Photo of the Day

Kauai, Hawaii Sunday October 7th 2007. It had been raining most of the day and i wondered as i drove to work at the Sheraton if we would be inside or outside. Most of the rain here on Kauai at this time of the year is "showers" and the beach is usually the last place it rains so we had a chance of playing outside by the beach where it's so cool and the sun is setting and there's a good crowd waiting to get a photo of the sunset at just the right moment. Also performing tonight in a church just down the road from our gig is the Duo Tones, you know, Paul Johnson from The Bel-Aires and Gil Orr two guitar playing surf music icons, but as usual, if you're a working musician, most likely you have a gig when somebody good comes to town and that was the case tonight but there's always a chance and we were hoping that they would come see us.

Conrad Mathews, our drummer, had gone early to their sound check and talked to them about doing an interview on his Monday night radio show (8-10pm Hawaiian time on http://www.kkcr.org) and also invite them to check out The TakeOffs over at the Sheraton. When i got to the Sheraton at 6pm it was beautiful. No rain and the daily free Mai Tai hour and hula show was just ending and it was decided that we would play outside. Cool. We got set up and played for an hour and right at the end of the set it started raining and we had to do a full bail....not just us, everybody scampers looking for shelter, but we have to do a complete tear down and there's no time to think just pack the guitar, turn off the amp, pull all the cables and adaptors and stuff them in a bag and run. It was break time anyway so we just cruised and it stopped raining and the sky cleared up so we decided to go back out there and set up again which we did, and played another set. Yeah, you gotta wipe down all the chords and cables and stomp boxes and tuners and your wet guitar of course (hey! i made a pun!!) and it's a MAJOR pain in the ass to do a quick bail like that but it's such a sweet gig that you're back out there!

On our break, Paul Johnson comes walking up and says "hi guys, i got to hear the last couple songs in your set and you guys are good" Wow, he showed up. We all introduced ourselves and made some small talk and people around were realizing who he was and there was a cool buzz happening. I think it was Conrad who asked if he wanted to sit in with us."Sure that would be great, I've got a guitar but no amp" he says and our lead guitar player, Billy Mello, says "aw just use my amp and my guitar and I'll just listen to you guys" and so we did three songs with him on lead...."Baja" "Surf Rider" and his own tune "Mr. Moto". "You guys know that arrangement? You know, the modulation up the A and all that?" Yep! We sure do! It was amazing hearing that opening guitar lick to Mr. Moto being played by the guy that wrote it! We ripped right thru the three tunes and he seemed happy.....the three of us were stoked that we didn't blow anything!! But we had a lot of confidence having played those songs weekly for over two years!! The crowd of people knew what was happening and gave him a nice round of applause when we were done. Billy came back up and we did maybe three or four more tunes and then it just dumped rain.....i mean it just dumped. Another quick bail but there was no geting out of there in time and everything just got soaked again including our clothes while trying to pack up. A big mess. As if someone came and dumped a big ole bucket of water on you and all your stuff while your PLUGGED IN and performing!! That was the end of the show!!

Paul stuck around and we all got cleaned up and took care of our stuff and wound up in The Point (the lounge we used to play in) talking story with him and an interesting English couple that had made "friends" with us on our MySpace and happened to be here on vacation and they were keen on surf music and knew who Paul was so we all sat around chatting about the biz and how cool the internet is for bands and stuff like that. As i was leaving he commented on my rhythm guitar playing and we talked about them coming over and doing some shows around the Islands together. I told him our goal was to play at the Museum in Huntington Beach someday and he said that gig was really great and how much he and Gil (who didn't come with him to see us because he was out enjoying Kauai with his wife) enjoyed playing there. He talked about playing with Dusty and the bass player and how fun that was too and i just had to ask him, because i remember Eddie Bertrand talking about it on SG101 the other day, "what's the story with you and reverb?" He got a big smile and told me how he felt about the reverb issue.....he sees it his way and doesn't like it when the rhythm gets washed out in reverb....lead is fine, but the rhythm shouldn't be so wet because it tends to get "lost in the mix". "Some guys like Eddie Bertrand and Dick Dale like it real wet and drippy which is fine and sounds good on the lead some times but i don't like it when the rhythm is wet like that". He said he noticed that i used reverb on the rhythm but he said i didn't use too much and that i had a good dynamic style of playing and he heard everything i did. "Yeah right! You we're listening to me?" "Yes" he says....."i love rhythm guitar.....I'm a huge fan of rhythm guitar players and don't think they get the credit they deserve and i thought you were very good". It didn't really hit me untill i was about half way home and then WHAM! I just got to play "Mr. Moto" with Paul Johnson of The Bel-Aires. How cool is that!! The English people took photos so i hope to have something soon. Paul was a really nice guy who spoke to everyone that approached him and it would be very cool to do a Hawaii tour with him and Gil and maybe a couple more surf bands sometime. Thanks Paul....you made a crappy rainy night into something special that The TakeOffs will always remember and be proud of.