Carroll's 55th Street
Carroll's 55th Street
On this comfortable week in the studio and Deadstein, Rich was not going to be with us. This makes for a very different type of evening in so many respects. It was my birthday show which does mean I get to pick the songs of the evening which is nothing really new since I typically do that anyway, but the fact that Rich wasn't going to be there also meant that I was going to sing virtually every song. That makes things pretty uncomfortable for everyone involved but nevertheless it got us through the evening with a full 20-song set list.
Right off the bat, Kevin was having problems with his equipment as we started with a Here Comes Sunshine directly into China Cat Sunflower --> I Know You Rider and through the whole thing Kevin was banging on his amp trying to figure out what was going on with the guitar amp on top of the bass cabinet that was messing up during the entire performance. He eventually switched out the Fender for a Vox but problem still seem to persist no matter what he did. Whether it was actually a equipment issue or a Kevin issue still was an issue throughout the evening. I would say pretty much by the second set we fell into a more comfortable zone and we were just playing more so than figuring out what was going on. With Ryan and Maggie in the room we were required to play with just a little more respectability and Ryan joined us for the Candyman on drums at the beginning of the second set. We tried a few never played by Deadstein before George Harrison songs which I had the charts for at the beginning of the second set. The Isn't it a Pity was done twice because the first time the recorder wasn't on and the second time we played it sounded pretty good and was a fun song to play. On the other hand, we did Give Me Love and my brain was just not syncing with what I had to do at the time and it was a total mess. This was a bummer for me cause I really enjoy playing that song and can do it well. It is simple and easy and I just needed not to look at my chart, which I really don't need for that song, because that thing was just messing me up like there was no tomorrow. Wasn't it a pity is all I could think about that which was a shame because I think eventually we could do that song pretty well once I learn the slide parts. Oh well, hopefully we won't give up hope. After that little foray into the George Harrison stuff we hopped right into a whole big segment including the Crazy Fingers --> Other One into the big Morning Dew to close. With time dwindling down it was funny and frustrating when Maggie came back into the studio with a bad full of munchies which was immediately attacked by Kevin and it was really kind of a bummer because there was so little time left to play and we were just starting to play well and this meant that there were to be a big change in what we could finally do to close the night with teased tummies and desires to eat more. We settled on a Terrapin Station, which had its ups and downs, but was still fulfilling. At the end of it 12-midnight encroached yet it didn't seem like the proper closer at the time. As such, we finish with a crazy Gloria where I actually mocked Hillary Clinton in it quite a bit. I probably don't want to listen to it but at the time it seemed pretty funny. I'm enjoying the writing of this blog post because I'm dictating it into Microsoft's OneNote using my iPhone's microphone and it's working pretty well, maybe it has a different flow and feel to it. Nevertheless just want to say that I also updated the blog postings for the last two months. You will probably see all the postings and the songs up on the blog so if you want to go up there and look at it or comment on it, feel free to indulge yourself and others. We'll probably be repeated on the Facebook Deadstein page so you could check us out there also, so expect to see a whole bunch of old postings popping up in the social world. Just one last thing to think about and to say is at this time miraculously the United States made it into the final tournament of the World Cup this year. Though they gave up a goal with about two seconds to go in stoppage time to tie Portugal and then lost to Germany in the preliminary round of the World Cup somehow it was ugly it didn't feel good but there still playing. Which is just like Deadstein so let's go USA and let's go Deadstein and Freak Out!