My New Invention Single Goes On Sale at Amazon and iTunes 12/6/2013

Happy December 5

It's been 21 years since that seminal gig by The Stickmen in the chill evening air of the Fischers' backyard.  Yeah, and it's also been a long, cold year for Classic Stickmen news.  That's about to change, though, with an unprecedented My New Invention development to be announced very soon. So check back!

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.