I guess since I have the week off, I can do some blogging.<\/p>\n
Today I did only two things: Tax Preparation & Homework.\u00a0 I suppose I also ate on occasion, and I did download an old favorite album of mine to get me in the mood for tax season.\u00a0 The album was \u201cThe Completion Backwards Principal\u201d by The Tubes.<\/p>\n
Aah, such memories; My old band, Passion, used to cover \u201cTalk to you Later\u201d off that album, and members of the Tubes once stopped by in Monterey (during the Pro Am) to hear us do that song\u2026 and they liked it! (We were playing the 5th<\/sup> floor bar, they were playing on the 6th<\/sup> floor stage)\u00a0 Because of that encounter, we later opened for the band in Hanger One at Moffett Field.\u00a0 I do sometimes miss gigging back in my youth.\u00a0 Doing taxes also reminds me that I spent most of the last year working for my now failed start-up in a converted office space that used to be a famous club and 1980\u2019s \u201cmeat market;\u201d a place that I used to play at (Gilbert Zapps\/Bodega).\u00a0 At that site, we opened up for the Dave Berry Band, and later, did our own shows there.\u00a0 Just across the street, at what is now a very fine Italian restaurant, used to be another famous bar that we occasionally played at (Pumas).\u00a0 This bar was made famous because Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham used to play there before they joined Fleetwood Mac.\u00a0 At that club, we would sometimes open for the local band \u201cWildfire,\u201d and sometimes, just for fun, they would open for us, or simply pick up our instruments and play when we were on breaks.\u00a0 My band and their band had some serious mutual respect going on.\u00a0 Our two bands were among a select few who had succeeded wildly in the club scene but hadn\u2019t made an album, and didn\u2019t care to; we didn\u2019t want stardom \u2013 we played for fun! \u00a0What I remember most about Pumas was that the stage was four feet off the ground, so hauling gear up to the stage was painful, and after a gig one night, I found a bustier on my car (someone had been fooling around near or on my car?).\u00a0 Not far away, Smokey Mountain was a much easier bar to set up in.\u00a0 We played there a lot.\u00a0 And just across the street from Pumas is (to this day) a recording studio (two actually \u2013 the second one belongs to Dave Berry) that I used to record at (Soundtek Studios).\u00a0 While I was still in Passion, we did our demos there; shortly after I left the band, the band started to rehearse there (getting away from the highly questionable \u201cRock Garden\u201d space \u2013 a formerly condemned Salvation Army site that still had that feel of being condemned).\u00a0 After I left the band, I also used to be a \u201cmusician for hire\u201d at Soundtek for a few years and even later, when I was running my own studio (the short-lived Heartbeat Records), we would do our final mix-downs there because I lacked the analog equipment that Brett Tyson (the engineer\/owner) had.\u00a0 My studio was 100% digital.\u00a0 Alas, once I got my engineering job (in semiconductors, not music), I got out of all studios and clubs and began playing in churches.\u00a0 Twenty-two years later, I\u2019m still at church, loving the hours and the clientele.\u00a0 I also play with a couple other musicians who had club bands back in the day.\u00a0 I guess church is where old club musicians go to die.<\/p>\n Oh well, back to taxes and homework!\u00a0 I gotta go to school soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I guess since I have the week off, I can do some blogging. Today I did only two things: Tax Preparation & Homework.\u00a0 I suppose I also ate on occasion, and I did download an old favorite album of mine … Continue reading