Its been no secret that the last few weeks of my life have left me in a fairly foul mood, what with the letdown and disappointment of a low turnout for our first show of 2009 and then the aches and sniffles that accompanied the illness that followed. All of this on top of the fact that I am in my 8th week of being laid off from my main graphic design gig and RUNNING. OUT. OF. MONEY. Seriously. Its been quite a toughie.
But wouldn’t you know, as soon as I start to get comfortable with the idea of sharpening razor blades or climbing out onto a very high ledge, something decent happens and I’m forced to table my discontent to make room for feeling blessed for a change.
My band played at The Steve Allen Theater tonight as the musical guest for The Tomorrow Show hosted by Ron Lynch and Margaret Cho. Pretty cool eh? You betcha!
The night started off with a last minute brush up rehearsal at my studio in Hollywood. We needed to solidify a few fussy arrangements of a couple of new songs that we intended to play at tonight’s show. The rehearsal went well and we then loaded up our gear and headed down the street to the venue. We arrived with plenty of time to set up and the sound guy was an absolute angel of a man who took good care of us. After a pleasant sound check, we took some promo pics of the group on the stage and then relaxed for about 40 minutes while waiting for the audience to arrive.
I wasn’t expecting much. Even with a famous comic like Margaret Cho in the mix…I figured, this is LA…people won’t come out at midnight, especially in the rain. Right? WRONG. People turned up in droves. The house was starting to get pretty packed. It was time for the band and I to head backstage. I ran into the very nice, and very accommodating Ron Lynch who introduced me to the lovely and very down to earth Margaret Cho. We spoke briefly and she asked me if I would tune her guitar for her. I agreed and we chatted some more while I tuned her Guild. I admitted that I was a fan and we chatted about Northern California a little bit. Once her guitar was taken care of The Brian Travis Band got into our position. We were introduced by Ron Lynch and began to play behind a screen that lifted to reveal us jamming away to our first song, ‘My Dad is Better Than Your Dad.’
This was our first time playing this song live in front of people…and they LOVED it! Seriously. They ATE IT UP. There were laughs and chuckles and bursts of applause in the middle of the song…and we totally rocked it with mad authority. We launched into “I Think Your Mom And Dad Have Been Replaced By Aliens” which was probably our weakest performance of the short 20 min set, but it was by no means a downer…we rocked that song too, I just wasn’t at my best vocally on that one…but you should really cut me some slack…I am getting over a bad cold! “Girls Aren’t Allowed In Forts” was next. It went over like gangbusters! Then we closed the set with “Stacy, The Trailer Park Girl” and brought down the house. What a good time we had! What a great audience! Margaret Cho watched our set with a big smile on her face from the wings of the stage and congratulated us on such a good set.
Later on that night I gave Margaret one of our 3 song demo CD’s and she was pleased enough to put it in her guitar case. Q: How cool is that? A: Ice cold.
After the set we were congratulated many times by many people and Ron Lynch asked us back anytime. Finally, a good gig in LA! About 100 new ears heard my band tonight. The hands of strangers clapped along to my songs and enjoyed our set and told me so afterward. It was rewarding and thrilling. I guess I can come back in from off the ledge now.
