Hola, friends!
Some lovely gal from the gig at Sweet Bay on Saturday got a picture of me with the band:
Just booked one more gig with this band for this Cajun restaurant on saturday night here in Fort Smith. 7-10 PM. It’s called Landry’s. Check it out.
Hey friends.
I haven’t written since I got here because every time I’ve wanted to write about the trip to Little Rock with the band, I always want to give you guys the setlist, but don’t have it handy. So, forget that, I’ll give you the setlist for the Sweet Bay show here in Fort Smith later on. But let me tell you about my trip.
Quinn Carson and his family have been really wonderful for letting me stay with them, and it’s been nice meeting and hanging out with the rest of the band and Quinn’s other friends. We’ve been out eating a lot of good food, and doing fun stuff.
We took a trip to Little Rock on Thursday, to play at a place called The Starving Artist. It was a cool little venue where there were literally 200 paintings on the wall being sold by local artists. Most of the stuff was really good. They also had great food there, especially the bread. We got 2 loaves for free. That was our pay. No, that would have been awful.
The show itself in Little Rock was fine. It was a relatively small crowd, and we were playing background to them mostly, so we got to experiment with variations on the songs we were doing. This, of course, meant that the 5 hours of rehersal I did the days before the gig were for nothing, because we morphed most of the songs. No problem, though. As a band, we were able to make the variations sound natural.
After that, we had a day off, and I went out to TGIFriday’s with Even (drums), Steven (guitar), and Mike (the bassist I’m subbing for), and we had a good time chatting and such while Quinn was out with someone. Then, that night, we went out for a little bowling, in which Quinn and I were in a battle for high score….I won by 50 points. The 2nd game we played was barely notable, since wwe were trying to do a 4 person game in 15 minutes. Quinn had me by 8 points, but I didn’t have time to concentrate. SO, therefore, I won the series with 42 points.
Saturday night was a gig at Sweet Bay Coffee here in Fort Smith. I love playing gigs at coffee shops, becuase then I can drink enough coffee to equal out what I get paid…….and still get paid. There was a sizable crowd there, and we played well. The only downside to that gig was that the lighting was dead in the corner where we were, and so it got hard to read my music after a while. We played….
Wayne’s Thing
On The Sunny Side Of The Street
April In Paris
Fly Me To The Moon
Autumn Leaves
What Is This Thing Called Love
South 21st Street Shuffle
St. James Infirmary
When The Saints Go Marching In
It was a good gig, but I was dying from that lack of light on ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’. All the other tunes went really swell. The Fodera bass and I have finally gotten absolutely comfortable with each other, and I didn’t have to put any effort at all into playing it. I just had to worry about what notes to play. I’m extremely glad that I have that bass, and I’m sure it’s only going to get better from here.
Got up today and made a trip to the WONDERFUL Waffle House. Waffle House is the kind of food that the you need in the morning no matter where you are. Waffle House is incredible, but I’m glad we don’t have it at home. I think I would burn out on it too quickly. Plus, I don’t think it would be appreciated to full capacity in the Poconos.
Anyway, just thought I’d bring you up to speed. I’ll write midweek to let you know all the non-events of the week off. Hopefully someone took some pictures or something during the gigs that I can post.
Take care of yourselves (and each other)
-Matt
Greetings from Fort Smith, AR!
I’m currently sitting on what will be my bed for the next two weeks, in my friend Quinn Carson’s house. I rolled into town at around 1 A.M., and then we ran to Wal-Mart for a second after he drove me around the late-night empty town. I’ll catch you up real quick on the deal since I last wrote, which I only just posted, so please read that down below. Here’s the step-by-step of the journey:
-I got out of bed in Bowling Green, KY. I grabbed a piece of coffee cake and an iced mocha at the nearby Starbucks and headed out of that town.
-I drove into Nashville, and after realizing I had no idea what I was going to do with my few hours, I found a Hampton Inn, where I finally checked my email and messages before I looked up places to go, and decided on the Country Music Hall Of Fame & Museum. That was really cool. I always love music museums that have actual instruments and assorted memorabilia from the past. Someday, I hope my basses will be in a place like the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame or the Experience Music Project. I got that t-shirt, a shot glass, and a mason jar mug, so I can let the PA worlld know that I went somewhere far away! Oy. I proceeded to drive up and down Music Row in Nashville, which was a long stretch of record companies, publishing companies, managers, recording studios, and anything else associated with the music business down there. It was really impressive to see what was down there after all the mythical talk of Nashville. I really am going to get to do that someday. I also had that thought when I was looking at the huge wall of framed gold and platinum records in the Country Music Hall of Fame. They had records that extended pretty much from the time of Elvis all the way to present albums there, and since they will obviously add on as time goes forward, I had to wonder to myself how many of those future albums I will be playing bass on, or even producing.
-Drove out of Nashville, and went on for quite a while.
-I stopped in Jackson, TN for a coffee at Starbucks, but then spotted a sushi bar in the same plaza, so I stopped to wolf down a quick salmon roll and a couple pieces of Nigiri sushi. Then I got the cup of coffee I came for and headed out.
-I crossed through Memphis, and then to the Arkansas border, which was flat, delta land. I got a little homesick for a second, just because I’d never been this far away from home before, and let alone being away from home, it’s a whole different culture down here. Entirely different. Someday, when it’s my lifestyle to be out all over the world, it’ll come and go naturally, but for now it’s still really foreign.
-Disembarked in a town in Arkansas to grab a little fast food for later in the trip, because I didn’t want to have every Burger King in the state closed by the time I was hungry. I drove from here all the way into Fort Smith, which is where I am now.
I’ll write about stuff here almost daily I suppose. I’ll leave you with a Starbucks Trip Tally so far.
1. Yesterday afternoon around 2 P.M. in Austintown, Ohio.
2. This morning around 11 A.M. in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
3. This evening around 5 P.M. in Jackson, Tennesee.
Goodnight. I need sleep. Too much driving, plus the time change is messing with my head a bit.
Hey Friends!
Just checking in from my Motel 6 room in Bowling Green, Kentucky. There’s no internet access here, so wherever this is posted from, it’ll be backdated. Hopefully, I’ll run across some internet access in the morning before I get back on the road. Then you can read it.
I’m pretty sure this is already the farthest I’ve been away from home by myself in my entire life. It’s kind of exciting, but all the same I wish I had someone to hang with on the ride. I’ve been occupying myself by listening to the audiobook version of “His Dark Materials Trilogy” by Philip Pullman. When I was in the 6th or 7th grade, we read the first book, “The Golden Compass”, in class. I read it again a few years later, but I never got past the first few pages of the 2nd book, “The Subtle Knife”. I’m just about finished listening to the end of “The Golden Compass” (for my 3rd time!), and by the time I leave Nashville tomorrow, I’ll hopefully be on my way to “The Subtle Knife”. I’m probably going to have to wait until I’m on my way back from Arkansas to check out “The Amber Spyglass”. I’m excited to finally make it through this nice work of literature after almost a decade. It’s supposed to be for younger audiences, I’ve been led to believe, but it’s almost a little too advanced, I think. I remember being blown away by it when I was younger, and I wish they’d make a movie out of them. Well, maybe that’d ruin it. Not sure.
I’m excited to gig a bit outside of my home element. Plus, hanging out with Quinn Carson is generally a good time, so it’ll be fun all the time. At least I don’t have to get used to living in Arkansas for a few weeks by myself. I’ve never been in this part of the South, and to all my friends and lovahs back home, oh god, Hollywood does a VERY good job portraying it. I didn’t have to get used to much. It just took me by surprised when I stopped for some dinner at Arby’s.
I’ve also observed a few things while on the road, and they are as follows:
-There’s a New Castle town in every state I’ve been through; Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky. I’ll be disappointed if I miss out on one in Tennessee and Arkansas.
-I saw a town in Ohio called Wooster. It made me laugh because that’s pretty much how you pronounce the city in Massachusetts, Worcester. I like to imagine it’s a parody.
-There are NO suburbs once you get out of Pennsylvania. It’s city -> farm -> city -> farm. The first city with a suburb that I saw was Louisville.
-Speaking of places in Kentucky, hello Allison Snee. I passed through Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and I thought of that time that we watched that movie when you were in Boston.
-Also speaking of Kentucky, it’s really NICE down here. There’s just miles and miles of clean, green forests down here, and it’s quiet highways. This would be a nice place to put a house hidden in the trees. I can do that with my #6 million dollars.
-Country music is a novelty in Pennsylvania. It’s an alternative music form. But here, in Ruby Tuesday’s (a piece of home!), when Shania Twain came on, everyone got up and danced their asses off! It was a huge deal. In Pennsylvania, the chick in the corner of the bar that had her heart broken followed by 8 beers sings along.
-When you go to an open mic night and play music that’s NOT country, people take about 3 minutes to get over the shock, and if you’re playing your pretty little heart out, then they warm up to you real nice. Here’s a little setlist:
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Matt O’Donnell (solo)
@ Eddie’s Pub Open Mic
Bowling Green, KY
5/19/07
The Freshmen
Blue Bossa
With Every Midnight–>
LC Groove
Message In A Bottle
:Show Notes:
-First performances of “The Freshmen” and “Message In A Bottle”.
-First “Blue Bossa” since July 2004.
——————————————————-
It was a fun set. I just happened across the marquee stating there was an open mic night at Eddie’s, I braved whatever semi-highway was between the Motel 6 and the bar. There were a good 45 people there, and they all seemed to enjoy the set. I got to play 4 songs instead of the 2 allowed. I must have sounded really good! Thanks Berklee! That was my first solo set in a LONG time. It felt good. I’ll have to do it a little more often than once every 18 months or so!
I’m going to bed now. Hopefully this will be up sometime on Sunday, and I’ll write more about my trip when I land in Fort Smith, AR.
Goodnight, and good luck.