finally! or A Patience Test

               TUESDAY 9/25/18 7:26PM--Last night at an open mic, I sang the best lead vocal of my Life...I sang the third verse of  Dylan's I SHALL BE RELEASED...hopefully I'll sing as well on Thursday as I did last night; I sounded the way I do when I sing alone in my car...by which I mean free, no inhibitions...it was a revelation...I'm glad there were witnesses...I don't think there are any videos...there might be pictures, I have no idea...
        FRIDAY 9/28/18 2:18PM--I did a bunch of lead singing last night...I couldn't really hear the vocals  very well, but to some degree that was my fault...there is a snippet of a video in which one can hear three part harmonies on FLIP FLOP & FLY, that sounds good to me...I was considering trading the gizmo for store credit so I could buy a couple more pedals; then I realised I was dissatisfied because I don't have the patience needed to spend however much time it would take to tweak the gizmo to my satisfaction...maybe I can do that on Monday...and not be so impatient...thinking off the top of my head, I wanna start using the gizmo in (mostly) manual mode...I would only use Memory Mode for the more "unusual" patches--OCTAVE, COMPRESSION, HARMONIES...some of the patches are "song specific" and in a sense "band specific" as well...I only use them when I'm gigging with Combustibles...
            And now, naturally, I'm excited about working in the "gizmo Lab"--maybe I can do that tomorrow morning while the roomie is out doing stuff...not too early, but still...and rather than notate the numerical value of each and every parameter for each of the FOUR pedals, I'll just play it by ear--after all, every room sounds different...so, tomorrow morning for instance, I'll set it for the kitchen...maybe I can test it out at the IPO on Tuesday...both the Monday open mics are acoustic...the only two stompboxes that feel absolutely essential to me are the distortion and the chorus...but maybe I could/would use more than just those two sounds if I was playing electric guitar somewhere...is it that much more of a hassle than using the Manchester Bag? Slightly, but not by much...
         SATURDAY--starting to think about tomorrow's gig w/Michelle...I'm probably just gonna take Epi and hope for the best...I think the weather is gonna be super nice...I plan to wear shorts...
           On the other hand, I AM a better player when I use electric guitar and when HE did the gig with Michelle, Rick used his electric gear...innaresting...

I THINK I'm glad she's in Seattle...

           if in fact, that's where Karie actually lives...I can't offhand name any other Woman that intrigues AND unsettles me more...and of course it's such a colossal waste of time to think about what might have been...generally that's true of a lot of situations, not just relationships...I'm probably giving up on having some bizarre kind of relationship with Angela...what she doesn't seem to know won't hurt me, right?
            A Neil Young Trib Band is playing at the OTWC on Friday...I hope I don't go...The only reason I can think of for NOT being offered the chance to audition is that Kennedy is afraid of competition...I KNOW that sounds super duper conceited, but that doesn't mean it's not true...being left out of things hurts...

not MY idea

               
                   THURSDAY 9/20/18 8:15AM--I feel like I'm not a very good guitarist in a trio situation...that's not a cop-out, it's true...and it's not a good or bad thing, it just is what it is...I don't think ANY of my "teachers" would be as good in a trio situation as they were in a fairly big group...Garcia in the Dead, Dickey and Duane in the Allman Bros., Neil...IMO not many guitarists CAN function in a rock trio; The Oz Revue is technically a trio, with a lead vocalist and a saxophonist...I don't think I'm even gonna TRY to fill up the sound of the Revue...I'm hoping that eventually the other band members will come around to my way of thinking...I can't be John Lennon AND Jerry Garcia at the same time...
           As far as the audition went, I accidently brought Butterscotch instead of eBay...not that it mattered...I knew most of the songs; and the two or three that I didn't quite know are easy enough...

so what IS the problem?

          I wish I knew why I'm shunned by many in MontCo Music Community...I just don't get it...is my association with Barry hurting me? I am pretty sure everybody knows the Combustibles suck; no one ever comes to see us...what all those people might not know is that *I* know we suck...
         I know I'm not good looking, so maybe that's it...Does anybody/everybody think I'm weird? Do they lump me in with Howard Roberts? I know that's not the nicest thing I could say, but I believe that generally he's not the most popular member of my social circle, however large it may or may not be...
          Whatever the problem is, is it something I can change? and why should I change? Take me as I am, right? As hard as I try, I just can't be mellow or blend in with a crowd...Although I was fairly invisible at the Crimestoppers gig on Saturday 9/15...that still hurts a bit...and now suddenly Karn doesn't wanna talk to me on FB--I wonder what's going on?
     TUESDAY 9/18/18 10PM--met up with Karn, got the Epi back...it's better than it was...whether it could use further work, *I* don't know...Jeff seems to think so...at any rate I had a good time at the Crossroads open mic...I can't honestly say for sure how important it is to me that the host or hostess be impressed with me, but Jackie indicated that she was...and that makes me feel good...
       Now I can focus on the audition/practice with Oz, scheduled for 7PM tomorrow in Falls Church...I plan on leaving the Gizmo at home...

interesting way to end the year

FRIDAY 9/14/18 9:49PM--on November 10th the Combustibles are scheduled to play at Clyde's in Chevy Chase...that may be my last gig with the Combustibles...about a month before that, I'm doing my first (?) gig with the Oz Revue...
SATURDAY 9:23AM--gig anxiety starting already...I'm gonna try TRY to ignore all the mistakes I'm gonna hear tonight...
 4:30PM--I guess that's the new normal--hoping the gig gets cancelled...or ends a little early...gonna TRY to record some of it...maybe I should pick and choose which songs I record...perhaps I should record our worst songs instead of our best...If I can't find a good spot to place the phone on, I won't bother...not that I need evidence to prove that the Combustibles are pretty bad...I trust my ears to tell me the Truth...and for better or worse, there are vids on youTube--but they're not easy to find...
   6:20PM- starting to work hard at being calm...it’s never easy...
 so much for being calm… I kinda blew up at Barry while we were setting up...LATER--I’ve made some recordings but I don’t know what they sound like yet…
9:45PM- another hour and a half to go… Hopefully we’ll call it an early night; I dunno what the recording will tell me, but my ears tell me we suck... it wouldn’t hurt me a bit if we left early and lost a few bucks in the process...My feet are too big for the Gizmo pedals...I only need it for certain songs that we play...I think for the Oz Revue I'll use the Gizmo in Manual Mode most of the time...
SUNDAY 12:47 AM  such a bizarre night...I wanted to go to the OTWC after my gig--and so I did...Angela was there and I met her friend Ann...I got up onstage and add a third harmony part to WHEN YOU DANCE...it was perfect of course, and Angela missed it... someone noticed I wasn't wearing my glasses...I realised I must have left them at PJs--THAT  pissed me off--a LOT...so I started to go back to hopefully get them...to my surprise they were in the front seat...then suddenly I couldn't find my phone...I must have left THAT at the OTWC...thankfully it too was hidden on the front seat...NOT losing my glasses or my phone are the only good things that happened all evening IMO...I did see Jessica, and got a hug, but really why bother...Coleen ignored me for whatever reason...and I have no f**king idea what, if anything Ann thinks about me...this has mostly been an evening to NOT remember...
Except that I verified to myself that I'm one of the best harmony singers in Montgomery County...WHEN YOU DANCE  was almost magical...I'd never sung that one with the band before..
8:54AM--I feel like got to the baseball game after the seventh inning stretch....and at that point, why bother, right? well hindsight IS 20/20...
              I listened to some of the recordings I made...the SOUND is really bad, but part of that is because of where the recording device was and part of it IMO was the lousy sound Barry came up with...my vocals seem buried to me--standard procedure...every one of us made mistakes...the good news is that hardly anyone was there to hear 'em...
           Even if I was TOTALLY independent, with my own place to live, I would still not be having a relationship with another Woman...why? mostly because I'm not even close to being handsome...and there's not thing one I can do about that...not to mention my inability to "satisfy" a Woman--hell, I can't "please" myself...that is, to me at least, a major bummer...