Too Much Coffee Tour Refill

A couple of weeks ago I rocked an instate tour of popular open mics & coffee shops along the Wasatch front aka UTAH. The idea of doing this type of presentation for the release of my first solo project grew from just a minuscule coffee bean almost a year ago. I thought instead of doing one specific ceedee release where maybe fifty plus people show up at some bar in an already apathetically saturated music scene: 1) I could hit a different type of crowd and 2) I could get used to playing as a solo instead of relying on my homies (Numbs, Rotten Musicians) & all the while fine tuning my performance (and yes, I still have miles to go). Here is a breakdown. Let’s do a rating of ‘Damn Good Coffee Cups’ zero to five with some notes…

Saturday, October 2nd: Velour in Provo. 3 out of five D.G.C.C.

This one doesn’t technically count since it is neither a coffee shop nor an open mic still it’s on here? The openers on the bill were Papertron & The Agents. DJ Shanty set it off with some glitch-down-electronic-noir. That Kaos-en-tendo does him right (Womp Womp). Papertron reminded me of mid-nineties ‘Provo Hop’ in the same vein of a Chump, if you will. Seeing The Agents rock live again was the highlight of the evening for me. Facts, Jay Playwords & Illumino have an awesome chemistry and it tore through the fabric of reality. We all need a new Agents EP/LP…whatever. The pseudo Numbs set went smooth. We did a handful of group songs after this Gunnar and myself split the time switching back and forth between solo jawns. I went through half my album and I think we played for over 45 minutes but I could be wrong. Shanty did a great job of jumping around the tunes since we really didn’t have a set…set list. It was nice seeing old friends and new fans. The sound was better than good & K got me a victory cake for my first show. Chocolate delicious.

Sunday, October 3rd: Greenhouse Effect in SLC. 4.5 out of five D.G.C.C.

When I play spots that I don’t normally frequent. Places that I have never been to. I get that feeling before I go on. That watchful, edgy, precarious & nefarious sensation. I’d say there was probably close to a hundred peeps crowded into an intimate living room type setting. The ‘stage’ was down the end of long hallway. And yes, there was a mic plugged into a guitar amp. Gulp. I signed up on the list and took the first spot. There are two rounds at this location and you get to do one ‘piece’ each round. The hostess kicked it off with some poetry-spoken word. She joked when introducing me saying it was my first time there, a Greenhouse Effect ‘virgin’. I went hard and fast with ‘Miniboss’. Fisch was in the place and did a significant job tuning the sound as I played. After the song finished I received a warm response from the crowd. Not what I expected at all. One kid specically referenced the Contra part on ‘Miniboss’. The hostess did another piece of poetry before the second round started and it was laced with innuendo. There was a mention of X-Wing fighters probing the deep trench of the Death Star. I was struck with imagery of Mon Mothma before I cannon balled into ‘Angel Dust’. Figuring the shamans could head nod along with the bass line…or dance. I will most likely go back to this place time to time. Awesome atmosphere. Good people and good times.

Monday, October 4th: Muse in Provo. 1 out of five D.G.C.C.

Not much to say here. The Juice N Java ‘Young & Restless’ drink I bought before I arrived had my Italian blood boiling. It was a rainy night in Happy Valley and the crowd was in the single digits. The guy who ran the show mentioned it as normal. I signed up first on the list again and ran through ‘Miniboss’, ‘The Sometimes Why?’ ‘Death Stars’ & ‘Angel Dust‘. The sound was plastic and my vocals seemed hot. I dropped a dollar in their tip jar and was outtie.

Tuesday, October 5th: Mo’s in Downtown SLC. 4 out of five D.G.C.C.

Mo’s is set up like an inebriated orchestra pit. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Both the dinner crowd and the hecklers have equal access to you, as they are right there at the stage. K, Fisch & Chase One-Two were in attendance and I wasn’t the only ‘rapper’ to perform on this particular night. Minute After 8 went first. One the two emcees very first line ‘I go raw dog, no condom’ I knew we were in for a treat. I’ll give it to them; Minute After 8 had the crowd into it. However, their choice to play over the restaurants surround sound and not through the stereo head right on stage made for a hard listen. The tracks cut in and out and then stopped completely. They had a homie with them that jumped in and started playing the drums that were set up. The host followed suit and grabbed his bass. And then, and only then some joker started yelling ‘drum battle’. I assumed he was a percussionist and wanted some. This angered one of the emcees and he started ‘battling’ the pest. I counted over eighteen ‘mother fuckers’ monophonically aimed at him. The situation sucked the air out of the place so much that the second kid on the list, spy hops singer/songwriter of the year for 2009, got two songs into his set and stopped. Not a ‘fuck you guys, I’m out of here’ stop but more of a shell shocked I’m not feeling it afterthought. I went third. Introduced as ‘The Virgin’ yet again I tore through ‘Miniboss’, ‘Angel Dust’, ‘Scoreboard’ (with help from Fisch on the chorus) & ‘Death Stars’. After my set, I swapped ceedee’s with other artists and the bartender (booker) took my contact info. The sound seemed solid and I felt that my performance had leveled up.

Wednesday, October 6th: Mestizo in Rose Park 3.5 out of five D.G.C.C.

If you live in SLC and haven’t been to Mestizo, head there now. They make (IMO) the tastiest coffee related beverages in the area. The ambience is second to none as well. I’ve been to the open mic here before and they have a lot of the spoken word variety. I was third on the list. K, Marissa & Fisch flew with me to the venue. We watched slap bass solos and heard penguin penis jokes. Alongside highbrow poetry. After a quick sound check (Boardwalk) I moved the mostly sitting crowd through ‘Miniboss’, ‘The Sometimes Why?’ & ‘Angel Dust’. This was the closest to achieving that high fidelity sound I had experienced. I thanked crowd and the hostess for letting me play. I jetted soon after the guitarist who writes only songs about Southern Utah finished.

Thursday, October 7th: Salt Rock Coffee in Ogden 0 out of five D.G.C.C.

Me: (calling earlier that day): Hey, I called last week and just wanted to make sure that you are still doing the open mic tonight?

Lady: Let me ask (Her shouting) are we still doing the open mic tonight?

Guy in background: (Yelling but faint since he isn’t holding the phone) No. No one showed up last week.

Lady: We cancelled it because no one showed last week. But, we still do them on the first Friday of each month.

Me: Oh, ok. Thanks.

(click)

Friday, October 8th: The Coffee Shop in Riverton. 0 out of five D.G.C.C.

I arrived right at 7pm so I could scrawl my name along the chalkboard that they have set up for participants only to see a note on the door.

‘We are sorry for any inconvenience. We will be closing early tonight at 10 o’clock. And we will be postponing open mic night until next Friday’

I went in and spoke to the barista. He apologized & said that Mike tried to call me? Which is strange since Mike doesn’t have my number. I did a quick Google search and saw that Whispers held their open mic the same night. I called them and it was on.

Whispers in Salt Lake City. 2.5 out of five D.G.C.C.

Have amp, will travel. Very low key place. The host was rambling through an acoustic set when K, Fisch and myself arrived. I was on right after and since everyone was sitting down enjoying teatime I thought I would oblige. The host kept saying the genre was ‘Rad’. I don’t think he could read my handwriting. The set up was simple and I was told afterward that the mic had a distortion effect on it, which was ‘kinda cool’. One guy on the couch pulled out his smart phone and recorded the three songs: ‘Miniboss’, ‘Angel Dust’ and the end cap…’War Machine’ (which is not on the album). I received a decent response from the crowd that was there. And yes, I performed the three songs sitting down. On to the next one.

Saturday, October 9th: High Point in West Jordan. 4 out of five D.G.C.C.

The reason this one didn’t get a five out of five was on me. Vocally I don’t think it was the strongest showing of the week, which is crazy because everything else fell in place fantastically. The posse showed up at 7pm. that’s when I found out I needed to actually show up at 6pm to sign in. The roster was full BUT…the barista was one of the guys from Minute After 8. The raw dog guy. He was able to get me a 15-minute timeframe that started at 10 o’clock. Weird in a karmic sort of way. My CRE/PRIDE peeps were in the house and together during the next two hours we sat and witnessed things that we can now check off the bucket list. Purple pants, check. Mouth trombone, check. Act after act singing somber tunes of breakup and heartbreak, check. My set was uncanny and seemed to be a welcomed sigh of relief. ‘Miniboss’, Angle Dust’ & ‘Scoreboard’ (Fisch on the assist once again). All the time, the hosts were working out the kinks with the sound design to perfection. Ad infintium.

The day after, I questioned it all like the Double Rainbow guy…What does it mean…and here’s what I came up with:

An instate micro-tour reminded me of an out of state macro-tour minus the long drives and traffic. Some nights are killer while others are meh. Still, you meet up with people and connect through music. I sold over half of my physical inventory. I had one person (not counting K or Fisch) follow me to two or more locations. I felt my live show getting tighter and exact. Even though I’m not exactly there yet. And I had a BLAST! It was way fun showing up, plugging in and playing. It gave me that raw, that unique, that hungry feeling. Like they used to say.

I felt accomplished.

By NO means am I going to take it easy. Are you kidding me? I still got a lot of PUSH left in this. However now I might be too big for coffee shops. Next up...Pizza joints!!!

Peace, DAG!