In which I go out and have a lot of fun. And FAR too much wine!

Saturday afternoon Syl texted me; she and C were in town. Turns out RB had gotten a recording gig and had hired the rest of the band to schlep gear. C worked while Syl and I hung out Saturday night. When C was done, I invited them to crash in the front room to save them sleeping in the studio, which is filthy.

Sunday I made brunch and we had a lovely lazy morning. Syl & C left. I read and took a nap and generally lazed around. Gramma took me to Applebee’s for dinner that afternoon.

Sunday night C & Syl picked me up and gave me a comp ticket for night two of the recording event and we all went downtown to see the Randy Oxford Band.

The hostess tried to get RB to introduce the band. He didn’t feel like it, so I volunteered because I knew he would strip it out of the recording later and do a voice-over. (I hadn’t realized at the time that they were filming too.) I forgot to tell the crowd to turn off their cell phone ringers, and had to read both the venue’s and the band’s names off of a post-it note, but it was fun anyway.

The band opened with a jazz funk chart, then moved into Motown and blues. I liked them a lot, especially the rhythm section. The bass player was a monster player, with a lovely doo-wop falsetto he broke out on some Marvin Gaye covers. The drummer was solid as a rock; he also sang a medley during the third set.

The band leader, a trombone player, was a solid player and fun to watch but primarily his gift is in coalescing a kick-ass band around himself. Everybody got a chance to solo, and he invited a few local players up to sit in. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope to be invited up myself, but it didn’t happen… a good thing in the long run, ’cause I was shitfaced by halfway through the second set.

I befriended their vocalist, a fierce little black chick named Patty. After the first set (during which she did ‘Dr. Feelgood’: omfg I love that chart!) I explained that the mic she was using needed her to get right up on it or she’d sound thin. “Why didn’t they tell me that?” she asked, tilting her head toward the guys behind the board. “Because they’re men?” I said. She laughed and hugged me. I bugged her in between all her sets, and at the end of the night she gifted me with a heavily sequined blingy shawl she wears around her hips for gigs. “It’s very sparkly, so you don’t have to move that much,” she told me. She’s been singing for 40 years and had a lot of presence. The local folks told me I have way better chops, but chops don’t always matter. She had the gig, not me, and I thought she was wonderful and gracious.

The bass player said, “You’re the chick in that recording R played? Yeah? So when you movin’ to Tacoma?” It’s so nice when a monster player says something like that to a girl, don’t you find?

Later in the evening I met a flaming creature who danced with me and then invited me to a gay bar in the Tri Cities for his birthday in a few weeks.

After the gig, I packed microphones and ran around being a friendly, stupidly drunken spaz. Then C and I went to Shari’s and ate, then went back to the house where Syl was already asleep from when we’d brought her home between sets. I went to bed…

…and stayed in bed pretty much consistently until I had to come to work this morning. Wine hangovers? Suck.