Show Review: El Rio, March 22nd

As you know (because I am awesome at marketing, a.k.a. "harassing") I played a show last Monday night at El Rio. The day before the show, I woke up feeling completely worn down. By mid-day I had chills and my throat was feeling tickly. So, of course I started to really worry that I was going to catch the cold that my wife has had, which made her lose my voice. It's really bad to lose your voice before a show.

A word about me and colds. It used to be that when I caught a cold, I stayed sick for weeks. Weeks! This is undoubtedly because I used to smoke like a chimney. Besides staying sick for a long time, I also got sick often so there were a few years where I was perpetually ill. But then a few years ago, I quit smoking and got my act together. Now, I think I've only been sick once this year, maybe twice, and my recovery time is one week. God, I love not smoking.

Anyway, I had chills and just felt off so I got into bed around two o'clock and just kind of hung out in bed all day. I was pleased when I felt fine upon waking up the next morning. The show itself nearly went off without a hitch (I forgot the lyrics to the second song in my set and had to play a very abbreviated version) and I reached an important milestone in every band's career: SOMEONE CAME TO MY SHOW TO SEE ME WHO I DON'T KNOW PERSONALLY! Except now, I do know her personally because she came to my show. All in all, I brought out ten people on a Monday night. Success!

Other than that, Seattle's Eighteen Individual Eyes really impressed me. Two great guitar players, one of whom sings beautifully, plus just the right amount of bass for their sound plus this awesome drumming that was frenetic yet loping at the same time. They had these really weird song structures and all these interlocking parts... I just liked it. I was telling one of them how I had played in Seattle about ten years ago and she said, "oh! You've been doing this a really long time." I have. Yes, I have.

Mama Lion was cool too. I didn't get to see too much of their set, to be honest as I was working the door for the last leg of the evening but from what I could hear from outside, I liked it. Posted below are some pictures from my set as well as a thirteen second long video.  It was my wife's first time using the video camera and apparently the default film-time is thirteen seconds. So enjoy it! Every damn second of it! This song will eventually be released on the Twelve Songs Project. Oh, never mind on the video. I guess Blogger isn't feeling video anymore?