March 15 @ The Red Room Collective

First thing, we're in the car and Stefan notices all my directions that I printed out are from The Red Room, not to the Red Room. But I printed them twice! Mysterious. The presents some mild difficulties, but we manage to arrive mostly on time. At least, on time enough so that I am not freaking out.

Except for we arrive at the wrong place. It takes us a bit to figure this out.

See, the contact address for the Red Room Collective and its physical location are quite different things... which we find out when Stefan checks his phone and sees their directions to the place at a different address. Huh.

Shit.

So, back to the car, and back on I-83 to the next exit. I'm thinking, well, I don't take that long to set-up! Really! And shows are usually pretty late! We do get there and find a good parking spot. We rush in. "Sorry I'm late! blah blah blah wrong place lost blah blah blah!" and there's one guy there. He's like, "Its okay, the audience hasn't found the place, either."

I immediately relax, and just start setting up. There's a guy setting up for the opening band with a large basket next to a drum set, and we do the introduction thing. Later, we ask what is in the basket and it is a surprise. The other band is freaking out because there's no one there. Apparently, all the members of the collective are out of town or not showing up, and they forgot to send out the email to everyone. There is a mass telethon of calls to try and coax audience members to show up. People from the opening band start using emotional blackmail against friends who are not going to show...mostly in jest. It is amusing.

Meanwhile, one of the guys says, "You need a place to stay, don't you? I have the keys to John's place and you can use the guest room." John is not actually in town, but he is going to let me stay there?

Me: "Uh.... what?"

Apparently, they just assumed I needed a place to stay, and went ahead and provided me one.... which was very nice, actually. But not needed. Anyways, they call John and ask him if they can watch movies at his house afterwards. He says yes.

Meanwhile, the opening band starts their set with us, the guy who took the door, me & Stefan, and the book store clerk that is subbing for organizer in the audience. I have to interrupt & point out to Stefan they have started because they are so quiet. The guy at the drums plays guitar and the other guy has a bunch of electronic gadgets connected to a mixer. He puts a knife in some small string instrument and runs it through a guitar pedal which seems to add distortion. He also has a circuit-bent keyboard and some other sort of organ / thing.

During their set, three people show up. Audience members! We all cheer because we are so happy there is an audience. I am pretty okay with it because I feel like the pressure is off and I can test run things and try different things. Plus, the other shows actually had an audience and I have more shows after.

Near the end of the opening band's set: The Taste of Popcorn" (or The Subjective Taste of Popcorn? one of those) we find out about the basket. The guy sitting at the electronics goes crazy and starts throwing shit. The drummer opens the basket and throws clothes everywhere. Everywhere. It did look like a clothes hamper. He starts playing the hamper with his sticks. The guy at the electronics grabs another string instrument, and they pretend to play for a few minutes. One of the audience members yells, "Free jazz is so deep!" a bunch.

I just realized that I am better at names when I don't know the faces first, because I don't remember anyone's names from that night. Yet, mention a friend's name I don't know and I will know it forever attached to everything you tell me about this person. Actually meeting people, I forget to pay attention during introductions or something.

Anyways, I get dressed and then go on. It takes me incredibly long to initialize the software this time, for some reason. I start with Error of My Ways, and that goes without a hitch.... except for I don't actually lose control. Or, I do for a bit, and then I get it back pretty quickly. Somehow, my random reset is pretty generous with me. I think this is actually the result of the fact that I hate losing control in this piece, and I made it a little too possible to regain it. Must re-calibrate. Meanwhile, I enjoy having control. Its a fun little thingy to have control of.

Then, balancing act follows. Everything goes well. I continued to feel distanced. I'm getting slightly better at finding the dot, but I think I need to add a threshold before the error starts affecting things. In that piece, I am never doing well finding that dot. Even when I had it programmed still for a while.

The set-up time for those pieces is atrocious, and I am now working on minimizing it.

This time, one of my synths mysteriously just doesn't start in things that breathe. It doesn't really affect the song so much in structure, etc. but it was surprising because normally that piece is rock solid.

Afterwards, it seems most people really liked Time becomes Magnetic, which is interesting because that is the piece I was most worried about not fitting into the set. At least the rest of the set is unified by voice, is what I'm thinking. The only remarkable thing about the set is that I start crawling around on the floor for some songs and climbing on furniture. My inbetween song banter remains a bit weak / mediocre.... which is something I have to work on if I'm billing my act as cabaret...

Afterwards, they give me all the door. The other bands don't want it, so I'm like, okay. Ironically, this is the only gig where someone has remembered to take a door. When we get to the car, we find out its over $70. Holy crap! Only three people who were not obligated to show up, showed up! They must have felt bad about the whole deal or something.

We decide to truck it back to DC and go out and drink there. We walk around for an hour trying to find the right bar.