Swamptooth Live, 7 December 2012

Starbucks, Western Avenue, Harbor City CA

1. Second Time Around
2. The Carolers (poem)
3. Better Off Alone

Set was unplanned, and hence performed with a 40-year old Yamaha guitar borrowed from Mike Munoz.  A video of the performance was captured by Don Varner.

Swamptooth Live, 22 August 2012

Back to Old Torrance Coffee & Tea after a four-month hiatus.

Very large, overflow crowd.  Lots of young people too.  Event was held outside on the street patio.  Unfortunately I only got to do one little set before I got cut short:

1. Outlaw Blues
2. Memphis, Tennessee

I played these two songs very much rock-and-roll, but as a medley.  They both work with the Johnny Rivers arrangement of Memphis.  Jeane, the MC, for some reason always tends to introduce me as "W.T."  So I got an icebreaker laugh when I set the record straight with what is becoming a standard line, saying "The band is called Swamptooth.  But I'm the only guy who ever shows up."

Missed a chord once, omitted at least one verse, and fluffed a line, but these faults were seemingly not noticeable and the crowd was into it.  I was initially planning to follow up the southern medley with a few Gram Parsons songs just because I was out of practice with a lot of my usual stuff.  But then after people remembered some of my earlier shows and requested songs by name, I changed my mind and thought I would do those. 

A couple of firsts racked up after I was done playing:

• First time I have heard my set described as "hard core."  Or maybe it was "Hard Corps," I don't know, but from the context, probably the former.  This kind of feedback typically takes me by surprise and puzzles me, which is half the fun.
• First time I have had a request list longer than my actual set.  But then, also probably my shortest set.

The headliner, Mike Munoz, missed my little double feature and wanted me to go on again, which Jeane also requested.  But it was getting late, going well past the usual 9:00 cut off, and I had to work early, so I bailed out.  Wayne Davis cornered me as I was leaving and again wanted to form a band, and after that I wound up chatting to the guy who had requested the Donovan song I did at an earlier show.  Then I heard Munoz doing "I Was Young When I Left Home," which is a song I've been planning to do, and thought no one else was aware of.  Finally, on my way out, I ran into a young damsel in distress who badly needed an ego boost, having just done her stage debut, a capella.  Always gutsy, often not pretty.  So I had a hard time extricating myself and got home late after all.  But I'll probably do those requested songs next week.

Swamptooth Live, 25 April 2012

Event was held indoors due to intermittent showers.  Old Torrance Coffee & Tea is pretty tight even with only ten people in there because of the overstuffed furniture.  I got there almost a half hour late, quaffed a green tea matcha smoothie, and was asked to go on pretty soon after that.  Here is what I performed:

1. A Day is Far too Long
2. Are You Lonely?
3. Big Tin Truck
4. Second Time Around
5. Hampstead Incident (In the Nighttime)

The first two were Graham Coxon covers, done with capo on 2nd fret. Next round was an original, Big Tin Truck, done in the usual arrangement but with one verse forgotten ("back in '78"). Richard McDowell told me afterward that my voice was good on that song, that it gave it a "folk feel," by which I think he meant that I didn't sing it country-style to match the music.

My last set opened with another original, Second Time Around, which ended up amplified and so brought a bunch of listeners in from outside to hear.  This was not bad considering I had followed Mike, the house band, with a song I hadn't intended to play.  I did it because I noticed people reacting to the opening riff which I used to sound check once I was amplified, and decided to keep going.  Afterward I claimed it was a "true story," just as I had after Big Tin Truck. 

I closed my set with Hampstead Incident (by Donovan Leitch), which I cut short because I remembered only two verses.  Someone, I forget who, lauded my singing on the last set, I think because of the amplification.  In fact, I had forgotten to capo the last song, with the result that it was definitely below my range and I could not provide enough volume on the low parts.  I had to get really close to the microphone on those notes, which probably made me seem really "into it."

I intended this as a dry run for a show in Seattle this weekend. The first two songs were not optimized for the crowd, being very tortured bohemian, and angsty, but were fairly well received anyway. I'd say the highlight was Second Time Around, but "Truck" and Hampstead Incident were close behind.

After me, a Joan Baez-sounding soprano named Michelle went on, and I almost tripped her when she backed into my foot while singing Monday Morning (or something similar).

As I was packing up my Martin, the owner asked me if that last song was an original, and I answered that no, it was by Donovan, and he said, "well it was good anyway." But I'm not sure if by "that last song" he actually meant the one before it. Also as I was leaving, Wayne Davis (for whom I had selected Big Tin Truck) told me I was quite a talent, but that I needed to be in a group.  I pointed out that I am a group, and that I just can't get anyone else to join it.  Wayne had been insulting performers all night (and also my guitar), so I took this as a compliment. It also reminded me that he had asked me late last year to become a member of his backing band.

Swamptooth Live, 28 March, 2012

Old Torrance Coffee and Tea

1. Hurricane Days 
2. On The Road 
3. City in my Brain 
4. Arms of Love 
5. Dark End of the Street 
6. Above You

I came in late, at about 7:30, and they asked me to go on immediately, which I did.  

The place was completely packed, and I had almost no ability to even take my gear out inside, let alone tune.  So I scuttled my initial plans to deploy harmonica.  Somehow I left my guitar pick at home, and had to use the emergency one that I always carry in my wallet.  Unfortunately, it is a light gauge pick, which greatly inhibits my picking style.  With that in mind, I tried to emphasize songs with lots of strumming.

I used a capo on first fret for the first two songs, as a boost to my voice.  They plugged me in, which worked pretty well.  When I came back on for a second set, the place had just emptied out after a drum circle.  So that somehow spurred me to try "City."  Probably because I knew not many were listening.  It was way too low for my voice.  I accompanied myself with the usual C harmonica.  

The audience came back.  "Arms" and "Street" were pretty standard, with no capo.  "Street" was the best of the night for me.  I should have stopped, but they asked me to keep going.  So I hemmed and hawed, and then finally capoed somewhere about second fret and launched into Above You.  But the capo threw me off and I blew a whole bunch of chords, especially in the bridge, which fell apart almost completely.  Embarassment.  After that, I called it a night.

This was my first foray after recovering from pneumonia, so the purpose was more just to get out there than to turn in really great performances.  Still, I would have been happy to have recorded my version of "Street."  

Richard McDowell asked me to come and play at Gilmore's this Saturday.  I am thinking about it.

Not sure what to make of this

Don found this one, which clearly has nothing to do with My New Invention, but purports to offer songs from the 1998 My New Invention CD for download:

http://www.hello.dj/my-new-invention

Swamptooth Live, 8 February 2012

Old Torrance Coffee & Tea

From left: my knee, Derek, A.R., Richard
"The Dark Stranger" McDowell, and my milkshake

Swamptooth returned to play songs at Old Torrance Coffee & Tea for the first time since October.  Actually I was billed as "Swamptooth Featuring Bill."  Since my last appearance they had moved the live performances indoors to escape the weather. (if you can call it that in Southern California!)

Also, pressure from performance rights organizations (like ASCAP) had resulted in OTC&T changing over to a policy requesting performers to stick to original (or uncopyrighted) songs.

This particular crowd, maybe ten people at any one time, was very sedate and very attentive.  With that mood dominating, I made a snap decision about which song to open with: "Come My Way," a B-side from the Black and Blue Second Time Around single.  I really like this song, but I tend not to play it because I'm afraid of wearing it out and losing the connection.  Not a big deal, I'm just saving something for times like this.

Swamp guitar face

Songs performed:

1. Come My Way
2. Life is Black (end of first set)
3. Big Tin Truck
4. Above You (end of second set)
5. A Song for You - joined by Mike Munoz (acoustic guitar/vocal) and Derek (conga drum)
6. Sin City - Performed my Mike Munoz, with accompaniment from me (vocal, guitar) and Derek (guitar).

Come My Way turned out very solid.   I had introduced it as a "serious" song, about a very brief love affair.  I think that one really hit the mark, and I could see people reacting positively to it.  I was worried it was a bit of a slow number to start with, but I was wrong, because it has enough dynamics to keep things from dragging, and turned out to be a foot-tapper.  Unlike the CD, I played it with capo-2.  Likewise with "Life is Black," but I had a D harp so I could still do the old Stickmen arrangement, just with more harmonica breaks.  Trouble was, "Life is Black" came out fine technically, but the irony fell completely flat with the crowd.  I had described it as a "silly" song.  But really, it's not.  If anything the song is very dark.  I think Matt has the charisma to pull it off, but I won't try it again solo.

Big Tin Truck went over quite well.  It was pretty much the standard Black and Blue arrangement, only without a rhythm section.  I got a heartfelt compliment afterwards on that one.

Above You, my "teenage angst" song, is barely excusable now given that I am almost twice as old as when I wrote it.  That said, the music was catchy, and the song is in a low enough key that it's hard to hear what I am singing except in the bridge, which is the best part of the song.

Derek snuck in several cover songs.

I stuck to originals for the proper performance, but then during the post-show jam session, a couple of Gram Parsons covers surfaced.  Of those, "A Song for You" was totally unplanned but turned out really great sounding with a second guitar and a conga drum.  After I had pulled out one Gram song, Mike replied with another, "Sin City," which I sang along with.  But Mike is hard to sing along with, because he does kind of a Van Morrison/Joe Cocker thing which is very unpredictable.

At one point I loaned my guitar to a self-conscious chick who was almost like a young Odetta, and who sang one very sultry song dedicated to her man, who happened to be sitting next to me.  Someone said "Damn, you can play like that and you just sit there all night?"  After this impressive performance, she got all embarrassed and left.

Once again, the whole affair was very fun and worthwhile.  Thanks to Derek, who I had just met (who hosts an event in Carson), and Richard, who I knew from last year, I ended up after the show with appearances planned in three different venues by the end of this month.

Now if I can just get Munson up here.