The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly...

...seems a good description of last-weekend's wedding reception down in La Jolla (a posh, seaside area of San Diego).


The Good:

1. Absolutely stunning women, and lots of them.
2. Our rhythm guitarist played well and in-tune throughout the gig. This was important, because are main guitarist was out, and we were using a fill-in.
3. Absolutely stunning women, and lots of them.
4. Great meal! Fillet Mignon and Sea Bass. There were confused crys of "Where's the deli platter with rainbow beef and Miracle Whip(tm)?" But we adjusted.
5. Absolutely stunning women, and lots of them.
   

The Bad:

1. Fighting the La Jolla traffic to make it to the gig.
2. Strange phenomenon amongst wedding party males stripping off their shirts and periodically jumping on stage, disrupting our drummer's setup.
3. Our lead guitarist and soundman missing (off being famous playing a concert in Sacramento).
4. Me (keyboards) having to do the guitar riffs in the Steve Miller medley because our lead guitarist was off being famous (well, he does kick-ass on that guitar, so I suppose he deserves it :-).
   

The Ugly:

1. Our leader extending "Unforgettable"--the father/daugher dance--and so deviating from the chart arrangement. The extension was a good idea, because members of the family were coming on the the floor, and this wouldn't normally cause problems, but the chart is a bit complicted so some members got lost and ignored the cardinal rule: When in doubt, drop out.
2. Our leader throwing "Stacey's Mom" into the middle of "Brown Eyed Girl". Spontanaity is a good thing, in general. However, some members were still realing from "Unforgettable" and had problems with the key shift ("Stacey" == 'E', "Brown" == G) and again ignored aforementioned cardinal rule.
   

All was right in the end:

However, in spite of some of the rough points, it was a great gig. The people had a great time, and I had a great time. I've been working up a bunch of new material for various projects, and so have been spending more time on my keyboard than I usually do, so my fingers are feeling pretty good. Also, it's great to be a key part of making the reception work, and this one took place on a warm spring evening overlooking the blue Pacific.

And did I mention there were lots of beautiful women?

Once a Decade: A new keyboard

I seem to buy a keyboard at the rate of one every 10 years. My last purchase--a Roland XP-80--took place in 1996. My motivation at that time was a gig at the Atlanta Olympics. I needed to have a single keyboard small and light enough to check as baggage.

At the time I was playing on a Roland RD-300 and a Roland D-50. The RD-300 in a case is huge and about 100 lbs, a bit over the airlines weight limits. The XP-80 fit the bill nicely; under 50 lbs in a flight case. (Although, when I got to the gig they had backline up the wazoo, so I really didn't need to bring a keyboard in the first place. :-/)

In my 04/29 entry I mentioned that I'm not really comfortable on the XP-80 in a solo situations. I really like the keyboard in general, but as a pianist I miss the weighted action. I checked the reviews over at harmonycentral.com, and the Roland RD-150 seemed to be a good choice for my purposes. I went down to Professional Sound And Music (prosound.com) to try one out, but they are discontinued. I played the RD-300sx (which bears little resemblance to the RD-300 mentioned above, as it's less than 35 lbs) and was quite impressed. It is a basic stage piano, which is perfect for my needs since I have the XP-80 for most band situations. I've been getting used to it here at home and the more I use it the more I like it. Now I just have to get a bunch of solo-trio gigs to take advantage of it.

Studio session

Studio session was at Exum studios. I mainly redid parts put on by another keyboardist. There was apparently some differences of opinion between the client and the first keyboardist, and things didn't go so well. I put the tracks on and all went well. I like studio gigs. I'd like to do more.