Fresh From the Oven!

So we played our second date at the Gallery last night (this poster is actually from our last date, but the one that Terry made isn't a format Blogger would support). TONS of people showed up.

My friend Devin (we used to date many years ago, but I broke it off because I was too old for him, so we stayed friends) brought a whole group of people, as did Courtney from work, which was a surprise. She brought 3 or 4 friends. Also, Fiona, a girl I met Friday when I was volunteering at the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind Centennial event, came with her husband, Alistair. They're from Glasgow and have lived in Chicago for three months. Nice young couple. I was surprised that they actually showed up, but they like live music--Fiona was telling me that they were at Lollapalooza a few weeks ago. I had told her a little about our band on Friday, and she thought it sounded "very entertaining and unusual." The look on her face when I introduced her to our 6' transgender singer was priceless! But Tracy is very naturally charming and charismatic, and won them over completely (not that they were resistant to begin with--they're young and open-minded, the way the kids are these days, dont'cha know).

We tried two sort of shaky new songs last night--a version of Madonna's "Dress You Up" and Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like A Woman," probably the least appealing song ever written or recorded. But it shows our versatility, I suppose. We have some work to do on those two especially, but they're coming along. One of my originals, "Jet Plane," is almost ready. We'll have it out for the next club date, and it will be on the CD, whenever (if ever!) we record it...

Tracy had some cool ideas, like audience participation during "Dress You Up." She had already talked to Devin's boyfriend Jay ahead of time, and he agreed to be dressed up in the hat. I told him he was lucky I'd forgotten the feather boas!

The Blondie cover went down especially well last night, and "Venus" was particularly fun for me.

And finally, it was time to pack the car up and go home. As usual, some old drunk was trying to pick Tracy up at the end of the night. She said she was giving him a ride to the "L," and I asked her if her car has an ejector seat. I told her to be VERY wary. But she did give him a ride, so hopefully all is well.

I hung out for a bit and talked some more to Devin and friends, and to Fiona and Al, and finally at 3:00 AM, I squeezed into my car (I had parked in the nearest available spot for unloading, next to one of those parkway wooden planter boxes that blocked my door from opening all the way), and began the drive back to Rogers Park.

So when the music is over, I was just another chunky, nearly middle-aged man driving a beat-up Cavalier full of drums, praying he wouldn't get pulled over because the bass drum was blocking the rear-view mirror (I wasn't pulled over). Ahhhhh, it's nice to be back to normal! :-)

We have some rough demos on our Myspace site. "Jet Plane" samples are there, and despite the fact that Tracy overdid it with the vocal overdubbing a little, and the drums were recorded separately and were a little "off" in a few spots, I thought Lisa did a nice job of mixing it down...