Essex House

So I did that solo gig Thursday at the Essex House. No big deal. It was a pre-dinner reception for some Asian Lawyers Association. Noone was really paying that much attention and they were loud to boot, but that took the pressure off and allowed me to just play and not worry too much about anything.

I didn't bring the flute, but I did bring the shakuhachi, the nylon string guitar, and the Boomerang Phrase Sampler which is basically a long loop machine. It allows me to record the guitar part on the fly (up to 4 minutes), as I'm playing and singing through the tune the first time, and when I get to the end of the (song) form, I hit a button and the guitar part will play back, allowing me to then solo over it (on guitar, or flute), or play a shaker/sing without having to play the accompaniment. Its a pretty neat trick.

And I learned a new use for it as well:

I parked in the Hotel Loading Zone at 6:00 on the 58th St side to load in. I had to play continuous from 6:30-7:45pm. The street parking restrictions weren't lifted until 7:00 and I didn't really want to pay $15 to park so I asked Quinn whether I could take a break and move it at 7:00. But she didn't seem to think the client wanted ANY breaks since the gig was only a little more than an hour.

So at 6:55, I played and sang "Sweet Lorraine", using the Boomerang. It played back the guitar part and I took a solo, looking around to see if anyone was paying much attention. They all (some 200) knew I was there (i.e. listening casually) but everyone was so involved in schmoozing that I took the oppertunity to put down the guitar (the Sweet Lorraine comping still playing through the amp), casually walk through the crowd, out the door, out to 58th St, moved the car, came back, and sure enough from the back of the crowded room, it sounded like someone playing a solo gig (this didn't take that long - maybe three minutes. Even I would have balked at leaving the thing going for 15 minutes of solo-less comping).

I casually came back, put on the guitar, found my place at the bridge of the tune, and took it out. Noone even batted an eye! ;-)

Now we all knew that the Boomerang could create the "one man band" effect, that it can stack unlimited parts, play them backwards, etc etc. But we didn't know that it could help outwit the parking demons (to say that the traffic cop/NYC motorist relationship is an adversarial one would be an understatement) and allow us the critical time to park for free!