep
• Dueling Banjos

The Big Show

• Foggy Mountain Breakdown
• Get Out The Map
• Arkansas Traveler
• Love Of The Common People
• Uncle Chuck's Band
• I'll Fly Away

So, we were to be there at 5:00 p.m. to set up, tune all the instruments and generally figure the place out and start playing at 5:30.

We'd have been there roughly on time if we hadn't gotten lost. Mapquest apparently doesn't actually know its way around Tacoma. So, instead of getting there at 5:00 or 5:10 and being able to set up and tune at a reasonable pace, we got there at 5:25, and had to hurry. By the time we got to the place, I was already bat-shit looney, and the adrenaline was flowing. So, when it was time to start playing, I was in a state, and not a good one.

We played the social hour set, and did pretty okay. But, see, nobody was really listening. So, nothing to be nervous about. Barb did great with the opening mandolin solo on Keep On The Sunny Side and we were off and running. We skipped Clinch Mountain, and went right into Banjo In The Hollow, which went okay, except I forgot that we had dropped the fiddle break in that one, but we recovered and I don't think anybody noticed. Cripple Creek went great, Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms went fine. We skipped Dueling Banjos, and played Dooley, which went really well considering I threw it onto the set list kind of as an afterthought. Our closer, Boil The Cabbages, we all know really well, and we got applause for that one.

We had a little more time that I thought we had, so Chuck and I went ahead and played Clinch Mountain Backstep, which went predictably south, but it was okay because a) nobody was listening, and b) the Grand Master of Masons in Washington wanted to shake my hand in the middle of the song. (After we finished that one, I went over and greeted him, with picks still on. I'm not sure what was up with that.)

Since there was still a little time before dinner, Joe and I did Dueling Banjos, which went better than it did at dress, so that was really cool.

So, at halftime, the score was Band - 1, Room - 0.

We had a lovely dinner of swiss steak and all the usual trimmings, and of course, there was cake. I even had a gin and tonic, hoping that it might calm me down a little bit.

It didn't work. At all.

Faux pas #1: Some guy was talking guitars with me, and I missed our introduction. That was just brilliant.

So, I introduced our first piece, Foggy Mountain Breakdown and launched right into it. I've probably played this song at least a million times, and I can practically play it in my sleep. I mean, really, I can just throw it on autopilot and even smile at the crowd, usually. Not tonight. The opening was crap, my first break was tenuous at best, by the second one, I was playing it as well as I was eight months ago, and then it was time for Chuck's fiddle break, so I tried to regroup. When his break was over, I tried to rehabilitate my opening breaks by playing them right this time, and postponed the cool up-the-neck break for the next one.

That turned out to be a really bad idea, because after Joe's dobro break, I played the cool up-the-neck break really badly, and then for no good reason decided the song was over. Never mind that Chuck had another fiddle break _and_ I had another break after that. So, the band's still playing after I finish with the big flourish.

Shit.

I mean, really. It takes no talent to read and execute a lead sheet. None at all; it only requires one to be aware of the surrounding world. And, I jacked it up. It made a very nice first impression. The kicker is, I have no idea how the rest of the band did on that one. :(

So, I introduced Cheryl and we started Get Out The Map. Well, until I realized that I hadn't capo'd up. Faux pas #2: I stopped us, made a weak joke about the banjo player being the dumb one, and put my capo on.

Well, surprisingly, after a bit of a rocky start, I think we did okay on that one, and Cheryl sounded great, and I think we got some applause. I managed not to totally munge the ending, which I guess is a victory of sorts.

So, the next song was Arkansas Traveler. Our arrangement is pretty much a rip-off of the one on Michelle Shocked's album; we play a verse of Arkansas Traveler, and then there's a joke, and then another verse, and another joke, repeat until you run out of jokes, and then the big finish. We got the jokes pretty good, but our little breaks were, again, pretty tenuous, and we were really close to just falling apart. Faux pas #3: Playing a song with 7 break/jokes too slowly and without enough preparation. We pretty much lost the audience about half way through this one. It's too long, we're going to have to shorten it, or we're going to have to play it much faster and much better to hold their interest. I think we can rehabilitate it, though.

As I was switching from banjo to guitar for the next song, and introducing the song, I got a tap on the should from our patron, and he said "The Grand Master would like to move on to the next part of the meeting as it's getting late, so one more song."

I'll never know if it was really a time thing, or if somebody hit the gong on us, but in any case it was definitely not confidence-inspiring.

I made a command decision, and we scrapped Love of the Common People and Uncle Chuck's Band, which is really sad, as Cheryl and I kick ass on the former, and the whole band kicks ass on the latter. But, I felt like this room really wanted I'll Fly Away. This turned out to be good judgment, because we are _startlingly_ good on this song. I never expected it, but I'm so proud of the band on this one. It was awesome, and we got good applause. I made some parting remarks (needs more applause, please) and we were out of there.

Okay, so, all of that should tell you where my head was the whole night. I wasn't much of a band-leader tonight, I was just a banjo player struggling with my time to suck or shine, and, well, I didn't shine.

I think if I'd had a better idea of just how much music they really wanted, I could have done a better job of putting together a show. I think we could have planned four songs for the Big Show, and done them really well. But, because I was under the impression that they wanted a half-hour, I had to scramble around and put some marginal songs in the rotation.

Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what my point is, but really, I just want to express how frustrated I am with my inability to be a leader under pressure, and my inability to make my hands do what they need to do when I'm stressed.

As I make this post, I'm not sure I can do this any more. :(

Bluegrass Festival!!!

A subset of the band (Barb, Cheryl, Joe and Greg) got to go to Adventure Bluegrass, a festival in Stevenson, Washington, in the Columbia River Gorge. It is kind of a small festival, with few vendors, but lots of bluegrass musicians, and in a beautiful setting.

We all piled in Joe's Taurus station wagon and headed south to Vancouver and across the Columbia into Portland and east from there to the Bridge of the Gods and back across the Columbia River to Stevenson, Washington, arriving at the festival just after noon, in time to see most of the instrumental competition.

There were gobs of really good players and the contest was pretty entertaining. It became very evident that if I was going to play banjo in this contest next year, I would be in for a lot of work. After the contest was over and the winners were announced, we wandered around the fairgrounds and checked everything out and, of course, had some fair food. Then we finally got the nerve up to grab our instruments and go jam for a while. We picked an out of the way picnic table next to the water and ran though most of the stuff we knew, and that was fun. A few people stopped and listened as the walked by, and one lady (the winning fiddler from the fiddle contest, actually) came by with a video camera and taped us for a while. That was pretty fun.

Finally, it was time for the "Big Show" so we found places to sit and watch. The Hakanson Family opened the show, having won the band competition the year before. Then we saw Country Current, the U.S. Navy Bluegrass Band. They were really really (really) good; they played everything way fast. There was the tragedy of that damn Lee Greenwood song, but other than that, they were just way good. Following them was Bound to Ride, who used to be called Copper Canyon. They were pretty good, too, but they don't appear to have a website.

Then our butts got tired, so we packed up our instruments and headed back to Vancouver for some supper and our hotel.

The next morning, we checked out, had some breakfast and headed back to the festival, arriving early for the band contest, so we poked around the vendors some more and just kind of took it all in. Finally, the contest started (we had pretty good seats, too). There were two separate contests, the Bluegrass band contenst and the That Ain't Bluegrass contest. I don't remember all of the acts, but the one that I thought was the best, Zach Driscoll & Three-Quarter Time, did not win the competition, but did take 3rd. They played Earl's Breakdown, which may not have been the best choice because I'm sure it gets done a lot, and I think it was their only really really bluegrass number; the other two were more Garth Brooksy, and that may have been their downfall. In any case, all of the acts were good and it was very entertaining.

I missed most of the That Ain't Bluegrass contest, because I was busy getting Barb a new Kentucky F-style mandolin, which is a big step up from the one she was playing on previously. As such, I'll have to let Cheryl comment on that part of the show.

After the contest was over and the winners were announced, the festival was pretty much over, but we drove into the campground and jammed for a while in the deserted Jam Tent. We had a few people stop and listen for a while, and then a mandolin player came by and jammed with us for a while. It was a good time.

Then we packed up and drove home.

It was a good trip and one I hope we make next year.

Band member hopeful

Meet the youngest prospective member of Small Pet Advisory, Laura Grace. She's working really hard at learning to play guitar and the fiddle. She plays a mean "Mary Had a Little Lamb", and I hear tell she can play a break on "Boil the Cabbages."