Last night at Father’s Pub

I played Boris’s open mic at Father’s Pub and Grub last night. I played She Probably Thinks I’m Happy, I Don’t Drink Any More and Leaving You Isn’t Easy. It went like this:

Todd 8-31-2010 from Father's Pub & Grub on Vimeo.

Last night at Viento y Agua

I played Viento y Agua Coffee House last night with Blue in the Face, a piano / guitar / laptop duo from Portland, Oregon. I had a good time. The crowd was sparse but the environment is so cool and the sound is so phenomenal that playing there is a pleasure no matter what. It was the first show I’d played there (I’ve played some open mic nights) and Angie does a great job on the sound and making you feel welcome. I hope to be back there soon.

For those of you who missed it (and you know who you are), audio and video are below. I tried a little experiment of playing a bunch of short, similar songs all together right up front. I have mixed feelings about that approach. You can leave me your impressions in the comments.

Here’s the video. Audio is below it.

the Hit On List – live at Viento y Agua from the Hit On List on Vimeo.

You can play the individual tracks below or just right-click that first link to get all the mp3s. The song titles link to the song pages where you can get more info on that particular song.

Download a zip file of all the audio tracks for the show

I Don’t Make Passes at Girls Who Don’t Wear Glasses

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Out the Other / Kari / Babs / Nicole

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I’m Sorry

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Lazy Man

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Frankly, Mr Turner

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Hollyday

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Ewa

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Selina / With You

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Last Night at Cobantigua

Finishing out three days of open mics, I went to Cobantigua Coffee last night for the open mic they debuted in May and then cleverly shut down for two months lest anyone attend.

Needless to say, a last-minute booking of the open mic didn’t draw a lot of performers.  I think there were four of us.  Luckily, the duo who played brought enough of a crowd that the small coffee shop felt comfortable.  Since there were so few performers, we each did 20-30 minutes.  Boris ran the sound and it was phenomenal. 

Apparently, I did 9 songs in less than half an hour.  That seems about right.  Two of them — both covers — I’m not uploading.  One you’ve seen and the other I didn’t pull off as well as I’d like to.  Other than that, minus some chit-chat, here’s my whole set — wrong chords and all:

My Set: Lazy Man, We’re With You, She’s a Morning Person, I’ve Just Destroyed the World I’m Living In, Ewa, You Got Lucky, The One I Loved, Selina, Babs

(more…)

Last night at Cobantigua Coffee

So Boris emailed me yesterday afternoon and asked me if I want to play an open mic at Cobantigua Coffee House in Huntington Beach that he was helping set up. He’d mentioned it to me before but didn’t know when they’d be starting it up. Apparently, they wanted to go ahead and knock out a test run this week. It sounded fun so I headed out.

They hadn’t had a chance to promote the evening much so it was pretty empty. Boris played a few songs and then called me up. Since the crowd was sparse and we were waiting around for more players, I played for almost 20 minutes. It was a little awkward. Lesson learned: always have a damn set list. I am not good at thinking on my feet.

After my set, I watched the other performers and then ended up hanging out and shooting the shit and playing songs with Paul Hines til almost 2am. On one hand, that’s exactly what I want to do all the time. On the other hand, I have a day job and I was a wreck this morning. Paul’s a great guy to hang out and talk songwriting with. I have to remember this phrase so I’m writing it here: kill your darlings. I’ll explain later.

In the meantime, here’s all of the set I’d like to share now:

Nina, I Don’t Drink Anymore, Girls Who Wear Glasses, Selina

Click more to see all the vids… (more…)

My gig at Sipology

So I played a show at Sipology in Long Beach a little over a week ago. My friend Allen asked me to do the gig with him. It was all acoustic. We each played a set and a guy named Josh whose contact info I didn’t get opened.

I’ve just finished clipping and uploading videos to YouTube. So you can see how it went, minus my thrilling banter.

My set: News 4 U, Nicole, Babs, I’m Sorry, Stay Together, Girls with Glasses, Frankly Mr Turner, Maureen, Please Come Home, Selina.

Click for more to see all the videos. (more…)