The show was our CD release party to celebrate our newest CD, I Don't Know How to Talk Anymore. We worked really hard to promote the show and all the bands worked together. Note to bands who want to get in front of an audience: gotta work together with the other bands on the bill. Can't do it all alone. Divide and conquer. We also got a ton of help from the promoter of the event, Bill Hansell of Appleberry Jam. Bill worked really, really hard to book the gig. For whatever reason, this was a hard gig to book. I wanted a weekend. I wanted a big club in SF and I knew I wanted to have some control over who else was gonna be on the bill so that we could present a great evening of music. Tall order. And all you talent buyers weren't lining up for dear old Felsen? Apparently not. Bill went back and forth on dates with about 8 different venues, until finally the Rickshaw relented. Bless them. We didn't want to disappoint them and felt the urgency of properly promoting the show. You also put your ass on the line when you book a gig. If no one shows up, word gets 'round among the club bookers and you're likely to not get booked at XYZ venue again. (Do you bookers all get together and gossip about local bands at your secret monthly Masonic Lodge meetings?) We dug deep and put on a major PR assault calling in lots of favors and hitting it hard. Full scale charm attack. Forgive us. We're gonna leave you alone for a while. Promise. For the many friends and fans who came out to the gig, we thank you. We also apologize for clogging up your email inbox and your social network feeds with our shameless self-promotion. Taking a break for a bit now. mmmkay.
Felsen went on last. Does that mean we headlined? Or did we just draw the shortest straw and get duped with cleanup? Glass half full or half empty? I'll go with headliner. That means added pressure as people will often split after their friend's band plays. We had a pretty solid throng of people there though thankfully. It felt really good to walk on that stage. We've been using some real cool entrance music for the past few months, the theme music to the old spaghetti western Sixty Seconds To What by the great Italian Film composer Ennio Morricone. OK, I stole that idea from The Clash Live in Japan. It sets a mood, and somehow helps me focus. It's epic and majestic and totally over-the-top. This was big time for little old Felsen. Big stage, smoke machines billowing out the fog, Ennio Morricone blasting through one of the best sound systems in the city as we file out after the evening's MC, DJ Shuugah's lovely introduction AND we utilized the Rickshaw's in house video projector and screen and projected one of the most beautiful films EVER, Koyannisqatsi. Ever seen it? Amazing. Kinda hard to describe. There's no dialog. All visual with a sound track by Philip Glass. The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse footage of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. Koyannisqatsi is a Hopi word meaning "a life out of balance." A perfect mesh with the bigger themes of our album, which is all about alienation in an era of technology, social media, advertising, gluttonous consumption....A life out of balance indeed. A bunch of people asked me if we edited the film to coincide with the music. Oh hell no. I'm way too lazy and technologically challenged to pull off something like that. Somehow the music would just periodically synch up with the film. Kismet.
To make the show a little extra special, we had six musicians on stage. We had the usual 4 of us boys plus our pal Adam Rossi on keyboards. Dylan and Adam have been playing together in local hit makers Luce for the past 10 years or so. Lots of chemistry between the two of them. We've added a new Felsen too. For the past few months I've been working with singer/songwriter Dara Ackerman. I play drums in Dara's band. She's singing with Felsen now. She's a great backing vocalist and really adds a lot visually to the band--a veritable non stop dervish of dancing.
There were many musical highlights of the show. All You Gotta Do is Smile felt really good and powerful. To me that's a really, really sad song. Listen to the lyrics sometime. I had to earn the right to sing that one. Tokyo Electric was really, really fun and just keeps on getting better and more fun and gets the crowd worked up and dancing. We hit really hard with the title track, I Don't Know How to Talk Anymore. The band felt particularly synched up. And I got to play Brad's beautiful guitar.
The set list was really well paced thankyouverymuch. We work hard on stuff like that. The devil is in the details. A good set list makes a big difference. I always want the energy and intensity to keep escalating. We've really hit our stride now with Better Thoughts. As is the case now with that one, we pretty much get the whole room full of people (however many there are at our gigs) singing along on the extended outro "Better thoughts will keep you happy and alive". We're you there? That felt good didn't it? The band sounded absolutely wonderful on this one. Really powerful and kinda other world-y at moments. I told the audience it was an opportunity to work through their issues. Group therapy session. Seriously, who doesn't need it? (I need every minute I can get.) Singing through their issues. I got issues on my issues. We've now segued the end of that one into our long-time closing number, an oldie, Don't Turn Your Back On Me Today. It's a pretty rock solid one-two punch. I'm old school showbiz--I like segues. One beautiful moment was at the end when Dylan and Dara joined me at my mic and we sang the outro. Kids, that right there's rock and roll.
I was starting to feel bad for the audience's ear drums; we ended the night with a few more mellow tunes. Gimme Shelter for the Devil was really beautiful. And then we jumped down into the audience and we sang an oldie, Take Me Back all acoustic-y. Dylan played the banjo. We sang and shook tambourines. We busked for free. I asked the audience to simmer down and listen up and they obliged. Coulda heard a junkie drop his needle. People just kinda magically start to sing along on that one. That was really powerful. And then they asked for an encore and we ended the night with another oldie, a tune the 6 of us never all played together: Like Water Fit For Babies from our Felsen Loves You EP. It's a song about being a new parent and wondering how you're gonna hold it all together. You got worries. You got anxiety. You're sleep deprived.
Thanks a bunch Bill Hansell, DJ Shuggah, Brad Brooks and band, Andrew Blair and We Became Owls and the good people at the Rickshaw. Thanks fans and friends who came out and sang and danced with us. What a night! OK. I will shut my mouth for a few weeks now.
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