9 April 2001
First Show

I opened this page for the first time in a long while and found an entry from February 21st that was commented out (for you non-geeks out there, that means it was here but invisible when viewed from a browser). It was an incomplete musing on the subtleties of mastering, not an entirely innocent one, as I was a tad bitter about how large an investment of time and money it had been. I suppose I left it commented out because it struck me as bad PR, and a public gesture of ingratitude to the mastering engineer. Or maybe I already suspected I'd regret ranting about it later on. In any case, I've since decided that mastering is well worth it, subtle as it may be. It's sort of like getting nice double-paned windows when remodeling the house.

Last Friday was my first real gig since college -- my first off-campus show, out in the real world of cafes and tip jars. Speaking of tip jars, I made $18 that night, which somehow felt like a lot more than the thousands that get deposited into my bank account from my day job. A bunch of faithful friend-fans drove up from the south bay almost to the Golden Gate Bridge, to crowd into a wonderful little cafe where the owner makes a point of only running the espresso machine between songs. He's an acoustic purist as well, the owner is: complimented me on a good show at the end, and also advised me to keep the mic level lower next time, or at least to sing further from the mic, so that the illusion of naked sound would be as complete as possible. I promised that I would. He said he would call me when he was figuring out the event calendar for May.

I think I'm a songwriter before I am a performer -- by that I mean that I haven't quite learned to enjoy being in front of a crowd as much as working on a song. Mostly it's nerves, I think. I spend a good amount of energy blocking out the fact that I'm on stage, just trying to play as though I were playing for myself. The audience on Friday night was very helpful, though. The vibe in the room was warm.

Story: By the time the clock read 8:50 I had two songs left on my set list, one with a question mark by it. I sang the first, then asked the audience if they wanted to hear the questionable one (a silly, dangerous question, in retrospect -- no kind audience is going to decline, even if they don't want to hear it. It's on a par with telling people to sing along to a song they're hearing for the first time, which is another blunder I made in the course of the evening). Fortunately there was a resounding yes; they were in the mood for an encore. So Jim started tapping out a groove on the djembe, and we launched into the a cappella version of Decade and One. It was the best song of the evening in a way; my nervousness had dissolved completely by then, and it's always refreshing to take my fingers away from the keys and just sing. The room was silent except for the sounds of the drum and the words forming, and I felt like I understood them more than usual, their meaning a little clearer without the piano lines woven around them. I believe the audience sensed it too. And I remember thinking: I could get used to this. This is fun.

- VT