A day in the life... up by 8am, hit the
internet. The young guy says, 'Hot coffee, sir?' I answer, 'Yes sir'.
He runs off to grab my coffee. Write a little something something about
yesterday, hit the beach. Stretch and swim, back by 11 to teach the
daily lesson with Bo. He's doing fantastically well, learning a year's
worth of stuff in a couple of weeks. 'What else do I have to do here?',
he says. Grab some local food from one
of the places across the street. Rehearse with Simon and Jelly for
hours in the afternoon. We have about 20 tunes ready to go (6 or 7
Glauber originals in the bunch). Hit the beach, stretch and swim. I
can put my nose on my knee in a forward stretch these days. It helps
that I'm stretching in the downhill wet sand at the water's edge.
Heavenly... forget the yoga mat, I have sand that shifts and adjusts
with the water and the deepening stretch. Grab a little food for
dinner, most likely some grilled fish that was just caught. Can't get
enough of that. Play music at night in one venue or another. Tonight
is a little gathering at the music store, tomorrow an open mic at Led
Zephyr bar, next night a Valentine's day gig on Victory Hill. A heck of
a nice way to spend February. No wonder I'm feeling happy. Only three
weeks to go... got my first pang of 'short timer's disease')
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Epic night in Sihanoukville... Wednesday is
the open mike night at Led Zephyr, nice venue with a great stage and PA.
During the day, we met Pyotr, who is a Moscow based trumpet player,
classically trained, and now a fiendishly gifted soulful horn player
(and a wild man as well). He came and jammed on a couple of songs
during rehearsal, and yeah, can you play some tonight? He showed up and
tore it up. But that was only half of
it. At sundown, Simon and I were drinking a coffee, talking about
music, when the guy at the next table chimes in that 'he's a
professional drummer' based in London. As we talked more, it turned out
that he has played with McCartney, Tina Turner, Kate Moss, recorded on
maybe a hundred albums, appeared in videos etc. Name of Preston Heyman,
(yup he's all over Google, you can read about him). Anyhow, I would
never invite a drummer I've never heard before to a gig, but in this
case, I had a pretty good sense that he was the real deal. He was.
I also invited seven or eight folks I had met in the past days, and
they showed up too, so the venue had some extra juice when we hit the
stage for a five song set. The drummer hadn't made it, I wasn't
surprised as it wasn't a done deal, so we kicked off Same Same as a
quartet. People started grabbing their cameras and hitting record.
There were three or four going which was gratifying, as this seemed like
a special set. And as the opening song is coming to a close, suddenly
there is a solid drum beat behind me and Preston is in on the tune. We
followed that with 'Happy Finnish Girls' (swing), Bhang Lassi (reggae),
'Boom Boom' (cajun rock) and ended with 'End of the Night' which is a
jazz blues closer. It was fantastic, everyone played well, the people
loved it, the general manager came over to set up some gigs, it was a
perfect audition. But mostly it was fun and satisfying. Just a great
feeling to draw in great players and put it out on the stage. A couple
of ringers on top of our rehearsed trio, and wow, nirvana in 5 songs.
We're hired for Saturday night, decent pay, food and drink tab, a nice
gig. If it goes well, there will be more.
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I've done many gigs in my time, but tonight's
ought to be unique. There is a place in Sihanoukville called Victory
Hill, and among its attractions is the so-called 'Boom Boom Street', a
block-long stretch of bars with lots of ladies sitting there waiting for
a 'date'. I hear that many of the women are paid to just hang out
there and entice the guys to come and drink, while others will go back
to your room with you. In the middle of
Boom Boom street is the 'V Lounge' which is hosting tonight's
'Valentine's Day' Beauty Pageant, a precursor to the Miss Sihanoukville
competition later this month. I was invited to be the live
entertainment for both events. I think the organizer wants a variety of
theme music to help the contestants sashay around the stage, show off
their charm and their outfits. No bikinis or nudity, I believe it's
about the dress and the poise and the audience reaction. There are 4
judges, including my buddy Simon, who somehow got one of the slots (he's
very excited:-)
I was hoping to do the gig on piano but
apparently there isn't room for one in a tight venue, so it will be me
and a guitar playing through a nice PA system while the ladies bask in
the applause and appreciation. Let's see, what to play? Wonderful
Tonight, You're Beautiful, Ain't She Sweet... yeah I got this... (In
case I gave the wrong impression, I think the contestants are 'good
girls', not professionals, though sometimes the lines can get blurred).
Should be quite a scene up there, and something tells me there will be a
little material for tomorrow's post. It sure beats a dozen roses and a
date at Applebee's. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.
