Tale of Two Gigs

Quite by accident, I ended up seeing two good bands in the last two days. The first was at a neighborhood bar in Santa Clara. The bar’s name had changed since the last time I was there a month or two ago, and Wednesday night has turned into Jazz night. It was quite a switch from the last time I was there when it was karaoke night and the place was filled with the local college crowd. Not being one to actively seek out jazz, it was refreshing to enjoy something different. The band members were all young, probably college age or slightly older. The guitar player reminded me of the guitar player in my jazz ensemble in high school, the way his improvisations were all over the place and sounded great, leaving me puzzled as to how he did it. And I think he was playing a Les Paul. The keyboard player reminded me a bit of myself because his solo technique sounded a lot like what I would do—fairly simple and predictable chords, runs, intervals, etc.

The second was at Lovejoy’s last night, where I stopped after my flight back from California. Lovejoy’s usually has bands on Thursday, but they are usually just very loud, or very weird, and not anything that would impress me. I was all set to really hate this band because they were mic checking “check 1 2” for what seemed like an hour and caused a few annoying feedbacks in the process. The demographics of the band (a bunch of older guys and a much younger chick) and a few interesting drum fills during set up made me curious enough to stick around, and I’m glad I did cause Eve Monsees and the Exiles were tight and sounded great. Eve was really expressive in her guitar playing and stage presence so it was a great time.