The Ranch, 8/17-18/18

Hello my friends,

Me and the ANB have recently finished up another Friday night at The Ranch. It was kind of tough competing with the Chris Stapleton concert at the Honda Center, but we had our fun. It looks like Johnny Fingers is just about done loading in and setting up.

Randy is the last to arrive, but he's in time to soundcheck with us and run a few new tunes. There are a lot of new tunes in the set list tonight.

Actually, Austin was the last to arrive. Sorry, Randy. I plugged my bass into the DI box and hid my cases behind the curtain on the back wall. This is such an easy gig for me.

Here's a shot from behind the drum kit showing some of Jason's tech.

Randy continues setting up. You also see the front of Jason's tech.

Amanda looks pretty while Randy sets up.

As long as I'm here, how about a selfie?

Dang, I sure look old next to that pretty young lady. Let's try this again with Arnie.

Now I just look goofy. Such is the life of an old country bass player. How about a shot of our weapons of musical destruction?

Dev teaches the dance lessons tonight.

After our sound check, which was actually a quick rehearsal for all our new tunes, we retired to the green room for our supper. This is the salad course.

Then I enjoyed my favorite, a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich.

Before we took the stage we took some new promo shots of the band. We'll have to crop and filter this shot before it's used on the promo material.

This is Erica and May. It's May's birthday tonight. She and her friends came out to party!

 
Here's a nice shot of Austin and Amanda just before we start a set.

In honor of Aretha Franklin, tonight Amanda just killed "R.E.S.P.E.C.T."

There was a lovely line dancing crowd tonight. Here are a couple of crowd shots.

It was a really fun night, trying out new material. I think we'll keep most of it. And continuing on into Saturday, here are a few pictures I took on Saturday night at The Ranch. I had a pretty mild commute down into the OC. This is the south end of "the merge" where the 57 and the 60 split and go their separate ways, 57 south and 60 to the west.

I pulled into my reserved parking space at the venue. Since this is a corporate building the signs go up on the weekend to remind all the employees that the bass player needs to park.

I stepped out on stage just to grab my IEM pack off of the monitor mixer board. It looks like it's going to be a good night. The dancers are getting started early.

In the green room we find Randy starting on his supper while Arnie tries out a new Resonator style guitar that Austin just purchased. It's pretty cool.

I had the steakburger and chopped kale salad for supper. We lovingly call this half-pound monster the "coma burger".

Arnie and I take the stage along with the rest of the band.

The DJ plays the last line dance before we start the show.

And we're off! Amanda and I both had trouble keeping our IEMs properly situated. I really do need to get some molds made.

 Amanda looks back at Jason. I guess he hasn't counted off the song yet.

I'm sure this is "I Feel Like A Woman". It's the only song with a long enough intro for me to take a few pictures.

Here's one more picture of Amanda adjusting her IEM.

Jennifer is on the right. It was her birthday tonight. She brought about a dozen girlfriends. Sorry I didn't get all of them in the picture.

The is Amanda's friend Erika in the middle. It was her birthday too.

This is our friend Maddy. She and her parents came out to hear us tonight. You might remember we played at Maddy's graduation party.

Here's the whole band with Maddy and her parents, Wayne and Robin. They are good people, salt of the earth.

I was having so much fun tonight I didn't take a lot of pictures tonight. After we had our fun I put my two basses in the cases, grabbed my lyric bag, and I was gone.

Next weekend we are playing both Friday and Saturday at the Buckle and Boots Watering Hole in Lancaster. But first we'll be on stage at Downtown Disney on Wednesday night. I must work my day job in there somewhere too.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

Fawnskin, 8/12/18

Hey everybody,

I played another rare reunion gig with my old bandmates, The Running' Kind, up in the local mountains. From the 90s to about 2010 we used to burn down the roadhouses and clubs all over Southern California. This past Sunday evening we played another event at The Inn at Fawnskin to raise funds for the local spiritual center. It wasn't too smoky from all the fires as I headed up into the mountains.

It's too bad we can't take the freeway all the up to the gig.

Up here at 7000 feet the roads get narrow and twisty.

As I turned onto the North Shore Road of Big Bear Lake the threatening clouds opened up with a popup thunderstorm. This is supposed to be an outdoor event.

As I got closer to the venue the rain subsided. This is a very pretty Bed and Breakfast nestled among the pines.

There's a lot of activity so I back into the driveway as close as I can to unload.

My handy Rock-n-Roller cart did OK going over the grass and decomposed granite. I brought my small bass rig and the PA today.

My dear old friends Rick and Bob were here to greet me. Rick hasn't played with us for a couple of years since he moved to Prescott.

We begin our setup dance on the back porch, trying to leave room for the drummer and the keyboardist. Bob plays a mean guitar and Rick plays steel guitar and midi-guitar.

This is me, running sound from the stage.

For some reason Bob brought his double rig. He's finally retired his 80s Strat in favor of a new Strat by a builder name Suhr.

Rick's rig consists of his new Infinity dual 12 neck pedal steel. He uses a sound module with his Casio midi-guitar to get all the horn, strings, piano, organ, and a host of other sounds. He didn't play much piano today because we had a local piano player working with us. We'll meet him in a bit.

The event crew was working hard setting up everything while trying to keep is covered from the intermittent rain.

Our dear old drummer friend, Rick, arrives and gets set up. (Yes, there are two Ricks in the band.) Also you see Mike on the keys. We've worked with Mike a few times now. Nancy, our hostess, who is also a singer, works a lot with Mike.

Our setup dance is complete. You can hardly see all of our gear on the "stage". We'll just be doing some back porch pickin'.

Across the road you can see the north shore of the lake. It sure is peaceful up here, and a LOT cooler than down in the valley.

We're just about to start with the musical portion of the evening. Here's a selfie with the regular members of The Runnin' Kind. (That's right, Merle Haggard named a song after us.)

Our special guest on piano, Mike. He usually plays a lot of piano bar/single gigs up here on the mountain.

Well guys, what do you want to play now? Since this event was called a "Buckaroo Ball" we did a lot of old school country. The folks were dressed for the occasion.

On a break we pause for a band picture.

On the next break we sneak in the chow line for some BBQ chicken and pulled pork sliders.

Since there wasn't a band table our hostess said we could eat in the living room, as long as we didn't make a mess.

The porch/stage was off the living room. You can see the guests enjoying their meal.

The most interesting auction item was this Strat-like guitar signed by Neil Young.

This is our hostess, Nancy. We've done a lot of gigs with Nancy and her Patsy tribute show and "Women of Country Music".

Somebody brought the band a couple of plates full of desserts. Nice.

In between musical numbers Nancy would take the stage to hold the live auctions. Here's one of the paintings being sold.

Everyone had a good time. The clouds broke and the sun came out. The lights in the back yard were lovely as the sun set.

During a live auction segment, Rick had to go to the little drummer's room so Bob thought he'd fill in.

At the end of the night it seems to take a long time to strike the stage. We were all talking and getting caught up since it's been a while. We had a ton of fun pulling out the old tunes.

We all loaded up our gear and headed down the mountain promising each other that it wouldn't be so long until we do this again.

I love these guys and we sure had a grand time remembering our songs. We had a few interesting moments like, "Oh yea, THAT's how this song goes." It was totally fun.

This coming weekend I have The Ranch with the ANB on Friday and Saturday. Until then, thank you for stopping by.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff