Are You Dave?

Two in one day!

At the organic store, I heard “Are you Dave?” from a woman near the check-out counter. Turns out it was Karyn Kuhl, another Hoboken-based musician who does classes for kids. Eight years working in the same field in the same town and we’ve never actually said “hi” to each other. But she could have been a Fuzzy Lemon: She was included in the original e-mail I sent out, inviting people to jam with Dana, Kipley, Maiken and myself at Cabin Fever 2008. Anyway, we hobnobbed for a bit. She’s friendly.

Then, after a pleasant afternoon noodling on my banjo (not a euphemism) at Church Square Park, I heard an “Are you Dave?” from the gazebo. A woman named Liz recognized me from the Gordys; she was hanging out with another fellow who introduced himself as Manny The Artist. Manny said he’d enjoyed my banjo picking and told me about his son, who is in a band called Blue Food, and I should check ‘em out on YouTube. Blue Food. You heard it here first, folks!

Just about a year ago we played a fantastic show in the gazebo at Church Square Park, sponsored by our friends at O’Nieals. I guess it went well because they asked us back to do it again this year!

This year, I’m pleased to say, we own most of our own P.A. gear so there was no last-minute scrambling to throw something together (although Dana did have to drive up to the heights to borrow a couple of items from our friend Stefanie again). In fact, we had pretty much everything set up and ready to go long before the park handyman arrived to turn on the power for us!

Gene The Plumber swung by to make sure we had everything we needed; he coordinates the Weds shows in Curch Square. I told him he’d been immortalized in song by Geri Fallo at the Gordys show last week; he got a kick out of that. More importantly, he loaned us a couple of carpets to cover all the cabling that ran from the stage to the sound board. What a guy. Dave Entwistle gave us a crackerjack sound-check, and we were off!

I love outdoor gigs and I’m pleased that we have a couple more on our calendar; playing in the gazebo is fun because we’re way up high and can see all the people bobbing all over Church Square Park. And we had ‘em dancing this year! It was a gorgeous evening, again with a slight chance of rain that never appeared, and we had a really good crowd out enjoying the music. More and more people are learning our songs and singing along at shows, which to me is a hugely gratifying thing.

This is the first anniversary of our last show with Kimberly, so I wanted to take a moment and throw her a shout-out: Hi Kimberly! You rock!

It was a great night, all around. As per usual there were some minor boo-boos (I put the capo in the wrong place again for “To The Moon”; Brandon shocked us all by launching into “Girls Rock” when the rest of us were geared up to play “Fairytale Blues,” which was the next tune on the setlist) but overall it was a euphoric and lovely event. I hope to have some photos to post soon. There’s nothing like a sunset concert, and nothing like a Hoboken crowd!

Afterwards, we hauled all of our gear home and most of us adjourned to O’Nieals for a free dinner! Bonus!

~ Dave

The Fuzzy Lemons have booked a BUNCHA gigs in the last few days, which is nice. I hope it keeps up! Here’s my music schedule (not counting all the private birthdays and Music Together classes I’ll be doing):

• July 12: The Fuzzy Lemons at the Great South Bay Music Festival in Patchogue, NY, 1:45 p.m. Also appearing: Paul Helou, Dr. Planet and Marla Lewis
• Week of July 27: Recording the Fuzzy Lemons at Garden Street Music
• July 28: Music Together at the Shipyard, 7:00 p.m.
• August 4: TFL at the Shipyard,  7:00 p.m.
• August 6: The Gordys at Sinatra Park,  7:00 p.m.
• August 11: Sitting in with Erin Lee and Marci at the Shipyard,  7:00 p.m.
• August 12: TFL at Church Square Park,  7:00 p.m.
• September 13: TFL at Union County MusicFest, Clark, NJ, 3:00 and 4:00
• September or October: TFL unplugged at the Harlem Flea Market (tentative)
• October 10: TFL at a private event in either Hoboken or Spring Lake, NJ
• October 18: TFL at Jubilee Day (Jubilee Center Benefit), time and location TBD
• December 6: Dave’s Annual Holiday Show with Howard Olah-Reiken at the Hoboken Historical Museum, 3:00

Back-to-back outdoor shows, can you believe it? As with yesterday’s show in Jersey City, this one took place at a bustling festival, with shade for the band but not for the audience. In this case we were in the gazebo at Church Square Park, and the festival was put on by OLG, the church that gives the park its name.

Waving to the crowd!

It was a busy, crowded stage, with Tom Sweeney playing D.J. and M.C. in between the various puppet shows, dancers, bands, and even WCW wrestlers. Tom’s not a sound guy, however, so we lugged our own P.A. in and talked Dave Entwistle into coming back to mix for us once again.

The normally spacious gazebo was suddenly overflowing with gear and personnel: the Fuzzy Lemons, Sweeney, a bunch of people who wanted to make announcements at random moments (seriously, I haven’t been interrupted in the middle of a set this many times since my college band’s drunken frat-house days) and, ultimately, wrestlers.

We rocked it, though, if I do say so myself. Kipley brought his keyboard in addition to his guitar and accordion, adding some wicked cool piano to “Baby Brother Blues.” Every gig sees something new blossom in the Lemons!

Wow, the calendar has been gig-free for a few weeks, and I’ve neglected to check in! But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Last week, for example, The Fuzzy Lemons had a great session with Dan McLoughlin in our rehearsal studio–he gave us copious pre-production notes to help us prepare for our next sojourn into the recording studio.

On a personal note, I had two awesome weekends in a row–first I got to go to a ManKind Project bonfire, the first I’ve been to in a whole year, and it was fantastic to connect with some old friends again. Then, last weekend was Memorial Day and I got to take my li’l family up to CT to visit my folks, my sisters, and assorted spouses, nieces and nephews. I even got a waterski run in, as my aching shoulders will attest 2 days later.

And now it’s time to gear up for a whirlwind of activity: I have 5 gigs in the next three weeks!

• May 30: The Fuzzy Lemons at the Waterfront Museum, which is a way-cool restored barge. I’m excited to play there but concerned because ticket sales seem low.
• June 4: Pete Seeger 90th Birthday tribute, featuring some of Hoboken’s top musicians! This is the first of the town’s Thursday-night summer concerts, and it’s an honor to have been invited by Geri Fallo to be a part of it. My original fantasy of doing a duet with Jim Mastro fell through (he’s out of the country apparently) but I’ve been in touch with The Demolition String Band and they’ll be backing me up on a song, it seems. Also, the New York Times asked for photos of the performers for an article on the event. Below is the photo I sent. Exciting!      
    

  Photo by Fred Eisner

• June 6: June-A-Palooza in Jersey City: We just got confirmation that we’re on for 2:30. We’re not getting paid but it’s a big deal in Jersey City and we’re hoping to sell some CDs and build our fan base outside of Hoboken.
• June 7: TFL at the OLG Fun Fest at Church Square Park. Outdoor show #2 of the summer; we’ll be in the gazebo at Church Square (you last saw us there in August).
• June 14: TFL at Kiddiepalooza on Pier A. Outdoor show #3 of the summer! We’ll do three big sets.

Then we’ll enjoy some time off until we’re back at the Shipyard in August (and I have sets with Music Together, Erin Lee & Marci, and the Gordys around the same time–everything happens at once!)

Photo by Jim Greif

The Fuzzy Lemons rocked a new location this week: the Gazebo in Church Square Park. We had a pretty big crowd; some of them were on the benches in front of the gazebo, some of them were over in the “tot lot” to our left, and some of them were in the bigger playground to our right. It was a lot of fun to see kids and parents bobbing their heads to the music in and around the playground equipment. 

Playing in the gazebo was a different experience. On the one hand, it was fun to be elevated several feet above the crowd, gazing down from our musical Olympus like the Rock Deities we truly are. And being in the center of the park meant that no matter where we looked, on the left or on the right, we saw families rockin’ along with us. On the other hand, I think we all felt sort of caged in, and that the distance from the audience kept us from connecting, as if we were playing near some people instead for playing for them.

At the Shipyard (or the Goldhawk) the kids come right up on the stage and touch our gear. There was none of that at Church Square Park, but on the flipside there were drunken bums wandering through, hollering… I dunno, drunken bum things at us.

Sometimes it seems like the band is on fire but the audience is tepid; other times, like tonight, it feels like the band is not at their best but the audience doesn’t care because they’re having fun. We all made little mistakes, but I think overall we put on a good show and people had fun. I wrote extensively about our pre-show sound issues here, but once again I need to point out that Dave Entwistle really proved to the world that he’s a supah-genius behind the sound board. The reviews I’ve received all say we sounded great, and lots of people have said “hi” to me since Wednesday and told me how much they enjoyed the show.

One other note about this event: it was our last gig (for the foreseeable future) with Kimberly on drums. She’s got a teaching job that keeps her super busy–busier than any one human being should be expected to be at that pay scale. As the Lemons are stepping up our rehearsal and performance tempo, she’s decided to step back, at least for now. We love you Kimberly! Her Web site is here, not sure how up-to-date it is but you can drop her a line and wish her well.

Dave

The following is not a Gig Diary. It’s a bit of a vent leading up to a Gig Diary. You may want to skip it.

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We’ve got to buy a P.A. That’s all there is to it. 

We’ve had a great summer, lots of outdoor shows all over Hoboken. The big wrap-up was at Church Square Park, smack in the middle of town, on Wednesday August 27. I’ll blog about the show itself in the next Gig Diary. But there was a lot of other stuff that went on that I’ll complain about here.

This show was Justin’s baby, he came to us in early May with the offer from the city and O’Nieals Bar & Restaurant to do one of the Wednesday night shows in the gazebo. The city would provide the location and the electricity, the bar would provide equipment and a meal, and we’d provide the music. “Heck yes,” said the Lemons. We were originally scheduled to play in early July. But some weather-related postponements pushed us back to August 27, and so the show became our summer swan song.

I don’t know all the behind-the-scenes things that Justin worked with O’Nieals, but I do know that Jesse (the manager) and her husband Jeff (the bouncer) are close friends with Justin and his wife (and Jeff plays drums for us at HEFC some Sunday mornings). When it turned out that O’Nieals wasn’t able to provide much in the way of equipment, I lay none of the blame on any of the parties mentioned above. I just wish we’d known in advance. Justin texted me at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday to say we had no P.A. gear for a Wednesday gig–not an auspicious way to prepare for a show!

It was frantic phone-call time. Justin tracked down a guy who could provide a P.A. for $325, but that would have eaten up our entire stipend from O’Nieals, and it would mean that we had to use that guy for sound, not our hero Dave Entwistle. I told Jay-Money to wait while I made another call.

Fortunately, my dear friends Stefanie and Marco of Blue Number Nine were able to help us out. A quick check of Facebook confirmed that they were home from their extensive midwestern tour, so I gave ‘em a shout. Lo and behold, they had a bunch of PA gear sitting in their basement and they were happy to share it. All they asked in return was that I put in a good word with Geri Fallo at City Hall. I’d LOVE to see Blue Number Nine play in Hoboken next summer! Geri are you listening?

Justin and I decided that the rest of the band didn’t need to be dragged into the equipment drama. It’s possible that some of the Lemons will read about it here for the first time. Hi guys! Some decisions require the whole band’s approval, but a fire-fighting situation like this would have just spread panic throughout the band, most likely (Dana thanked us the next day for not telling her that night). I’m pleased to say Justin and I handled it… though it was a close thing.

I woke up Wednesday thinking we were probably 90% covered, equipment-wise; close enough for a gazebo gig, right? Between Blue Number Nine’s gear, some stuff from O’Nieal’s, and our own gear borrowed from our rehearsal space, Justin and I figured we had assembled a pretty good Frankenstein’s Monster of a P.A.

But first we had to get the gear to the stage, hook it up and turn it on. Never as easy as it sounds.

The fun started when Dana drove us up the hill to Stefanie and Marco’s place, only to find an empty house. I almost gave up at that point, ringing their doorbell and re-dialing their phone. But Marco showed up only a few minutes later, toting a replacement bulb for his kitchen ceiling. We were back on the road with an SUV full of gear in no time, and in fact we were back in Hoboken before 5:00.

We unloaded quickly, and Dana and Justin headed off to our rehearsal space to grab the rest of our gear while I started assembling the PA. They were back quickly, and the rest of the band showed up, but by then the next problem had presented itself: No electricity. There are outlets in the gazebo, situated WAY high up near the ceiling, but they weren’t “hot.” Frantic calls to city hall turned up a park worker named Louie (thank you Louie!) who was more than happy to turn the lights and juice on for us.

Meanwhile, no one at O’Nieals had any inkling that they were supposed to be hooking us up with gear for a show that night. In fact one staffer said “No, the live music is on Tuesdays.”

At this point I was stunned. The gig had been on the calendar for months, yet no one seemed to have any clue whatsoever that a band was scheduled to perform in the park that night. Looking back, I have a theory. We showed up before 5:00 for a 7:00 show, and I just think no one was prepared. The proper folks were all happy to help us out, but they didn’t start arriving on the scene until after 6:00. Once Jessie and her helpful crew arrived, things just started rolling. She’s the kind of person who says “no problem!” to just about anything you could ask. Tape? Equipment? A basket of fries and chicken fingers? No problem! And of course Dave Entwistle showed up promptly at 5:30 and got right to work, which is always reassuring.

Ok, that’s the end of my rant and the beginning of the happy part. The official Gig Diary — you know, about the gig itself — will be in the next post.