Giracci Vineyards, 9/14/19

Hello friends,

Saturday night was a special event at an event venue where we've played events before. The Hairy Legged Pickers of the Arnie Newman Country Club Band were joined by Amanda and our special guests Jed and Claire. We'll, you've seen Jed but this is the first time I got to sing with his wife Claire. I hope we get to do this more often because our voices blend really well. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I was a warm drive down into Orange County. Giracci Vineyards is in Santiago Canyon. This is about as far out in the boonies as you can get in the OC.

We've played several events here for different clients. I pulled up to the side of the barn where we usually load in.

After unloading I parked up next to the token grape vine garden they have on the front of the property. They do make wine here but I think they buy most of their grapes from growers in the area.

As I walk back to set up I took a picture of the barn. It's a lovely barn.

Arnie and Jed are here and the setup dance is in full swing. We're running our own PA and using the new IEM rack. We're getting the procedure down.

This is our client, Orange Park Acers, a nearby community with lots of horse property and riding trails. This event is their annual BBQ fundraiser to maintain the riding trails.

John and Jason arrive and we continue our choreography. There's a lot of stuff to set up, plug in, and tweak.

Arnie brought a couple of speakers on sticks, one sub, and the IEM system. It's a lot less gear to carry around and set up.

We've got a couple hours of down time between our soundcheck and downbeat. We'll get to enjoy and adult beverage, have some supper, enjoy a live auction, a silent auction, and a line dance lesson before we start playing. Of course, these events always run late. But I don't mind. I found beer. This local brewery's Mexican lager tasted a lot like a Modelo or Dos Equis.

The event was sold out. Over 200 citizens of Orange Park Acres were in attendance. I think it's about time for supper. Everything is running late. Oh well. That just means we'll play one long set instead of three shorter sets.

Since every seat in the barn had been sold, the band took their supper at the tables outside under the tree. It was a pleasant evening for some brisket and chicken.

Oh yes, there was dessert. I skipped the cupcakes and went straight for the cookies.

This is Tatiana, our dance instructor for the evening. She had time for one quick lesson the we started our set.

I bought myself a new clip-on tuner. I really like it, larger and brighter than the Snark tuners. Hmmm, it seems I'm tuning to A=441. Guess I'd better calibrate.

Tatiana taught the "Watermelon Crawl". We played the tune just as soon as the lesson was over.

Amanda and Claire, Jed's wife, joined us for this gig. We did a couple of Amanda's tunes and a couple of her Carrie Underwood songs.

Let's go girls!

Claire helps Amanda sing a sassy girl song.

We had our fun for about ninety minutes before the event ended at 11pm. Then it was time to pack it up and turn out the lights.

Jed and I helped Arnie with the PA. I ended up being the last to leave. I got home at 1:30am which made for a rough morning playing in church on Sunday. But with the help of lots of coffee and a donut I was able to make a joyful noise.

This will be another fairly busy week. Plus I've got two shows worth of tunes to learn before the end of the month. We're playing at Downtown Disney on Wednesday. Then we'll be at Gilley's Las Vegas on Friday and Saturday night. The week after will be almost as busy with two big rehearsals Tuesday and Wednesday, and an event on Thursday evening (one of the shows I'm learning). We'll cross that bridge when we get there. Until then, take care. You guys are cool.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

Old Crow Smokehouse, 9/13/19

Oh boy!

As you all noticed, it was a full moon and Friday the 13th. How's that for a gig situation? Ours turned out pretty good. I hope yours did too.

Tonight me and the Hairy Legged Pickers of Arnie Newman's Country Club Band played at the Old Crow Smokehouse in Huntington Beach, one of our regular places (that we haven't played since January).

I left work just a little early. The crew was just finishing up construction for the day on our new stadium. I had stored my basses in my office out of the heat so that's all I had to load up when I left the office.

Traffic treated me very nicely with only a little stickyness in the usual places. When I arrived at the venue I as able to park pretty dang close to the elevator. That's a good thing since I was two stories under the ground at P2.

I unloaded my gear a rolled it to the elevator and up four levels to the second floor of the shopping center where the venue is located here on Pacific Coast Highway. It was a great looking day to schlep gear.

When I arrived Jason was already done with his setup dance. I started mine and soon after Johnny and Arnie joined me.

We arrived early so we would have time for supper and a couple of adult beverages before we have to sound check. That's Steve behind the bar. He was impressed that I remembered his name.

Steve, bless his heart, kept feeding me glasses of Stone Double IPA. I like the Stone IPAs. This one was slightly sweet, but not citrusy, refreshing, and at 8% it kind of kicked your butt. 

It's a new rule that that band has to have supper at the bar. All of the tables are usually reserved. We didn't mind. I had the tri-tip. This was the first time I'd tried it and, oh man!, it was great! I love the BBQ beans and the slaw here.

John had the combo with ribs, sausage, and brisket. They feed the band really well here!

It's a pleasant evening here at the Old Crow. You can see Catalina off the coast through the open picture windows.

One of the managers, Saul, asked me if we had our female singer with us. I told him, "No, sorry. It's just us hairy legged boys tonight. But we can put Arnie in a dress." When I saw the poster I knew why he had asked. That's Francelle, she's in Nashville now.

My buddy Alec had been here just a couple weeks before with Truxton Mile, out of Bakersfield, my old home town. I'm gonna have to give him a call.

Now we're about to start and the place has really filled up now that the temperature has cooled.

Here we go! Arnie points at his favorite bass player in the band.

We play a set, a long set. Then I go say "Hi!" to your friend and mine, Grant, who was so kind to come out and hang out all night long. Thank you Grant. You are such a great guy.

 
There were also several bridal parties in the house tonight. This is Elysa and her crew. They were very kind to this old bass player.

And this is another bride-to-be. Her name is Bri. I was part of her scavenger hunt. Yes, she had to find some old country bass player to buy her a shot of Tequila.

We had Patron. Then Bri got up on stage as part of her scavenger hunt, with Arnie's hat (as part of her scavenger hunt). By this time we were in no mood to say "no". So, why not?

Then Arnie really wowed them with some Merle Haggard and some SRV.

I think I took this picture of John while Arnie was playing the intro to "Pride and Joy".

You see @McG enjoying the second set while the band is hard at work.

Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to ask Anastasia up to sing with us. Dang! I'm pretty disappointed. I hope she doesn't hate me for it. At 12:30am we played one more encore and then we packed it up.

I like this place mainly for the great food and the free beer. The drive is long. The load-in is horrible. The pay is just OK. The acoustics are miserable. The crowd is good-looking and enthusiastic. So we take the good with the bad. Now I'm at home enjoying a couple of Lagunitas Lil' Sumpin', one of my favs.

If you enjoyed this gig half as much as I did, then I enjoyed it twice as much as you. Take care.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

The Ranch, 9/6-7/19

Hello my friends!

This weekend we are back at our regular haunt in beautiful uptown Anaheim, The Ranch Saloon. Amanda will not be with us much this month. She was planning to lay low until her CD release party on Oct. 9th but she ended up getting ill, along with her whole family, this week so it's good we had planned to work with Royce again.

My commute after work down the 57 freeway was uneventful with fairly light traffic for a Friday. As I wait at the last traffic light on my journey you can see the Extron building where The Ranch is on the ground floor.

There's not much of a setup dance for me. For this gig I just bring a couple of basses and plug one into the DI box. We all tried to arrive a little early so we could run some tunes with Royce during soundcheck.

Arnie brought his new IEM rig and Mark, the excellent soundguy at The Ranch, patched it in. This is Eric. He designed this IEM rack and stuck around for a couple of sets to make sure everything worked as it should It works really well.

Yes, that's the same Eric who has subbed for me a couple of times. He's real good with sound gear and studio engineering stuff. Johnny Magic Fingers was the last to arrive. I helped schlep his gear so we could get started quicker. He and Mark are trying to get rid of a buzz at the moment.

The cute and perky Ms. Royce seems like she's happy to be here. Us hairy legged boys will try to be nice to her.

Jed is becoming a regular fixture in the band for the larger gigs. Randy was busy tonight so our good buddy Tommy is sitting at the pedal steel this weekend. Tommy's a good ol' boy who's toured with quite a few folks out of Nashville. He's on the West Coast for a while following his wife's job around.

After running a few tunes at sound check we retire to the green room for some supper. I have my favorites, Buffalo Chicken Sandwich with an Heirloom Beet Salad.

We enjoy supper, we enjoy each others' company, we get dressed, then we hit the stage. No impressive stacks of 1000w amps for me, just a little DI box and ten strings between two basses.

The cute and perky Ms. Royce joins me for a "Beauty and the Bass Player" selfie just before the band is announced.

Since the owner is out of town this weekend, our sultry and graceful entertainment manager Heather announces the band.

Royce can belt out a sassy girl song too. You go girl!

I think John approves.

Everyone complimented Arnie on his new shirt. He must've gotten it for his birthday.

Just a few of the distractions in front of the bass player. But I had only two clams tonight. Not bad.

I ran into one of my two-step buddies, Melanie, in her pretty blue dress.

A few out front photos popped up on the social medias. Royce did a great job.

Jed got to sing a couple songs tonight. He's a good harmony singer too.

Here's a couple more from out front, borrowed from our adoring fans' social medias.

On the way home I picked up a sixer of an IPA that I actually like, the Stone Delicious IPA, not overly hoppy or citrus-y and 7.7%. I enjoyed a couple with my midnight snack of cold cuts and cheeses.

Saturday night's commute was a little bit brutal. There used to be a lot less traffic on Saturdays but that's not true any more. There's traffic all the time. The meter was even on at the onramp to the freeway. I know, the rest of the country thinks we're crazy for putting stop lights at the end of the freeway onramps. You're right.

That's correct. You must come to a full and complete stop before entering the freeway. Guh.

How about another glam shot of my new-ish gear hauler in front of the venue? Ain't she purdy?

Saturday night started off a bit slow because there was a rodeo going on. But after the rodeo it got really busy. Royce says, "Let's go girls!"

The line dancers do their thing.

The whole band wore plaid tonight except for me. I didn't get the memo.

See what I mean? This is a shot by the pedal steel player, Tommy. It's not often you get to see a shot of the stage from that side, right?
 

Here's one of Tommy's artsy pictures. I think it's a pretty cool perspective.

Arnie wails while I wear my black Scully Gunfighter shirt.

I was really having problems with my IEMs tonight. At the start of the second set I checked my pack. Three out of four bars on the battery. OK. Good to go. Not. About four songs into the set my ears go out, totally. I just pulled both my IEMs and went ambient. There's not a lot of noise coming off the stage, except for drums, and I could barely hear the mains. I muddled through. It's what we bass players do. On the break I got fresh batteries that lasted the rest of the night. But then my left earbud became disconnected and I had to pull it and go ambient on that side. Later in the set, during a long intro I was able to plug my earbud back in but I did about half the set with one IEM. I just smiled, played my little bass, and sang my little songs.

Now I'm at home enjoying another Stone Delicious IPA and telling you good folks about my little gig. Thanks for looking.

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff