I've looked at bands from both sides now...

In the Studio – 3

Jer — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:24:59 +0000

In the third installment of In the Studio footage, a startling secret is revealed. I’m sure you all thought that was Sarah’s lovely voice you were hearing lilting through your earphones or speakers, but the clip below might just prove otherwise.

A second, less dramatic discovery is that Charlie wears socks. Sorry for all the coughing during the socks portion of the clip. I think I laughed while I was drinking some water just before I started filming. I inhaled some of said water, thus the coughing.

In the studio – 2

Jer — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:04:28 +0000

Here we see Charlie leading the band in an impromptu performance of the George of the Jungle song. We also learn that Sarah isn’t much of a lip-reader.

In the studio – 1

Jer — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:20:27 +0000

So here’s my first clip from in the studio with the band. It’s just a quick one, featuring Sarah as Ariel and Ursula. Ryan was adjusting the reverb on Sarah’s voice and just needed her to sing something. Meanwhile, Charlie plays The Slide Song.

Springtime Tallahassee 2008

Jer — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:04:17 +0000

I quote the famous poet J. John Jonah Johnson, “Oh bright sun, what have you done? You’ve burned my face, from way out in space.”

This completely fabricated poem and poet were particularly relevant this weekend as the Sarah Mac Band performed at the 2008 version of Springtime Tallahassee. That is to say, it was hot out there, and I got sunburned.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. What can I say, I’m lazy. But, I thought I’d share a little about how things work at Springtime Tallahassee shows, with a short visual aide included.

First of all, the band gets a very special VIP pass which gets them past the police barricades and as close as possible to the stage. In previous years, we were able to basically drive right up beside the stage and unload all of the equipment. However, this year, we could only go so far, then we were greeted by someone I believe they referred to as a “gater”. I just referred to them as “guys in those golf cart thingies”.

It took a few trips, but we got all of the equipment moved up to the stage. Below you will see a short, but thrilling, video of Charlie and Keli, along with some of the SMB equipment, driving away in the golf cart thingy.

I got to take a ride on the golf cart thingy on the next trip, but I neglected to film any of it. But trust me, it was equally thrilling.

After we got all of the equipment gathered next to the stage, we had about an hour wait before the band actually played. I spent a good portion of this time mildly guarding the equipment from theft. I also took this time to slowly turn a sort of lobster red. Note to self: sunscreen.

The gig went well, the band sounded good, and the fans enjoyed themselves. (see dancing below)

After the show, we had to do the whole golf cart thingy process again to get the equipment back to the van. I didn’t get to take a ride that time though.

Well that’s about it for this show, but I’m going to try to get back to writing in here more often. Plus, I hope to post video clips from the recording studio, taken when the band was recording their upcoming full length album.

Whoa Nelly, flip the mini!

Jer — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:46:14 +0000

So, I was fortunate enough to accompany the band to St. Petersburg and Dunedin a couple weekends back for two shows in the area. The trip down was a little different than what I was used to. Normally I would take the major highways (I-10, 75, etc), but we went a more direct way. Don’t ask me to name which roads we took, I really didn’t pay attention. I know there were a lot of tolls, and we passed through many a smallish town. Once we got to Dunedin, we had a fun time trying to find the place they were playing at. Here’s a little taste of what it was like trying to make our way around some back roads.

In case you can’t tell, Sarah’s “whoa nelly” exclamation was in response to Charlie taking a curve a *bit* too fast.

Anyways, the Dunedin Brewery was a reasonably cool place, but too small for how many people they had crammed in there. I don’t have any good video from there, mostly due to the fact that I was manning the merchandise table. The band seemed to think that it was their worst performance ever, but the crowd still liked them.

A bonus for me on this trip was that I got to see my good friend Jaimee. We all stayed at her and her husband Mike’s house for a couple days. Of course, we didn’t get to their house until after 2am after the Friday night gig, but that’s life on the road…apparently.

The thing about traveling for gigs is that you have to kill time during the day before the gig in the evening. So, Saturday was spent first watching The Office (UK version) and Extras, then going to Jaimee and Mike’s church and playing ping pong, pool, air hockey, and fuse ball. I was scolded, rightfully so, for not having my camera handy to film all of that fun, so alas, I can’t provide any video of all those assorted hi-jincks.

Now, on to the Prostar Soundstage show. This place was cool. They were really nice to the band, and myself, and provided snacks and beverages in the green room. Yup, they had a green room! Being a recording studio in addition to having a little stage for performances, they really know how to set up sound there. I think the real trick is having a whole bunch of small trampolines affixed to the ceiling. At least, they looked like trampolines. If gravity had reversed itself momentarily (or if I’d suddenly been in a Lionel Richie video) while I was there, I could have tested them out by jumping on them, but that didn’t happen, so I’m left to just assume they were, in fact, trampolines. My favorite moment from the evening was the band’s rendition of Summertime. I, being uncultured, know very little about opera, so I had no idea how this song was originally written to sound, but I do know that it sounds very good when it’s coming out of the person in the video below.

The sad thing about the Prostar gig being at such a cool place with such great sound is that there were only about 10-15 people there, and some of them either worked at the place or were other artists that played before the SMB. Still, it was a cool place, and I know I personally would enjoy going back there, even just as a spectator.

After that show, we had dinner at…Village Inn…? I think. One of those kinds of places anyways. Jaimee almost had her drink spilled on her (she’s a quick one and avoided the spillage) and got a free piece of pie because of it. Charlie told funny stories from college (we’ll always remember “Sticks”) and we all had a good laugh before heading back to Jaimee and Mike’s once more past 2:00a.m.

Sunday, we got up, said our goodbyes, and headed home. I don’t think anything really eventful happened on the way back, so…I’ll just say:

THE END

It’s been a while…

Jer — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:14:20 +0000

I never did do a blog about the show at the Warehouse a while back. I guess not too much happened that was blog worthy. Though, I did manage to film Charlie doing his own version of I Can’t Change during the sound check.

And for those that couldn’t make it, here’s the band performing Possum Song…or is it Opossum Song…? Or Possum’s Song…? I’m not sure, but I know I like it. I think the little lights everywhere gave my camera fits as far as the focus was concerned.

Your hero and mine…

Jer — Sat, 26 May 2007 20:50:14 +0000

It’s been a while, but the band finally had another gig to write about this past Saturday, this time at American Legion Hall in Tallahassee.

I’ll let you in on the pre-gig set up. I arrived at the pre-arranged time. I sat by lake Ella and watched ducks for about 20 minutes until the band showed up. Once they arrived, we all carried the equipment into the very hot American Legion Hall. I believe it was Sarah who eventually requested that the AC be switched on, and it took all of about 15 minutes for the place to be turned into a meat locker. Where’s the happy middle-ground, ALH?

We got all the music related stuff set up, and then the band neglected to do a soundcheck. I guess we were too busy rearranging the tables. I thought we should fill in the front a little more, and leave an open space in the middle/back for dancing, but I was overruled, and there was a space left in the front too. Turns out we were both right. Some people danced in the back, while other people had no problem dancing in front of everybody.

The most fun, though, was going on a food run to Sonic with band-wife Jaye and band-daughter Sally. Sorry, but it was entertaining watching Sally struggle to explain our order to the garbled voice behind the speaker. It was something along the lines of: a large coke, another large coke, a large diet coke, a vanilla coke, 2 large fries, another coke, a number 1 combo with mustard, a coke, a coke, another diet coke, a large fries, etc, and so on and so forth…
To their credit, the Sonic crew only messed up one thing, I believe. I think we got an extra vanilla coke and one too few regular cokes. Plus, they car-hopped, which apparently wasn’t normally a part of these particular employees job. Thanks Sonic!

I’m still amazed that, evidently, the whole surprise for Charlie was kept a secret for so long. We had people at the front door making sure nobody walked in accidentally wearing the Charlie shirt in plain sight.

That’s pretty much it (besides, the season finale of 24 is about to start), and those of you who were there know how the show went. For those that weren’t, here’s a video of the band playing Fading Dreams, with special foreground appearance by a twirlie-girlie.

Not the most eventful…

Jer — Sat, 26 May 2007 20:46:26 +0000

It wasn’t the most amazingly eventful trip over to Jacksonville this past weekend, but it was still an enjoyable one. I went over on saturday after everybody else had gone on friday. I just met up with them at Jack Rabbit’s a few hours before the show. It was good that Sarah was standing out at the road in front of the place to help Charlie find it because I’m not sure I would have found it otherwise. Let’s just say that the ‘sign’ on the door of their rather non-descript building looked like it was written with a magic marker.

It was a nice enough place though. Pretty much business as usual as far as bars go. Though, this one did have an old Contra video game machine, so bonus points for that. After the soundcheck, we took a walk down the relatively dead streets. We tried to get food at a few places, but they all closed at 8pm, even the place (and for the life of me I can’t remember which place it was) that had 9pm listed on their door as the saturday closing time. Charlie did manage to get himself a free Coke there though. I guess he just sweet talked the girl behind the counter somehow. Eventually it was decided that we’d get ice cream for dinner, as there was a Marble Slab right down the street. This was a good decision because that is some darned good ice cream, my friends. I had vanilla (yes, it’s a real flavor and it’s good and not bland!) with M&Ms mixed in. I’d tell you what everybody else got, but honestly I don’t pay that much attention to details like that.

Anyways, we made it back in time to see the first guy, Jonathan Mays, play. He does some cool stuff with this looping machine thing. I don’t know enough about it to describe it, but it’s nifty. The next band, Radio Moscow, was obviously a talented trio of musicians, but they were so flippin’ loud that I couldn’t deal with it and had to move to a relatively quiet spot. The SMB went on last and played until 12:30am or so. The audience was mostly made of friends and family of the band, but most of them don’t get to see them play too often, so they were all pretty enthusiastic.

We were all pretty hungry for some real food after the show, so we stopped off at…um…Village Inn? Wow, I know it was about 2am, but you’d think I’d be a little more observant than that? I’ll assume it was Village Inn. Wherever it was, it was good.

Well, that’s pretty much it for that trip. There’s not any more actual gigs scheduled for a while at this point. Not until mid May anyways. Hopefully the band will get back to the studio soon. Maybe I’ll invite myself to a few sessions and get some good video documentation of the process to post.

Until then…

The science of the set list

Jer — Sat, 26 May 2007 20:44:26 +0000

This seems like something that Sarah herself should write about, since she’s the one actually having to figure out the set list before each show, but I’ll take a stab at it anyway, using what i’ve gleaned from being in her general vacinity while she performs this task. Keeping in mind that I had the bright idea to just write all of their songs on little pieces of paper, put them in a hat (or some other random container that could play the role of the hat), then draw them out one at a time as a way of picking the set list.

That’s probably not a very feasible idea because…well…you have to take into consideration a few things. First, how long will you be playing? If you can only fit a limited number of songs in, they may as well be those that you deem your best. Next, do you have all of your instruments set up for this show? If you don’t have room to set up the keyboard, you probably won’t be playing any of the songs that use the keyboard. Then, who’s your audience? If there are kids there, try to stay away from any adultishly themed songs or songs that contain any above-level-one obscenities. You can get away with saying ‘hell’ a time or two probably. Another consideration is, in this setting, do I want to play all fast songs? All slow songs? A good mix?

Quick sidetrack: I’m watching a basketball game right now, and a player had fallen to the floor and he sat there with his hands out until another player helped him up. I see this all the time in sports. Aren’t you an athlete?? Get your own self up, dude!

Where was I? Oh yeah, lastly, the first and last song you play can have a lot of importance. For first time listeners, you want to play something that will really grab them, and is also indicative of your general style. As for the last song, you want to go with a fan favorite that will leave a lasting impression. Your ‘signature song’, you might say.

I’ll point out that I think Sarah usually does a good job of selecting a set list. I thought she did a particularly good job at the Warehouse friday night. Speaking of that gig, it was pretty funny when we showed up and the Warehouse people were basically like, “there’s a band playing here tonight??” They need to work on their inter-Warehouse communication skills. The band sounded good though, despite the tremendous heat in there. Wow. Fortunately, Sarah located the thermostat early on, and that managed to bring down the temperature a bit, but it was still rough.

The Springtime Tallahassee gig went well also. That’s always a chaotic, but fun, situation. Getting past the police barricades can be tricky, even when you have the required pass. Fortunately, band wife Jaye was able to talk her way in, and we were able to unload the van from right next to the stage. It’s an interesting place to have the stage set up, as there’s a lot of foot traffic right there. You definitely want to play songs that will really grab people as they walk past. Ya know, get them to stop and say, “hmmm, who’s this talented Tallahassee band? I wonder if they have a CD available for purchase.” Cha-ching.
Also at this stage, there’s the captive audience at Andrews, the restaurant that’s right there. All those outdoor diners have to listen to you, at least until they’re done eating.

It looks like the band won’t be playing many gigs in the upcoming month or so, therefore, I won’t have much to post about here. But, maybe I can come up with something. If you’re lucky…

If they only knew…

Jer — Sat, 26 May 2007 20:43:21 +0000

Smoke. Smokiness. This is yet another thing I’ve learned to deal with while helping the band at their gigs. Playing in bars means you will, quite often, go home smelling like cigarette smoke. Last night was another one of those times.

Cigarette smoke goes with you. It clings to your clothes, your hair, your skin…
It permeates, is what it does. And it is not contact-lens-friendly.

But, other than that, last night’s gig went well I’d say. In fact, there’s nothing much interesting to write about, though I did come to one other realization that falls into the “from both sides now” category: It is weird to see my friends give autographs.

Back in 2000, I saw The Nields play in Tampa. After the show, I, like so many other fans there, was getting autographs from the band. Well, as I handed the CD liner notes to the bass player, Dave Chalfant, to sign, some friend of his, who I assume he’s known for a long time, said to him, “dude, it is so weird to see you giving people autographs.” At that moment, I must say, I felt pretty dorky. That comment made me realize that basically he was just a guy who plays a guitar. To his long time friends, he’s probably the guy who got sick and threw up for half of spring break, or he’s the kid who lost his retainer in middle school and had to dig through a garbage bin to find it.

Now, I see people getting autographs from the SMB and I want to say, “don’t you know he/she’s just -”…well, I won’t go into specifics, but you get the point.

Of course, I do realize that they play great music and that everbody wants to get autographs from bands they like. Heck, I’ve even managed to accept my dorkiness and get autographs from a couple artists since that day in 2000. Dar Williams for one, and Christine Kane (gotta throw her name out there in case she still reads this) as well.

But, usually I skip the aftershow signing sessions and let the bands have one less person to feel weird about giving an autograph to.