It Was Wild

That show at Wild Side West was almost the highlight of Pride Weekend but not quite. The highlight of Pride Weekend was the party that happened at my house after the Dyke March. The party happens every year because I live close enough to Dolores Park to walk and everyone needs to pee. I made fried chicken. It was delicious. Other than that and the Wild Side West show, I laid really low this Pride. What can I say? I'm an old lesbian or something. I stayed up until midnight. Party!

The Wild Side West show was really fun though. There's something about playing in the middle of a bar that just can't be matched. The bar was very receptive to both The Heated and Audrey Howard. Audrey pretty much always brings the house down because she plays hard rock guitar like a bad ass. I'm jealous of how hard she rocks. I'm so earnest and dorky and she's just cool. Sigh. Swoon. Anyway... 

 Oh, and wifey made me a tie. I guess I'm pimping her ties lately. Whatever. They make me swoon too.

Rockit Room Show Review

Let me start off by saying this was clearly Erica Dreisbach's show. She lives in Brooklyn now but used to live in San Francisco so all of her nice friends came out for this special show, as nice friends do. Of course, Erica and her ukulele killed it. I mean, she was funny, her songs are funny and she had granny-panties for sale. What's not to love? The whole room sang along. Yeah, yeah. So, she killed it... it's a tough act to follow, man. 

Sure, I could bullshit you with some story of triumph, how the whole room became entranced with my music and I had to bat the ladies away with a stick (which, I would never do, ladies). But the truth is that the all the good people who showed up to see Erica did what people do, hung out and talked whilst drinking during my set. It was cool and there were moments when I had the room almost quiet with my musical sorcery, which I am going to consider a success. Plus, Broke Ass Stuart and Dustin Shey (overall creative dude about SF who writes, makes music and understands the webs) both gave the show a twitter shout out (do you care about twitter? I am here: http://twitter.com/theheated), and getting people interested on a larger scale is what it's all about folks. Plus, it was really cool to play acoustic once more. I think I'll do that again. A huge thank you to The Heated supporters who came out. Your presence is more appreciated than you could ever know. Overall, I give this show a rating of good!

A Proper Engineer

I've been ignoring you. It's true. Mostly because I haven't wanted to say that The Heated no longer has a drummer again but that is the case. Why? It just wasn't working out. We're better as friends. I've also decided to put a full band together. My time-line is to accept applications through mid-November then contact applicants for interviews in early December. Rehearsals will start in January. In the meantime, I've been recording again so as to have demos ready in order for new band members to hear and learn songs.

I've wrangled my friend who actually took classes on recording into the project. We've got one full song recorded and plans to do more. I've decided to just record guitar and vocals, not percussion yet. I'd like to musicians to be able to hear themselves in there. Of course, I don't have the application process finalized yet but more details are coming soon. The timing is tentative.

Set-up and coffee

It looks like she's talking into the mic, but she's not.

Fast. So fast.

What else?: Right! I have a show coming up. This show will be extra-special as it features bands that I have old friends in, Mikel and Donnelle. Their bands are both very cool too. Winfred E. Eye and Marabelle Phoenix. I feel supported. I also feel like I'm really digging designing these flyers. It's as if I just discovered color. Color!

Show review: El Rio last Saturday

Let's just start out by saying that the show went awesome. Really good. It's nice having Gina around because she gets nervous enough for the both of us. I can totally understand why though. The truth is that I have played a lot of shows before. With The Pre-Teens, we played the back room of El Rio at least three times... though the stage used to be along the back wall and there was a bartender where the stage is now... memory lane. Anyway, I've been doing this a long time now. Even before The Pre-Teens, I played solo and before all of that, I was a total band geek., which really does prepare you for performing. Once, the marching band played in the parking lot of KFC. Even as a teenager, I realized that was a shitty venue. You learn quick.

It's nice to open the show because nothing makes me more nervous than waiting for the other bands to finish. "Is this their last song?" you start asking people around you. It could be Cyndi Lauper up on that stage and I'd be all, "God, I wish she'd just stop now so that we can get on before I have to go nervously pee again."

This was clearly the biggest audience The Heated has had so far and was mostly filled with friends, which is just the best, best crowd you can have. I'm pretty sure I snagged a few friends on the mailing list too. Start with your friends, man. There were hoots and hollers and clapping in the breakdowns just like I'd imagined the crowd would do once The Heated's music moved them so. Special thanks to the "Little Helpers", especially my door crew... and then especially the door person who had to cover during our set. It could not have been done without you.

Beatbeat Whisper is just the coolest, nicest, prettiest band that I've played with so far. Please go see them play. One of their band members lost a bag that night. If you have any information regarding where it might be now, holler. I ended up seeing Grand Lake's set from behind and even from the other side of glass patio doors, I could tell they were rocking it in there. They sounded great. The staff at El Rio totally helped everything run smoothly. Everything came together and it was the pinnacle of success for The Heated so far. the one thing that didn't happen? Pictures! Sorry, kids. The one below is all we got.

Show review: El Rio last Saturday

I can do better than telling you how the last show went. I can share video with you (don't crank the sound... it gets louder... sometimes)! Oh, technology. How you enrich my life... except when my shared drive disappears and it takes me three hours to figure out how to get it back in my network. Then, I hate you.

There were a few weird things going on with the mixing board causing the microphones to drop out. The entire mixing board actually died one song into Ayla's set. But her resourceful mind realized that she could plug the microphones into amplifiers and soldier on. Anyway, it threw me off my game a little bit and I had more stumbles than usual. Overall, it went well and there were a ton of people there so hurray for Saturday night.

Camp Out was very sweet. They reminded me a little bit of Electralane but that's most likely due to Maddy's voice. Plus, Jackie had this super-cool, all-white drum set so yeah, I liked them. Ayla Nereo was remarkably good as well. I couldn't wait to clap when songs were over. We did a little cd trade at the end too so I can continue to check her stuff out. Good deal. Except, I'm not sure where it went. Probably lodged in the back of my amp. I know I had it in the car on the way home. I'll find that sucker.

Show review: The Red Vic last Friday

It's already been well over a week since the Red Vic cafe show but I'm just getting to the review now. Sorry about that. Things have been a whirlwind lately. Honestly, that show was a bit of a rough night for me. I was having anxiety over there not being parking and having to double park and unload all the gear and how was I going to eat dinner and just basically freaking out over nothing but freaking out nonetheless.

So, my wife and I drove up there and found parking pretty close, somewhat easily. Gee was meeting us later so we had her drums with us. We unloaded and took store of the cafe itself. Honestly, it reminded me of this weird art gallery that I used to play in Santa Cruz back when I wrote brutal, acoustic guitar songs and went by my first name only. Cristina. Awesome. Anyway, this art gallery was the type of place where bad spoken word took place alongside bad interpretive dance. To top it all of, it was called "What Is Art?". You should never name your business a question you don't want answered. Because the answer is: not that.

The Red Vic really reminded me of "What Is Art?" both in looks and smell (old coffee, pine-scented cleanser and mildew) and also there was weird "art" that consisted of paper cut-outs pasted to foam-core in the shape of peace signs that sold for hundreds of dollars. Really? My anxiety kicked into overdrive and I started contacting everyone I know to make sure they were coming because it's best to overcome these situations in a group. I wanted to give the Red Vic a chance because I've heard really good things about how supportive the audience is there. Except, here's the problem, nobody else brought an audience. Six groups played that night. Not to brag, but I brought fifteen people. The other performers brought literally zero people with them. Ouch. Was it just an off night? If you know the answer, please contact me.

It was great playing for my friends though. Some old co-workers came out (thanks Lauren and Sara) and I had some surprise visitors up from Los Angeles and Santa Barbara so that was good stuff. Plus the show was early enough that we had a chance to meet up afterward and get a drink or two elsewhere so in the end, it was a great night. Rumor has it that recordings might exist of the set that night but I haven't heard any yet. I will try to track it down because one big plus of the Red Vic cafe was that it sounded great.

What was nice about that night too was that as we were leaving the bar later that night, it finally started raining. I'm not sure how long it's been since it rained but several months, at least. Too long. It had been threatening to rain all night and the sky had been dark but it hadn't opened up and let it go. Something about the weather juxtaposed with how stressed I'd been feeling earlier... I don't know, it just felt like this release, like it meant something. What it meant, I don't know but don't you ever feel like the world is trying to show you something?

p.s. Did anyone take pictures at the show? Would someone please take pictures? Wifey can never remember to do so and I need to keep this blog visual. I know I can only hold your attention spans for so long.

Show review: El Rio last Tuesday

Allow me to tell you how the first show with The Heated's new drummer Gee went. First off, we showed up around 7:15 pm to unload and there were literally two people in the whole place: the bartender and the opening act (Julie Schurr, she has such a pretty voice). No big deal. It was still early. We got our stuff unloaded and invited Julie out for burritos. Gee and Julie didn't eat much while I plowed through two tacos. A little boy in the taqueria showed me how high he could jump. It was really high.

We got back to El Rio and there were maybe seven people there. Everyone I had invited was taking their sweet time to arrive. It took so much time that I was starting to worry that no one would show up at all. I started to send panicked text messages. Gee's friends were all there and ready to go by 8:00 pm. They're very prompt, that group. My friends? Not so much. But finally, slowly, they trickled in and by the time Gee and I hit the stage, I would estimate there were a good thirty people there (including these four hot German lesbians who kind of looked like they might all get it on with each other. You go, ladies).

As soon as we started playing, it was on, as they say. It was as if we had been playing together for way longer than we actually have been. I would easily attribute this to the fact that Gee has clearly been practicing her ass off, which is appreciated. I've been less on the practicing lately what with my shoulders and the energy I've been expending in the marketing department, plus how I have a full time job and am taking two classes but I've had a bit longer to memorize the songs so I was ok. I will say though that of the two slight flubs, I was accountable for both. Thanks Gee. My friends are excited and are saying things like, "new beginning", "exciting", "Gee's awesome", and "it's just what you needed". So, you know, that's good.