The Night Shift

[jim sanders]

once again WC... great reading !! expect a reply from JTP tomorrow evening after the team meeting here

[jim sanders]

by the way John... posts like that will get JTP wanting to go to DLN2

[pro70z28]

by the way John... posts like that will get JTP wanting to go to DLN2

Well post some more. JTP should go to the DNL's.

[WildcatOne]

I'm with ProZ on that, Doc! He can bring you with him, too!

[WildcatOne]

I'm getting some rest from a very intense weekend. The Pee Wee Bowen Band played 3 full shows inside of 24 hours, Friday night at Topwater Grill in San Leon on the tip of the Northeast shore of Galveston Bay, to a packed, dancing, almost out-of-control crowd of partying maniacs...they danced on the tables, stood up on their chairs, danced in front of us and raised Hell on every note...it was HOT in there...we jammed our butts off. The next morning I went in to work for a couple of hours, then drove down to LaMarque to a 2-hour show at a political fundraiser for a guy who's running for Galveston County Tax Assessor-Collector, he's a great guy and I hope he wins. What was cool about that show was that there's an assisted living facility nearby and a bunch of those folks came over, had some barbecue and free beer, and they danced to all our stuff as well...we played a low-key gig, kept the volume down and played a mixture of songs and they flipped over us...then I came home and rested for an hour before getting ready to play last night. By this time I was pretty tired, but by the time I wrapped up the gig last night and drove out of the parking lot at the Lone Star Ballroom in Pasadena, I had made $280, but I was starting to have trouble seeing straight...you get into a kind of dream world...you're seeing diamonds coming at you from oncoming cars' headlights...I pulled over into the "slow" lane, turned on the radio, rolled down the window and kept nursing a large chocolate shake from Whataburger to keep me as alert as I could be, but by then the Ginseng pill I popped on the way to the gig had worn off and I was struggling to keep my wits about me. I had to drive 42 miles home across Houston and all the bars had just emptied out. This brings me to a couple of other points here. The guys in the band, me included as well as Pee Wee, aren't very interested in playing clubs anymore...we get twice the money at private parties and the bookings are material-specific. When we finished the last song and TOLD the place it was the last song, wouldn't ya know that not one, not two, but THREE people came up to us and told us to play three songs that we don't do. AFTER we said goodnight. Hello? Actually, it was goodbye. Pee Wee pulled us together and said look. The next time I book 2 gigs in one day, would you all please tell to to *&^%#...then he said, look at what we have to put up with here, man. This sucks. We do this so our fan base can come out and party, but you get these idiots in your face as well as your friends. I want you all to know that from now on I'm going to cancel club gigs if a private party comes in on the same night. To a man, we agreed. A nightclub gig is not only gruelling and it goes on all night, a good 2 to 3 hours after you've finished playing, you're unloading your equipment at home and trying to wind down, you're hungry, exhausted, lonely (the whole gig is lonely) and asking yourself why you're doing it...and thanking your lucky stars that you got home safe and sound. So in the future, we will probably keep the Club 21 gigs in Galveston because it's such a beautiful gig, as well as Topwater Grill, where we're about like the Beatles to those folks, but the rest of the gigs we take in clubs will probably go, we've got a foothold on some very lucrative gigs, we've been offered to open for Delbert McClinton in August, play a cruise ship gig, gigs in San Antone, Austin, Dallas, New Orleans, Lafayette and Baton Rouge have come down the pipe, I don't know what's going to happen with those, but this band is on an upward curve at this point...I'm getting to know my Telecaster better. I'm making 2 adjustments and I'm doing OK with both...the first is playing "clean". I'm not using any effects at all. I'm just plugging my guitar straight into the amp. It's a whole new sound for me and it's taking me some time to learn how to make that twang work for me. I used effects the whole time I played guitar up until now. The guitar is telling me what it wants and I'm learning the language it speaks to me, last night Pee Wee's wife came up and told me that's the best sound she ever heard me get...I turned up the reverb by one notch is all I did...I went from a 5 to a 6 on the dial and it made a world of difference. The other thing I'm learning is a whole new set of chords. This band is orchestrated and playing music that is at a level of sophistication and finesse that I never have been around before. I've learned the chords and I'm playing them, and it amazes me that these chords are right there on the fretboard, where I've been playing for years and years, and I never played them until now. It's bringing me into a whole new dimension of depth and knowledge that I never thought existed in my world. Well, the food just showed up, time to have some dinner and call it a night, folks. Today is me and Debby's 24th wedding anniversary. She got up this morning to find a new robe and a card from me waiting for her at her PC. Life is good. As Rapid would say, thanks for taking the time to read my "What I did this weekend" story. Cheers, WC1

[pro70z28]

Cool WC, Happy Anniversary.

[Gator]

Happy Anniversary 'Cat..Thank You for sharing the latest events.....
I look forward to the new sound from your hands.....

[draglist]

Cat, as you know, I was down in Houston last weekend for my USS NIMITZ reunion and me and my pals looked for Pee Wee Bowen so we could come and see ya. Saw that it was a private party so made other plans. But they wanted to come and see you this past Friday whereever you played. It's right near their boat (on which they live) in Kemah. So if a guys comes up to you one of these days and says he knows BP, that's the guy... bp

[WildcatOne]

I'm sorry I missed you that night, BP...we were playing at a country club near Kemah on NASA Rd 1 for a wedding reception. Friday night we were playing at the Topwater Grill in San Leon, which is very close to Kemah...I hope your buddies show up at a gig; I'd love to meet 'em. It would have been great to have you there Friday night, as a few of the Phantom Riders were there and they'd have been thrilled to meet the guy behind the DragList sticker on my guitar...hopefully we'll get hooked up next time you're down this way. In a little while, I'm taking Nick up to the Guitar Center on the North Side to sell 'em his Line 6 XT foot-operated pedalboard. It was nothing but trouble from the day we got it back in January. The place we bought it from did nothing to fix the problem and wouldn't give us a refund, they said the factory gave refunds...the factory said the store would give the refund, and of course they said they'd done everything they could do so adios. Nobody will accept accountability for selling you a defective piece of equipment. I told them, we paid you $412 for this and it still doesn't work and you won't do anything? Nope. So Debby called the facotry and they sent a brand-new one to Nick last week. Rather than open the box and start trying to use it again, he opted to sell it before it has a chance to break down again. Guitar Center said they'd buy it from him...I hope he gets a decent deal because he's planning on buying a new set of drums Wednesday and that money would help. I'll chip in whatever he'll need at the end of his deal; I think Nick is a good drummer but he is far better on guitar. I'd rather see him get his Jackson Rhoads and a Marshall amp, but he's set on getting a drum set and I'm cool with that. I let him decide, but I do offer advice when he asks and I'll help him with this. He's decided to pursue a career as a musician and now's the time to get started...he's 15...I was playing my first gigs when I was in my early 20s, but if I had been plugged in when I was in my teens, it's a pretty sure bet that everything...EVERYTHING...would have turned out differently for me. Not that I don't think it's all good. I love having these boys and their projects to help them with, and I love having Debby who likes me just like I am, more or less. My big break was hooking up with Andy Quinn when I was 21. That's Andy's Les Paul I gave to Kyle, and it was Andy who brought me up from rank beginner to pro. He and I were best buddies until he met my sister, then off they went to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Andy never realized his dream of having his own avant-garde jazz band...his style became Dadaistic and borderline abrasively atonal in his last years...I don't know what he was thinking, because he was a supremely gifted guitarist with a creative melodic flair that was undeniably unique...I could go on about Andy all night, but Nick told me he wants to go to Berklee, without knowing that Andy went there...and my sister, Sylvia, called to tell me she's going to pay for it. Ol' Nick's got the world by the tail right about now, I'd say. I see my part in this as a support system for him, and to make sure he develops a solid character based on integrity and honesty with good heart towards others but a sense of pride and confidence in himself. He'll need that. Gotta run. Cheers, WC1