Category Archives: Music

Rockstarishness! With a side of quasi-idiot.

Music, Social

In which I have a fairly rotten cold. And a lot of fun, too, but the fun sure ain’t helping my cold any.

Thursday, I was pretty much wrecked at work because I’d decided to party the night before, but it turns out that I’m actually even better at phone-based IT work when I’m exhausted: it makes me talk – and think – more slowly and most customers really respond well to me when I’m half crippled.

The Dog Park and Two Bars

Friday, Bindu and I went to the dog park with our new friends J– and Turbo. Here is a fuzzy picture of Bindu and a couple of random Labs:

Dog park!

I met the cutest two-year-old English bulldog bitch in the entire world. The thing was built like a flat-faced toad, was totally friendly, and had the most hilarious underbite ever. I laughed every time she looked at me.

After that, J– and I went to the pub and had sweet potato fries (after intense deliberation I have decided that I do not like them) and built this awesome fire and talked our faces off and OMFG ARE WE HILARIOUS:

We built this fire on rock 'n' roll

Then we went to the Red Monkey and hung out with Becca and Adam. I took this picture of my drinkin’ buddies shortly after we’d entered the “You are so cool, I fuckin’ love you, man!” phase of our evening:

James and Adam

We went to after hours at J–‘s house on Stateline when the bar closed. I slept on the couch; J– slept on the floor because some other dude had passed out in his bed.

Around eleven the next morning I went home and slept in my own bed until I had to get ready for the gig. I coughed for, oh, about three hours straight. Stupid cold. Stupid girl who stays out all night with a cold!

The Gig!

Saturday night was the Mega Jam Blues Slam at the Kennewick Jack*son’s:
Mega Jam Blues Slam

There were four bands. The Coyote Kings went on second; I fronted their last 3 songs for them. I had the dance floor COMPLETELY PACKED while I was onstage, and did a little “Lemmie get a hell yeah!” “HELL YEAH!” thing with the audience that really amused me. The crowd was really superlative and the joint was packed. This pic was taken while we performed a cover of Delbert Mcclinton’s Shaky Ground:

prs

I’ve been coughing my face off for a week now, so I’m relieved I only did a few songs; I don’t think the voice would have lasted much longer than that.

Walking around the venue after getting off stage was fun because most of the people in the crowd were blues society members; one entire table actually started clapping when I walked by, and a couple other people just full-on hugged me. I gave out a lot of business cards and decided that I need to buy one of these and get a bunch of old live cassette tape recordings into MP3 format so people can have more free downloads.

There was supposed to be a jam at the end of the evening, but there were two more bands doing sets after ours and most of the Kings just didn’t want to hang out. Since Becca and I had ridden to Kennewick with Rocket and S–, we went with them over to cute little biker bar Dax’s in Richland and listened to a set from the Seattle rockabilly band, Guns n Rosetti. Then we went home because no one – the bass player, the drummer, myself – was really interested in going all the way back over for the jam… I wanted to go, sure, but mainly I was congested and tired and needed to go home to bed since I had to work the next day.

Sundays are mellow.

That next day is today. I’m at work. The volume is really low and frankly I’m wondering if I’m going to get rescheduled or simply laid off or what. Anyway. Behold the office Xmas tree:

Xmas tree

I wish I could get sushi for lunch, but I think they’re closed on Sundays.

There’s something deeply satisfying about just getting drunk with people and hanging out; my only regret is that this week’s opportunity to do so coincided with so much snot. Snot, snot, snot. I’m snot-locked.

In other words, I’ve had a lot of fun. But I also have a deep, wracking cough that probably wouldn’t sound like this if I’d not done the drinking/smoking/standing outside in the cold/staying up all night bit. I believe that barring a call from Mick Jagger wanting to party on his Lear jet I’ll just go ahead and take the next week off and act like a mundane: bed rest, herbal tea, dog cuddles, and no staying up all night again until the cough is gone.

Friday's Gig Rocked.

Music, , , , ,

In which I review my weekend.

Thursday, I was on the cover of the Marquee. Considering the lame interview I gave her, my girl Sheila did a really fantastic job on the article! I sound totally interesting!

Mush Morgan & The Coyote Kings

Friday, I fronted the Coyote Kings at Merchants on Main street. The place was packed. People started dancing about four songs into the first set, and danced all night! My dad and Rocket’s mom were in the audience. We rocked the house and I had a metric ton of fun.

Saturday I lounged around during the day, and went to dinner at my aunt’s house with my dad and my brother. We had a nice dinner, and then I heard an awesome story from my uncle about how he got his head smashed at work up at the airport one day and nearly died.

Sunday I knitted, did laundry, watched streaming Netflix videos and went to Walmart with G’ma, where I bought some shoes. Later I made a bunch of Indian food for this week’s bentos.

Today I woke up late and barely made it to work on time.

Tomorrow is my birthday! Send me presents!

Me in the front window

The voice, it is not doing so well.

Health, Music, ,

In which I’m a little worried about my instrument.

I’m playing the Rally In The Valley – a biker rally, natch – tomorrow night. Outside. At night. It will most likely be both damp and chilly: not good conditions for a weak voice.

Then I’m supposed to play a chichi benefit gig on Saturday afternoon in the Tri-cities.

Both of which are awesome, of course, except for the fact that my instrument did not respond well to being used during band practice last night. I sang for less than an hour, and not even in full voice, and today woke up sounding like a bullfrog.

I have enough voice to talk on the phone at work, but I (a) don’t think I’m going to make it all the way through the gig tomorrow night and (b) will probably be utterly voiceless on Saturday.

This is bad because I want to do a good job at these gigs and I want the money.

I haven’t had a voice-related problem not concurrent with an upper respitory infection in twenty years, but I have been through it. The only cure is time and liquids and rest; and if I don’t do those things the instrument will just drop out completely and there’s nothing I can do about it. With gigs to do, the whole thing is just bummin’ me out.

In other news, my dad is arriving in town on Friday, and my mom is arriving on Saturday and they’re both going to expect to be able to hang out with me. (They divorced when I was 13 so it’s pretty amusing that they’re both showing up the same week; I haven’t seen either of them in a few years.)

Query: is it possible for your parents to give you laryngitis remotely?

To Do List

Music

In which I’m planning my weekends.

I agreed to work 5 hours tomorrow from 8 to 1, so I’ll not be going out tonight. (Not that I would have been anyway; I just wanted to sound like I have choices!) I’m thinking of watching Mad Men (season 1, episode 7) and doing some knitting for a swap that I should have completed, like, a month ago.

There might also be some Mexican food, or pizza, or something decadent along those lines because I have basically been eating really, really well and want to splurge.

This weekend, I need to get my nails done and clean the bathroom and do laundry. Next weekend I’m busy: I’m playing the Fair on Friday night, have a hair appointment Saturday morning, and a winery gig Saturday afternoon.

The weekend after, there’s the Rally in the Valley (blues for bikers! w00t!) on Friday night, then my mom arrives (I haven’t seen her in, like, a couple of years) on Saturday afternoon, and right after I have a benefit gig in the Tri-Cities. Sunday I’ll probably be inundated with aunts, which will totally rock.

So THIS weekend? I’m gonna be mellow. And knit!

Working Musican

Music, ,

In which you hear all about the fascinating stuff we rockstars do on Wednesday evenings.

Yesterday was that dreaded day, the one where I had to actually follow through on my promise to go to band practice and learn some songs.

I hate band practice. I always have. Practicing is boring because it doesn’t involve an audience, and really, half the reason I’m a rockstar at all is because I like being the center of attention. And when you’re the chick with the big voice on stage, you’re the most important chick in the WHOLE ROOM. But at practice? You’re just sitting in someone’s basement wearing saggy underwear because you couldn’t be arsed to do your own damned laundry last weekend.

Anyway. “Band practice” failed to mean the whole band and consisted of me, a guitar player, and the drummer hanging out in the guitar player’s mother’s basement. She hasn’t been down there in years and he apparently wishes he lived in a shanty town, because the whole space is a freakin’ mess and there is trash down there from 1986. But it has air conditioning, and since it was 104 degrees or something yesterday, that A/C was really a more salient point than the garbage from 1986.

We thought about how we’re going to do Use Me Up to make it our own. We discovered that I can’t do Some Kind Of Wonderful in the key it was originally recorded in. We seriously discussed doing a Jackson 5 cover. We did a verse or two of a couple of the songs we did last year but have pretty much forgotten how to get through. Then we sang silly, unrelated crap for awhile, including Brick House and some freakin’ REO Speedwagon tune.

The whole process took an hour and a half and we didn’t learn any new songs at all. And we’re doing it again next Wednesday since it was so helpful.

Maybe next week I’ll actually show up prepared, like, with some lists and some lyrics or something. After all, the whole point of the practice was to learn new songs for me to sing, sheesh.

Weekend, lovely weekend!

Music

In which I had an awesome weekend, even though I never did get around to being a consumer.

I was gonna buy a bicycle this weekend, but I didn’t. By the time I got moving on Saturday, any good bikes over at my co-worker’s street-long yard sale would have been gone so I didn’t even bother to swing by. I didn’t go to Walmart or the local bike store, either.

But I did take a killer nap each day!

Here’s the band from Saturday night’s gig. No pics of me because by the time someone we knew got there to run the camera, it was too dark.

Oh, yeah: I know this site was down all weekend and I’m sorry about that. It’s been decided that the current host either won’t or can’t solve the problem, so a move is imminent. Good thing I LOVE MIGRATIONS LIKE LIFE ITSELF.

Last night I went and saw District 9 with my brother. I dug it. Excellent aliens! (Annoying hand-held camera work, though. It’s the Blair Witch of sci-fi.) It’s worth seeing, but sit in the very back of the theatre to avoid too much motion sickness.

I'm a (crazy batshit nuts) rockstar, baby!

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In which my weekend was one part really good… and one part REALLY bad.

Friday was nasty. Whoo boy. Out of the blue I had a panic attack for the first time in a really long time and it sucked. And all because my heart decided to go arrhythmic. I sat at my desk in my own private hell and waited for the day to end so I could go home and curl up in my room in my misery.

The Dread continued on Saturday. I walked the dog and did laundry and cleaned the front bathroom, but was in and out of anxiety all day long. There were a few bouts of scary arrhythmia that pushed me from anxiety into full-blown panic.

Saturday night, I had a gig to go to. In spite of feeling like shit I took a shower and got dressed and went because I’m tough like that. Somewhere between the second and third sets I had a moment of pure terror, certain that this was it, it was finally happening, I was having a heart attack… but I didn’t pass out. I didn’t even fall over, actually. So I reminded myself yet again that the problem was actually my panic disorder and not some kind of actual physical malady and soldiered on out the door, which was where I’d been heading when my skin lit on fire for a second.

Continue reading I'm a (crazy batshit nuts) rockstar, baby! →

Dax's

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In which I do open mics two nights in a row. Hell yeah.

Last night RB picked me up from work and drove me to Richland. We ate dinner at the BK Lounge. He had a double bacon cheeseburger. (WTF is up with restaurants these days? Apparently it’s getting damn near impossible to order anything with fewer than two dead animals on it. Been watching TV commercials? The typical sit-down restaurant special these days has three to five different dead animals per plate. It is, quite frankly, obscene.) I had a junior whopper, no patty. And fries.

Dax’s is an adorable little biker bar. The crowd was mainly older; the youngest kid in there was probably in his thirties. The bartenders were individually busty and tattooed, the drinks were strong, the crowd was nice, and the music was good. The Kings had a slot pre-booked at nine and went up and did a few tunes, then they invited me up. The voice was in good condition and I pretty much wailed. IT WAS REALLY FUN.

Dax's

When I got off the bandstand I couldn’t stand still without ending up in a circle of appreciative dudes. It was awesome. It was probably the best, most appreciative, groovy crowd I’ve ever seen on a Thursday anywhere in my life. Bonus: not a single person mentioned Janice Joplin!

LCG tried to make it over for a bit, but she’s a mom and moms can’t always get out.

Shortly after the set, RB and I drove back to Walla Walla. He invited me to guest with the Kings at a few gigs, so I need to get dates from him and update my gig schedule. It’ll be nice to actually have something to put on there again.

The blues return briefly. The singing of them, rather.

Music, , , ,

In which I had great big fun yesterday! There was music, there were old friends, there were new friends, and there was vodka!

Since Left Coast Girlie and I are going to see The Taming of the Shrew together next month, sometimes we have to get on IM and congratulate one another on our cleverness. We were doing so last night; I was still at work but not on the clock. It was 103 degrees out but guess who’d worn black? and long sleeves? and didn’t want to walk home in an oven?

Yeah, that’d be me. Me the genius.

I sat at my desk in the A/C and called RB back. Out of the blue (haven’t gigged with him since last December) he’d left a message on my phone yesterday. Turns out there’s a Sapolil gig in September he wants to book me for. Since the other band never called me back, and I still haven’t managed to institute my ‘go to open mics and meet people’ plan for musical world domination, plus I happen to enjoy his company, I was stoked to hear from him. Music!

We chatted for about 40 minutes, and then he said something about “a party for Jimmy the Fox’s 80th birthday tonight” over at Barn Disease. I made noises about being interested in going, even considered walking home to get the truck, and we finally got off the phone. I started to pack up to leave the office, and shot off an IM before logging off:

goblinbox: Okay, I’m going to the brew pub for a drink or three. G’night!
leftcoastgirlie: Have three for me!

“I’m going to the brew pub, for a drink or three,” I told RT, my co-worker, as I was leaving. “LCG told me to have three for her, too.”

“That sounds good,” he said, grinning. “Have three for me too.”

I laughed. “Nine’s too many!” (FAMOUS LAST WORDS.)

“Oh, so you know about nine, do you?”

“I know enough not to do it again!” I laughed as I walked through the lobby.

“Late!” he said as I pushed open the door and stepped outside. “Bye!” I called back.

It was hot out. I walked over to the brew pub. I sat by myself looking like a total dork, texting RT from my iPod and talking on the phone with Baby Girl. She told me about the awesome new convention center, that she and her hubby see shows all the time now, and that there are now near-constant open casting calls…

See? I move away and Fairfield gets all groovy. Stupid town.

Theatre’s been whispering to me lately. It’s been years since I’ve done a show, but people have been saying random things about theatre lately. After I see Shrew, I’ll probably really want to get back on stage. If my work schedule stays the way it is, I’ll audition for the next fun show I hear about. I’m too old and pudgy to play the ingénue any more, but I’m more than ready to play me a wicked old stepmother or two.

I had three drinks and was discussing neediness and exes over IM while getting ready to cash out when RB called to see if I wanted a ride over to the birthday party. “Sure,” I said, shrugging, even though he couldn’t see it over the phone. “Yeah. What the hell. I’m always ready to sing a little!”

He arrived in his giant maroon van and took me to Barnaby’s. I met the guest of honor, 80-year-old Jimmy the Fox from Chicago (or possibly Kansas City), who was wearing an amazing suit and who when I mentioned it went off on a well-rehearsed schtick about suit-wearing black men and the laaaadies.

“This one can sing a little,” RB told Jimmy the Fox, indicating me.

“Oh, oh, okay,” Jimmy said, nodding. “She’ll have to come up,” he said, and walked away.

He sang a bunch of Chigago-style blues, and later played drums. He was really fun, and danced with some of the laaaadies. The guys on the bandstand most of the night were pretty solid, so it wasn’t your usual aurally dangerous open mic.

p_00066

I sat down next to Emilio, gave the bartender my card, and started on the first of LCG’s three drinks. Then I mingled and talked to Mike and Tony and other musicians I know. RB and I sat for awhile and I heard all about his customer speaker cab company.

Eventually we got on stage. We did three or four songs and got the first people of the night out on the dance floor. (I love that McClinton “Shaky Ground” groove; plus there was a horn player at the party who sat in and blew the solo! Sweet.)

When we were done, RB needed to do a few things with gear so I started – only started! – on the first RT’s three drinks. After THAT was gone I was dropped off at home. THANK GOD.

As I was walking onto the porch my phone rang. It was Josus! I love that guy! I laid in the grass in front of my house at midnight and laughed my face off. Then I went to bed and passed out like the lush I am.

People, I need a handler. Three is fine, five’s okay, but SEVEN IS TOO MANY, YOU STUPID BITCH, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING. When I woke up this morning I felt as if I’d been mummified. Even my dog looked at me funny. I got dressed and put on my glasses and as I was walking through the house G’ma said, “You’re losing weight.”

Naw, that’s just wicked dehydration, I thought. “I hope so!” I said. “I gained twelve pounds last year, damn it.” She chuckled.

I thought about toast. Mmm, toast.

I did not brush my hair this morning (it’s still in ponytails from yesterday, actually) and I’m wearing my glasses, but I did get me some breakfast, and I walked the dog before work.

Points for having my shit together so early in the day! You will give them to me!

Tonight I’m going to Dax’s in Richland with RB for another open mic. He needs to schmooze with some people, and he’s taking me because, he says, he likes to show me off.

“Show me off? Like, ‘O hai, I brought this pudgy Irish chick. But look! She sings good’!”

“Yeah, something like that,” he said. “It’s just fun to drag you around and show you to people.”

I’m a pet vocalist now. W00t!

So: after eight hours on the phone unfucking the convolutions of inside wiring for various DSL customers today, I’ll walk home and brush my teeth and then go to Richland to sit in at another open mic. Going out on two school nights in a row!

This is pretty exciting compared to my evenings of late, which have involved walking home from work and… uh… basically not doing much of anything. Relaxing and rejuvenating, sure, but I’m ready to go out now thx. But just don’t ask me to have one for you! Oh no, not after this morning. Drink your own damn booze!

I'm a Rockstar, Baby

Music, , ,

In which there’s a recap of my weekend, with links to Flickr pix.

Friday night after work I went bowling with the boys. I bowled a kick-ass first game with a final score of 143: that’s over twenty pins higher than my average! W00t. That’s rockstar-style bowling, peeps.

Saturday I had an appointment with my stylist at 2 PM to get new rockstar hair. Sound check was at 3:30. Plenty of time, right? Wrong! The woman colored my hair, did two hair cuts, rinsed me, and then did two more cuts before she did my cut and style! I didn’t get to Sapolil until nearly five. And when I did I looked like a Botox-injectee because she did my eyebrow wax last. I had dye all over my forehead (I still do, actually) and all the skin around my eyebrows was hot pink: this, I suspect, is probably not very rockstar.

But it was so worth it! I really needed my hair colored. It was three inches half dark brown (and silver! …okay, gray) at the roots, with weird washed-out red on the ends from my obnoxious box job from a couple of months ago. But now? It’s all a nice even color, fairly close to my natural one, with cute little highlights. Yay! Rockstars should definitely have nice hair.

The house was absolutely packed Saturday night, SRO even. The crowd was awesome; responsive and fun and supportive. (I felt extra-special because I had two aunts, two uncles, a boyfriend, and a co-worker there to hear me.) For the last set, I had a table full of admiring guys to my right, one of whom apparently plays cuts from my EP on his radio show every week. Rockstars totally get airplay!

I’m not sure we got enough good takes to make a live album, though. I haven’t heard the roughs so who knows… sometimes idiot mistakes and random trainwrecks – of which there were many (I myself fucked up Love For the Blues TWICE) – end up sounding brilliant. Honest. To quote Barefoot, some of the best takes are more “Whoops! I’m a genius” than the actual arrangements you intended to play.

During the show Teh BF ran the board and watched the recording software. I think he had fun.

After the gig, we did what we always do after the gig: we schlepped gear!

After the schlepping, K and I went around the corner to Vintage Cellars for a beer, and I spent an hour wedged into a love seat getting wine drunk with a couple of totally hawt babes who had been at Sapolil for the show. (There are hi-fucking-larious! photos of this pile of drunken women, but you can’t see them because they are Not For Public Viewing according to my partners in crime. Private party photos? Are extremely rockstar!)

After that since we hadn’t had a proper supper, K and I went and ate at Shari’s. (Jesus. No wonder I’m perfectly round.) Pudginess is not very rockstar, but it is pretty diva!

Sunday we slept in, woke up, got busy, got up, drank coffee, and then went to 4-year-old’s birthday party in Milton-Freewater. We gorged on pizza. (Jesus. No wonder I’m perfectly round.) When we could no longer stay awake, we went back to Kaje’s and watched Torchwood Declassified drowsily on the couch. I got dropped off at home around 7:30 and did a load of laundry while I packed my lunch for today. (I still love the bento even though I haven’t gotten around yet to making any hella cute shit yet. (Yes, I said ‘yet’ twice.) Although I think I feel some veggie sushi coming on. Sushi is totally rockstar. Even if it’s homemade.)

Today I rolled into work wearing 9-year-old jeans and a bulky sweater with Crocks, frizzy hair and no makeup. Because on Monday mornings? I’m a call center drone, and totally not a rockstar.