Band plays houseparty. Neighbors don't complain!

For the last few months, our band has been otherwise engaged. Between house renovations and studio time, we haven't been playing out much. This weekend, though, we played at a house party, so I thought I'd share a few visuals and a little background on the players.

Here you can see KB tuning before the show. He is one of co-founders of the band. He is also the primary writer - with distinctive lyrics and chord progressions - sings a lot of lead and is the kind of guitar player that makes other guitar players pay attention. He often sets the bass line and the rhythm of the song in his guitar part - how you can do both at the same time is beyond me, but it works! His guitar is the heart of the music, but his lyrics are most often the brain.

This is PB. She is the other co-founder and writer, and also sings some leads. She is most often behind the keyboard, though we farily regularly switch places. She and I have matching mics - in the foreground of this picture - to make it easier on our overworked soundman when we do that. She is also the one that does the booking, so she knows when the shows should start. Thus the time check here...

We have some unusual instrumentation, as you can see. That is MC on cello, the newest member of the band. He adds a great deal of warmth and just the right touches to the lower end of our sound. MJ is setting up his "millenial falcon". It is a very portable e-drum that can handle kit and hand drum sounds. It is great for a gig like this, where hauling all of the kit through the house would be a bit tough.

I'm kind of the utility knife player in the band - I do a little of this and a little of that. This is my little bag of tricks. I have penny whistles in several keys (Irish pennywhistle is only supposed to be in D, so don't tell anyone) and hand percussion. I also add the 3rd voice harmony and play a little keyboard. My whistle collection is outgrowing my tool bag here, but HTH bought me a new case for that. I just have to get everything sorted out properly sometime soon.


Last, but certainly not least, we have my personal favorite member of the band - our soundman. He gets to wear cool shirts like this one. He creates monitor mixes that appease all of the different requirements of the band. He knows what knob to turn when PB says that things sound "wuby". (Don't try to find that word in the dictionary!) He makes the house sound great.


He is also the reason that we can actually do most of these shows. There is an awful lot of gear involved in getting the sound we make out to the audience. He hauls speakers and puts them up on stands. He runs cables, even if it means leaning upside down to get the monitors hooked into the amp. He also typically does all of this in reverse at the end of the night while we musicians go chat with the crowd. For a great soundman, he is a very good roadie!

For this show, he had a new and exciting challenge to face. Here you see him lean against one of the main speaker stands quite casually while the party planners explain the intricacies of their karaoke and laptop DJ systems. Has he ever hooked those kinds of things up to his board before? NO! Did it work? Of course!

Just in case you haven't recognized him, our fabulous soundman is none other than HTH. He can build a business, buy me flowers, raise boys, AND run sound! Dang, I'm lucky!

House parties can be crazy, but this one was a lot of fun. We made some new friends and a few new fans. Most of all, though, we were playing together for an audience again. Playing solo tracks in the studio - just for microphones and computers - can be tough. It is much more fun to play off of whatever comes out of someone else's mind that night and to interact with the crowd. We'll be back in the studio later this week - if I remember the camera, you will see how different that looks from what you're thinking right now - but my contribution, at least, will be much refreshed by this little house party.