Are You Dave?

Finally, with the sun out and the puddles drying up at the Fall Arts and Music Festival, The Fuzzy Lemons took the stage.

Finally!

Scott Altizio had spent the entire day tweaking the P.A., and so by the time we were up things were just about perfect. My memory of the set is that we were sitting in a great monitor mix——I could hear myself and my bandmates, which makes for a happy performance. The audience was rockin’ and Nancy was selling our new CDs back by the sound booth (she sold 37). It was pretty much the opposite of the Tenafly show two weeks previously. All was right with the world.

Reading through the Lemons’ post show e-mails reminds me of some details I forgot. The big one is: we played at about 90 m.p.h.! We played FAST. Our adrenaline was up, or something.

Also, Kipley broke a string and somehow it was blamed on me, for “jinxing” him.

This is a pretty threadbare post, I realize. The event was a month ago and I’ve said all there is to say about the day, the weather, and the other performers. I’ll let some more photos tell the story (courtesy of Brandon’s dad).

Justin is smiling because he can't hear you.

Dana bangs those pots.

Kipley cuts loose!

Brandon would be happier if the drums weren't right behind the porta-johns. Sorry, Brandon!

Jumping fans tell the story.

I’m going to bed.
Dave

With the rousing success of our first show at the Elks Club (hey, no one died, no one got sued) we decided to roll forward.  But first some questions had to be answered. Mainly, who was going to play what? With the exception of the redoubtable Justin, the rest of us (Dave, Dana, Kipley and Maiken) play multiple instruments. It’s fun to switch things around, to keep the sound different and show off a little by changing instruments, but the problem we faced boiled down to the fact that we had no drummer. Maiken offered to play drums, but that would take her off of keyboards. Kipley could play keyboards, but that would put all of the rhythm guitar chores in Dana’s hands. In one swoop we’d loose all of that musical flexibility. 

So we tackled it the same way we tackled the bass player issue: We brought someone in, raising our roster to 6. It didn’t take long to find our drummer; we posted a note on the Hoboken Moms e-mail list, hoping to find a local parent with a drum kit in the basement who was itching to play. Instead we got Kimberly Perry, who was already known to both Justin and myself — we both did a mental forehead-slap “duh, of COURSE!” when her name came up. We’d been hoping to talk her into playing with the church worship team for ages. So it was a huge boost when she replied that she’d be interested in checking out The Fuzzy Lemons.

Kimberly is a teacher at a local school in addition to being a drum teacher and semi-pro (she had played with local band Eugene for a while). She works with kids and is a great fit for the whole Lemon vibe. She sat in on a rehearsal in late February, and by the third song she’d jumped up on stage to play along. I don’t think any of us ever questioned it, she just joined right in. Like Justin, she only had a few weeks to learn the material but she caught up quickly (fighting illness the whole time, bless her heart), adding a whole new layer to the music. There’s nothing like hearing the little songs you’ve written suddenly come to life with bass, drums and electric guitar!

As all of this was going on, we were working on booking our second-ever gig. I hit on the happy idea of taking over the back room at The Goldhawk, around the corner from my apartment. I knew the owner, Fran, and I’d done kids’ parties there before (well, one, and that was for Fran’s nephew, but still). So Dana and I hit the bar after rehearsal one night, bought some beers, and bounced the idea off of him. He was into it, so with a pledge of $60 to the sound guy, the place was ours from 4 to 6 on Sunday March 16. 

We advertised like mad, flyers and e-mails all over town (and I think Kipley had put up our web site by that point as well). We didn’t sell tickets or anything; the idea was to pass the tip jar and see what happened. Well, the combination of beer for the grown-ups and a free concert for the kids proved to be irresistible–folks lined up around the block. The capacity of the Goldhawk’s back room is around 75, but by all estimates we doubled that. People who arrived after the 4:00 start time peeked in the window, saw the crowd, and turned around and left again. I felt bad about that, but it also felt really good to draw such a crowd! 

The Fuzzy Lemons at the Goldhawk, 3/16/08

A negative voice in the back of my head told me that people only came to see us because it was something new, and that the excitement would fade quickly. But I’ve gotten a lot better at shushing the negative voices in my head (they’re pretty common) and have since embraced the radical idea that people come to see us because they like us. 

I think we learned a lot that day, both about playing together as a band and about how to book a small club! I don’t have the set list from that day but I imagine it was pretty similar to the Cabin Fever set. We added some covers, songs like “No Rain” and Todd Rundgren’s classic “Bang on the Drum All Day,” that gave the grown-ups something to enjoy. I think we sounded great and the energy was spilling out of that little room. I’m sure it was all a sloppy mess, but I don’t think any recordings exist of the event so you’ll never know, nyah.

Kipley’s post-gig e-mail to the band speaks volumes:

Did that really happen? Did we just pack the Goldhawk and play a great show?! It’s all a blur. I remember little bits and flashes… smiling faces in the audience, [Justin's wife] clapping and hollering, [Dave's family] bouncing to the beat, Dave [Entwistle] grinning back at me, Dana’s profile… not so much of you guys on the stage, though. I couldn’t turn around without bumping my microphone stand.

Well… Great job, everyone! Soon we’ll all have those little ear monitors so we can really hear ourselves and enjoy the full effect.

Seriously… DAMN!!! Am I the only one who wants to do this every weekend now? How soon can we give in and become full-time Lemons?

Soon, Kipley. Soon.

At the end of the day we’d collected something like $250 in the tip jar, and sold a lot of beer for Fran, which made him happy enough to let us come back..twice! (More on those gigs later). We used that money to pay, and tip handsomely, Fran’s sound guy, Dave Entwistle. A lot, and I mean a whole heck of a lot, of the credit for our sound goes to Dave. He was cheerful, speedy and professional, working away at the sound board with a big cheery smile on his face. It made us all happy to see him grinning and dancing back there. We liked him so much that we booked him on the spot to help us with our next show, a road trip into Manhattan. More on that in an upcoming Gig Diary entry.

Dave

My first gig of 2008 was at the Hoboken Family Alliance’s Cabin Fever event at the Elks Club. I’ve played there the last three (?) years as part of the Music Together ensemble, alongside my fellow teachers (including Lisa, Marina, Pete, Catherine, Joi and John, among others). But for whatever reason, we couldn’t rouse a contingent of teachers to put together a show this year. 

Along came Kipley Wentz, musician and puppetmaster, who was also on the HFA’s list of invited entertainers. He and Dana Harrison (who teaches a class called Musicology in town) had already written and performed some songs together, and they invited me to sit down with them at the Frozen Monkey one rainy winter afternoon to talk about the possibility of joining forces. We agreed that, rather than fighting for space at Cabin Fever, a Musical Summit was called for, a meeting of Hoboken’s many and varied kiddie entertainers. We put out the invitation to all of the Music Together teachers, as well as Adam from Music for Aardvarks, Karen Kuhl, Sally Robertson and others. 

We wound up with myself, Kipley, Dana, and Maiken DuBois, who had been performing puppet shows with Kipley and on her own. My memories are hazy, but I recall them coming over to my tiny apartment for a couple of rehearsals, where we recorded Dana and Kipley singing their original tunes and I taught them “Skunks in My Shoes,” at the time my only original composition for kids. Kipley thought he might play bass guitar, since Dana and I both play guitar and we had no bassist. That sounded fine to me until he called a couple of days later and asked if I could recommend a good learn-to-play-the-bass book.

I gave the recordings to my friend Justin Michael and invited him to sit in on bass instead. Justin and I have been playing together in church for a few years now. I think he only had a couple of weeks before the gig to get caught up, but it’s not like we had a huge head start over him.

The HFA billed us at Cabin Fever as “Kipley, Dana and Dave,” but truly the Fuzzy Lemons had been born by then, and this was our inaugural gig. I got to the Elks Club with about 5 minutes to spare–I was doing a birthday party in Weehawken before the show (something that will constantly dog most of the Lemons as we try to book gigs around our party schedules); big thanks to Shana Lee for the ride back to Hoboken! Ken Chen’s fabulous photos of the event reveal that I still have my earmuffs stuck up on my hat–I didn’t even have time to take them off before we started. Later I asked Justin why he didn’t tell me they were up there and he said “I though they were there on purpose, that’s part of your look!” Looking back now I think that’s a cool idea, but I’d have to get myself some big funny fluffy earmuffs. Back then I was just embarrassed and annoyed. 

The Fuzzy Lemons debut at the Hoboken Elks Club, Sunday, February 10, 2008

Big ups, by the way, to Justin and to Scott Weiner for setting up all the gear. Scott’s been doing sound for the town for a long time, and he’s always friendly and professional. He has since moved on to other things, but he still hangs out at shows; it’s always good to see him. And Justin is used to being my guitar tech; he’s helped me out the last 2 summers at Gordys concerts (The Gordys rewarded him this year by making him their bass player–I’ll post all about that at a later date).

After the gig, the band’s e-mails started flying (we’re notorious with the e-mail). Kipley wrote:

Great job today, guys. I had a lot of fun and from what I can tell we all received great feedback. I certainly got some great comments and I guess when we listen to the recording it’ll be clear what worked and needs work. For me, it’s going to take some getting used to… it always sounds and feels so much different when we perform than it did in practice.

And Dana chimed in:

I had a blast today too.  I need a tambourine 101 class though.  I have a NASTY 2×4 inch bruise on my right leg. 

No victory comes without its scars. Overall I think we did just fine for a first gig–lots of mistakes, technical issues, and the town almost NEVER provides enough monitors (those are speakers pointed at the band instead of the audience, enabling us to hear ourselves and each other over the din!). You’ll notice in Ken Chen’s photo that not one of us is making eye contact with the audience. Or smiling. We had a long way to go in the audience-interaction department.

But the songs are great, we have a nice fat sound with multiple guitars, plus keyboards, horns and a mandolin, and lush 4-part harmony.  I think the audience had a good time, down there in the Elks’ basement. I really felt like, imperfect as it was, it was the birth of something new. The heart of the Fuzzy Lemons started beating that day.