unwoman, posts by tag: gig recaps - LiveJournal

Last Friday at 4 pm, I realized I'd accomplished nothing all week (I learned a few songs, and wrote a song poem, but didn't *finish* anything). So I went on a Craigslist ad-responding rampage. I wrote to 3 people about unpaid opportunities (because sometimes you just need to get out there) and they all wrote me back! One was a music video production team who's willing to do a video for me for free for their portfolio (I'll be working on at least 1 video with Noisescape simultaneously), one was a 48-hour film team who I've volunteered to do *whatever* for this weekend, and one was, dunh dunh dunh, The ChatRoulette Show.

There were 6 performers and we were each to play for about 3 minutes for a person on the other side of ChatRoulette. Our webcam image + the other person's image & the chat were projected on the venue screen. At the beginning of the night, before I went on, we couldn't get a real audience member on the other side. Well, that's not quite right -- there were plenty of members! But at the very end of my song (I Jacko-rolled them with Billie Jean) after a couple of mildly interested chatters, we landed on Justin and Jonathan, 17-year-olds from Tennessee. They stuck around for the next 3 acts and were super sweet and very into us. Jonathan Bender, our MC, kept wanting to move on to someone else on the other end of the tubes, but the in-house audience loved these kids, they were enthusiastic and sweet. When I went back up for the 2nd round we were pressed for time and I did a quick "Bad Romance," replacing "bad romance" with "chat roulette" -- the chatter we randomly landed on was a little slow to respond and dead-fish like, but we got him into it and he told us he was in Brazil. Then Doc came on and we did a quick song together, "Do You Really Have To Pee In a Girl's Mouth" and everyone else ran through quickly. For some reason The Makeout Room has a 9:30 cutoff for shows there so we had to wrap it up -- but we all got on stage and through audience cheering, people voted for me! So I won $50. I've never played a show that was a competition before. It felt a little weird, like it would come between us when I'm used to being so cooperative with other performers. The other acts were so talented, we really all deserved some money, but the show's budget was tight so there you have it. But I was happy to be a fan favorite, and I said hi to a bunch of people afterwards and gave out a lot of postcards.

The lineup:
Hope Mirlis - singer and actor
Unwoman - cellist and singer
Dr. Popular - yo-yo extraordinaire
Sam Rogers - a cappella/beatboxer
John Staedler - musician, spoken word poet, performance artist
Alex Chaves -- live portrait artist

This was a good step in the comedy/improv direction for me and I'm very glad I made it. I would like to continue this way, as well as doing the goth & steampunk shows.

I've got some new songs to play for you guys if you tune in to my ustream show tomorrow! I start at 6:00 Pacific. At 7 I will begin frantically checking my email for news about what genre we got assigned for the 48-hour film project, but I'll probably keep playing for you all till 8:00.

[edit -- here's video from last night!]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tve…

So, my performance last night with Onkel Woland's group came off OK to the public I suppose, but was full of fail for many reasons. The main point of this post is to say that it was totally uncool of me to lose my temper at the stage manager and call her a cunt multiple times. It was a combination of a bunch of things going wrong which are not normally too problematic for me, some of which were my fault, and I totally take responsibility for my actions. I will not be drinking in a non-controlled show situation in future. Nor will I be performing with *any* group that doesn't have a rider that people putting on a show would at least be asked to read. It's especially important when there are this many layers of "who's in charge?" to contend with and it's good to be reminded of its importance.

Anyway, I felt really embarrassed, and I told my mom about it, and she being always right said, "I always get what I want by being nice, but persistent." She is so right and I always use her as a moral guide. I got what I wanted last night -- power for my amp, which I brought because I knew there would be no one doing sound at the show last night (even though Rich our band leader didn't know this! I found out by pure coincidence!) and which, really, was not a lot to ask! but I was extremely ashamed of my childish behavior. Whereas if I'd been nice, I would have gotten what I'd wanted, without looking like a fool.

I doubt all 5 shitty things (some of them personal) will line up to test me like this in the future, but if they do I hope I can remember how dumb I felt about this.

Arrr. Pictures of the f-holes and demos of more new songs to come soon, I promise. It's sleepytime now.

Monday night I stayed in and made some updates to live backing for several songs. Really really pleased with my revision of a Cranes cover I used to do years ago, and the tack piano sound I made for my new song "Bruises."

Tuesday started out bad and got worse, then ended with awesome. 5 am coughing fits woke me up, got up and checked email to find a promisingly complicating, ill-timed email from a boy. Went to work and things were breaking but got resolved OK, though I couldn't get done what I wanted to. After work I discovered my car was towed for having been left somewhere too long, paid $500 and spent an hour and a half to get it out the evening I had to go to Oakland for a show, was stressed to no end as traffic was awful, until I finally got on the bay bridge toward the east bay after which everything was OK though time-tight. But soundcheck went great, and though the crowd was small, it was appreciative (story of my life!). Minus uncontrollable horrible coughing halfway through, my performance was great too (if I do say so myself). There was a girl in the audience covering her face during my performance. Her eyes were sparkling and she looked vaguely familiar, and I wondered if she was laughing at me or something? but I just played how I played. Afterwards she came up and said hi, and, ah! it was Holly from Humanwine, covering her distinctive tattoos so that I wasn't unnerved by her, or I guess, so that if I was terrible she could walk away and not embarrass me by my having not made the cut. So, we talked a bit about what they're up to while they're out here (till May) and I am totally down to work with them, really looking forward to it. I sold a good number of CDs, my mom helped with merch. Sarah June's performance was just lovely, I really loved her new song "The Reaper" though I was tempted to demand more cowbell, of course.

Some photos from the show are here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/… (ugh, photobucket does not compare favorably to flickr!)

Wednesday and Thursday I had family time in Lafayette. It was really sweet. Last night I went to the Death Guild xmas at the DNA. On the way there I ran into someone from my past. Not to mention all the people from my past who frequent that club. Because I see them so often, I am really glad I get along with all of my distant-past exes, and am really hoping that can happen with my current (and future, hah) exes eventually.

Today I sold my wedding dress for $700 cash (less than I wanted to but so glad to be rid of it). That plus xmas money from grandma and CD sales the other night means this week is way in the black, which is a-fucking-mazing. Plus I have lots of cash for my f-hole tattoos, which I'm getting next Tuesday. Wooo!

Tomorrow I was planning to go to a party in Marin but I think transportation will be too tricky and I will probably stay in SF. There are musical and lyrics things I'm wanting to do... as well as shopping, haircolor fixing, etc.