Happy Halloween!

Behold the results of last minute Halloween
preparation!

I played a Halloween gig Saturday and Nancy and I figured we would dress up, so Friday night we went out to see what we could find for costumes.

After slogging thru a few of the costume stores that always spring up in various formerly empty or failed drug stores, we bagged the idea of blowing $50 each on something crappy. Hell, we are perfectly capable of producing our own crappy costumes!

So, a couple shirts and a few yards of ribbon from Hell-Mart, a pair of ears, and 10 minutes of rummaging in the closet, and presto! we had everything we needed.

Nancy has a Spock teddy bear and I used it as a guide for the little insignia on the shirts. I cut it out of gold ribbon and we glued everything on in about an hour.
Nancy got up in the middle of the night and finished outlining with fabric paint, and we were good to go.

Total cost=$27

Saturday morning we spent a few minutes shaving off my eyebrows and cutting my hair, and then piled in the car to get to the job.I was doing the old murder ballads routine (Banks of the Ohio, Pretty Polly, Willow Garden, etc.) at the place where Nancy works, which is a huge victorian mansion in downtown Erie.

Despite my plan to be highly entertaining with murder songs and fascinating accompanying tales, it rapidly became apparent that Mr. Spock playing folk songs in the middle of Halloween brunch was a situation most audience members chose to ignore.

Repeatedly.

Three songs greeted with total silence drove the point home; background music was to be the role of Spock.

A logical conclusion.

Lucy 

Hank Goes to Canada

We just got back from doing a show up in Port Colborne, Ontario, at a nice place called the Roselawn Center (or Centre, I guess it would be).
Port Colborne is right on the Welland Canal and a pretty little place.

We got there a little early and explored a bit, and were lucky enough to see a big old ship come thru the canal, which is quite an experience with all the bridge raising and lowering and all.

Mighty interesting to watch.

The show was sold out thanks to Linda Jean, who does the booking and all the promo work as well, so she was responsible for all the hard preparations. I just had to do the easy part.

Nancy got roped into helping out in the sound booth, so she got a real trial by fire running the equipment and trying to guess what I was going to do next. Turned out real well considering neither one of us had worked out all the details in advance.Sometimes you just have to wing it.

The Roselawn was very professional.I had a three room dressing room with a kitchen and living room with a stage video monitor so I knew exactly when to hit the stage.

They had a very good opening act, three fellers who hit some mighty tight harmonies and could play any style. Sorry boys, can't recall what you called yourselves, but I always did have a poor memory when it comes to names.

The audience was great.Very vocal, rowdy and appreciative. Must be that Canadian water (or beer ). The soundmen did a nice job for us,too.Thanks Lawrence! I got a tape of the second set and will convert it to DVD and see if I can figure out how to post a clip in the next day or so.

Linda Jean and Brian squired us around to a few hot spots after the show and we all had a good time. Man, I ain't as young as I used to be!

Thanks to the Roselawn for the invite and especially to Linda Jean for all her hard work!




Settin' The Woods on Fire!

Welcome Friends!

Well, here it is at last, a humble little spot on the net to share the latest musical goings ons, and maybe throw an opinion or two around.

So let's give it a try, and we'll see how long it takes to get the kinks worked out.