A Siren Song at Capital City Club: On the Patio in the Land of Emergency Vehicles + A Special Concert Mention: The Musical Box at Variety Playhouse

A siren song is an enticing plea, one that is deceptively alluring.  Perhaps not in this case.  We played to the diners on the comfy patio in downtown Atlanta.  Many an emergency vehicle passed by us in hot pursuit as we kept the volume down for those sitting near our stage.  It's rather comical to witness.  Some of the sound effects bestowed upon our mix were expertly timed, say at the conclusion of a solo or just after a breakdown.  Had to laugh a couple of times, then it got a bit old.  I managed to snap a few images, while playing as best I could of course.  These days, it can be all about the blog!

We didn't have Big Time this week.  He was hanging with his son, who will be moving to New Orleans after school lets out.  In his place, we had Keith Hicks, guitarist extraordinaire.  Did some cool jazz things including a happening Bright Size Life.  Keith has even learned to phrase a bit like Metheny, which is not that easy to do.  A lot of slurs, but there's more to it than that.  One thing he did that I wasn't quite so sure about was playing that 2nd chord in the form, which the illustrious "Real Book" and such put as Bb/A.  Somebody needs to explain that one to me.  Jaco certainly played a Bb, so Bb/A is perhaps a true polychord and not just an altered bass note.  It has confounded me for too many years.  I just always hear and think of it as a Bbmaj7(#11) - the E natural is essential and allows for the Dmaj to Dmin tonality to contrast nicely.  I have also always thought that the Bb/A meant that there might be a C# lurking in the tonality somehow, but I never worked that out.

Later that night, I sang the Wings' tune Junior's Farm in my first ever Karaoke performance.  Always loved that song, but it sure takes a lot of air!

Saturday was Spencer's birthday party, as well as Cinco de Mayo.  I subbed out an out of town wedding to stay close to home for the party.  Couldn't nail down an evening thing either.  However, I journeyed out to see the wonderful tribute act The Musical Box, a Canadian group I saw years ago.  They were at Variety Playhouse performing The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.  What a show.  They "became" Peter, Tony, Mike, Steve, and Phil for the 2 + hour show.  Peter sang with the exact tonality of the double album, uncanny: a nasal midrange heavy quality that is hard to relay unless you've spent hours listening to that record, as I certainly have.  He played flute as well, of course.  Phil was spot on as well, attacking his drums with the same dynamic flair and singing just like Phil did.  He was right-handed, so it wasn't "exact"!  Mike was left-handed, playing mucho double-necked bass/12-string guitar parts and bass pedals.  For the encore of The Musical Box  he only played electric 12-string, a single neck instrument, and the bass pedals only came in at the end.  Steve killed all the Hackett volume swells and knarly tones.  He blew my mind on Hairless Heart, with the solo nylon string chordal melody (with 1 tiny finger glitch, totally forgivable) and then handing the guitar to a waiting tech to switch to his electric that he was already wearing, never missing a beat.  It was fantastic!  Tony was the glue, perfect as always!  The opening of the show was interesting.  I believe they did it just as Genesis would have back in the day.  It was about a minute of awkward silence, then a roadie came across the stage with a flashlight to light Tony's piano for a moment - then he began the intro arpeggios that open The Lamb -  no sequencing or modern trickery!  Great show, what a pleasure.