I feel proud and punch drunk like a prize fighter: smiling but weary, prize money in hand… In the last 48 hours my trumpet has been bobbing and weaving through 8 gigs! This included a monster 5 gigs yesterday. Looking back now, I just want to give some impressions.
A few of the gigs are with a band called the Drumadics and this blog is not the space to discuss such activities but occasionally their name will come up so…
Jonathan Shorr Gallery – Thursday night – Jared Engle-Bass, Gordon Webster-piano, David Langlois-dishes, Jesse Selengut-trumpet. We’re up on a loft balcony area overlooking exactly none of the gallery…only 5 or 10 people at a time can see us even though there are about 70 people there. An incredible obnoxious, loud drunk girl comes up and says “are you the jazz band – you muther fuckers better be nice to me or I’ll make sure no one tips you.” Wow. We laughed right at her. “That’s it. I hate you. Not him (Gordon), he’s got a nice shirt…” etc… Moments later David asks to move because a drunk with crazy foul breath keeps “encouraging” on him! Drunk follows David, David comes back to where he was…
PS Two-Fifty-Something – Flatlands, Brooklyn – 2 shows – Sean Condron-guitar,banjo Peter Ford-Box Bass, Jesse Selengut-trumpet, flugelhorn. Sean is such a great ham and absolutely wonderful with the kids. We start the show from the back of the hall playing “St. James Infirmary.” Condron starts wailing and crying. He falls down on his knees and is walking up the aisle moaning and carrying on. The kids love it. The music is so sad yet he’s getting them all to laugh and laugh. He’s wearing a tuxedo with tails and a rainbow striped shirt!! What a clown. He did great!
Bathesda Fountain – Friday noon – Blue Vipers of Brooklyn – Billy Nemec-guitar/vocals, Chris Pistorino – Bass, David Langlois-dishes, Jesse Selengut – trumpet. As I’m leaving the schools Billy calls me and invites me to the park. I’m thinking, “I already have four hits today and I can probably go home right now and grab some sleep.” But the Vipers are good at making money! And I am free so… I make it on time and 2 hours later we sold a whole mess of CD’s and its time to go.
Forever 21 – Friday 3pm – Baby Soda – Jared, Adrian (reed man from Australia) – Peter Ford (twice in one day – sweet!!) – David Langlois, and Jesse. Highlites include the woman who flags me over to her Lexus to buy a CD. The bedraggled strung-out punk teen who watches us for a good hour with a vague stare and then does an awesome mosh-out thrash dance in front of the band. Sell out of CD’s Lowlights – the construction noise, and ambulance noise and the dude who threw a few pennies in our case and said that he hates this music.
Times Square – Friday 6pm – Drumadics – We play until we are out of CD’s. It took about two hours. Love the MUNY banner. Some controversy about the dude that wanted to record us with his high end little set up.
Bathesda Fountain – Saturday Noon – Blue Vipers of Brooklyn – Billy, Jesse, Jared on Bass, and Tom Abbot – tenor sax. I got about 9 hours of sleep but was still so frickin’ tired when Billy called me at 9:30am, God bless him. Sure, yeah, whatever, let’s do it! Tom shows up in a tux with a hoodie over it as a disguise. That guy can play some tenor. He was swinging his ass off from the very first beat! Dang! I was not even close to cutting it as poorly as I was feeling. But we got through it and sold out of the cd’s we had in about 50 minutes!!
34th Street – Saturday 6pm – Drumadics – 30 seconds into the first tune a steroidic cop and his German Shepherd shut us down. His dog is barking. The guy is completely not caring that we have a permit. Will calls the Desk Sergeant and k-9 knocko goes away. The whole thing takes 45 minutes but do maintain our right to play in that spot. Will is the guy who will get the officers badge number and talk to the man’s supervisor. “Oh, they know me down at the station. I file complaints all the time.”
So there’s my tale of three days of gigging here. I finished strong and now today, Sunday I am just doing nothing but watching a lot of TV and eating take-out Thai food. I’m a fortunate dude.