A More Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy...
And so, last Friday night, a lonely Ramada Inn bar in downtown Phoenix was once again the best kept bad secret in town. For on that night, the Polk Street Music Scene converged for an evening of music.Unprepared, unpracticed and yet undaunted, we said "to hell with it" and played our first show since Betty's birthday soiree back in November. How was it, you ask?Well, it was sloppy and off the cuff, a little too loud at times, but dang, it was fun. I hadn't been able to play much lately because, as I've mentioned before right here, I've had quite a lot going on. Something hadda give, and unfortunately it was playing. So Friday night was a much-needed release from all the stuff I've been doing lately. Sometimes it's nice when you get to put the stuff you wanna do ahead of the stuff you have to do, even if it's just for one night.We went into this one cold, didn't even plan anything even resembling a setlist, although we did print out some tabs and lyrics to remind us, in case it turned out that we couldn't remember any songs. We were a little rusty at first, and, thanks to the audience member who'd obviously had waaaay to many shots of Jaegermeister, the first set was kind of a mess. Too many distractions, and we couldn't concentrate. Even with that, we still pulled off a good version of High Heel Mary.
The second set was much better. The drunk guy had quietly taken a seat when we started playing. Well, actually, he said "whaddayawannnmeeet'dooofrrrryrrrbannnnnd?"
I told him I wanted him to sit down and be quiet, and that we were gonna play a song for him. Then we played Here Comes A Regular. After that, he left, and Killa B sat in with Greg and I (on mandolin, no less) for the rest of the set. That was fun. The second time around, things seemed to fall into place like they usually do whenever we play together. The whole experience was a little odd because Barry wasn't there, but we soldiered on as best we could, had a lot of fun, and I think we pulled off some cool versions of songs we hadn't played in quite a while.
Friday's show was Mustard's 'farewell' show, as Francois is planning a sabbatical from live performing after the latest addition to the Settles family is born. I predict that Francois will be back sooner than later. A basement monster can only remain in captivity for so long before they escape, and hit the Pit with fifteen guitars and something to prove. Speaking of guitars, Friday was also the debut of the latest addition to his guitar arsenal, a sweet black Gibson Chet Atkins that, although I wanted to paw all over it, I never made any attempt to touch or play. That's a nice guitar, and I don't ever need to be anywhere near a nice guitar... Like the Flappybats, Mustard had returned to it's original lineup for the evening as well.
Rounding out the evening, alt-country sensation Twang, also back to it's original lineup of Larry Rodgers and...Larry Rodgers, played to a packed crowd that was clamoring-- clamoring, I tell ya, to hear him cover the Dukes of Hazzard theme. Okay, well, Chuck was clamoring to hear it. Like the rest of us, Twang's first set was hindered by the drunken audience member who insisted on playing the maraca with Larry. In a remarkable show of restraint, Larry resisted the urge to sock this guy in the mush, instead calling out for "more Maraca!!" Second time around, Greg had joined Larry on guitar. Highlight of the second Twang set, for me, was Greg busting out the violin bow for an impromptu tribute to Jimmy Page during a song that wasn't even a Led Zeppelin song. In fact, I think it was a Tom Petty song...
This stuff is pure magic, I'm telling you.
After that, as things usually do, the evening degenerated into a lengthy Doors set (happens every time) and then a really sloppy "whatever happens happens and we never talk about it after it happens" set, culminating in the second worst rendition of "Do They Know It's Christmas" for an audience of, well... nobody, because anybody in the bar at that point is up there playing an instrument or screaming into the microphone. I say it's the second worst rendition because, as bad as it was, last year's version was worse. By 2007, we'll be up to just doing a "bad" rendition of that song.
And that'll be a shame.
Fly Flappybat Fly
We'll be playing at the Pit on Friday night.
This'll be our first show since October's aptly named "Metal Meltdown", unless you count playing Eagles covers for Betty's birthday last month. And I don't.
I'm really excited to play. It seems like we've had a lot of downtime and, even for a pretend band, 2 months is too long to go without playing an actual pretend show. I guess we're gonna play it by ear this time as far as what we're playing. Over the past couple of years, Greg and I have learned (and forgotten) a couple hundred songs. I think the plan is gonna be to show up cold on Friday night and see if we can remember any of 'em. I bet we can. Especially the 'Mats stuff and the Wilco covers. On top of that, I've got a list of songs in my head that I'd like to run through, stuff I've never played before but always wanted to.
So, we should be fine.... I hope.
Chapter Two (or, Why Am I Such A Screw-Up?)
As of this morning, Hold My Life entered the second chapter of the first storyline in the saga of Penny Heartbreaker. I am jazzed, because I've had this part of the story rolling around in my head since, well, pretty much since I drew the very first sketch of Penny and was figuring out who she was and what her story was.
It just hit me last week that I'd gotten this far. On the one hand, I was jazzed, because it represents something of a milestone for me. I'd managed to get the story told up to this crucial point, where things begin to come together and we start to see what this is all about. We're going somewhere. But on the other hand, as I realized where I'd gotten in the story, I also realized that, as a writer or an artist or whatever I am, I really haven't been here saying much of anything on my blog, or maintaining any sort of online presence that seems to be so important in promoting a webcomic to a larger audience.
Y'see, I remember this summer at Comic-Con, the one thing that all the webcomickers kept repeating is that the best way to promote your webcomic is to post on message boards, specifically webcomics message boards, to get your series in front of potential readers. Actually, Scott Kurtz suggested starting shit with a popular webcomic creator and getting them to hate on you, which, although fun, just isn't my style. But the point of what I got from those suggestions was that it's important to maintain some sort of online presence in order to expose yourself to that audience that just doesn't know about your series.
I think about that statement, and I wonder "well, if I'm doing that, how exactly am I supposed to get the comic done each week?"
I guess the solution is that I'm going to have to make time in which to do this sort of thing, and to not allow myself to make excuses, same as I do with the comic itself...and stop sleeping at night.
Anyway, back to my point. Hold My Life, Chapter Two. New Outfit, Same Attitude, whatever that means. Seems like as good a time as any to crawl out from underneath the rock under which I've been hiding and start blogging again.
