The stacked up pile of gig reports have finally made their way to the blog machine.

27 Jun 08, Alibi, Weingarten As reported earlier, you just can't win in the Summertime. Once again, we met the wrong weather for the gig head-on. This gig was supposed to be prize for RACK's winning one of the top two slots in the battle of the bands back in January. The battle of the bands was to decide who would be the opening slots for the Innenhof Festival, but as luck would have it, the organizers of the festival had some difficultly lining up the financial backing for the festival, and everything fell apart. Instead, we played the gig in Alibi on the planned date of the festival with the other winner from January, Manarum, a Reggae/Ska band.

The weather was perfect! For an open air festival. That means that we played inside while most of the people listened from outside because it was just plain hot! Damn hot! in there. We played well, the gig came off well, and our Weingarten fans all came to see us, but it was definitely a bit of a letdown compared to the gig it could have been. However, it's always fun playing a gig when you don't have to run your own sound, and can just concentrate on the music, and the soundguys at Alibi definitely have their shit together. With any luck we'll be playing Alibi again in the Fall, but, if not, we've already got another date in Weingarten lined up at Havanna Club in November.

28 Jun 08, Schößle, WeingartenIt was kind of funny coming back to Weingarten on the next day for a gig with Sambinha. The good news is that the weather was still good and we were playing outdoors as part of the Museen Nacht (English: "Night of the Museums") at the Schlößle. The summer weather-gig curse is broken! What a great gig! We played it cool, and the crowd was very enthusiastic and appreciative. The owner of the museum was helpful and friendly, and basically acted as a role model for all other promoters. Afterwards, the promoter came to us and said, "You do realize that there were 1500 people here, right?" We had no idea! They were tucked a little bit away in the big yard, and we couldn't see them after it had gotten dark. We could hear them, but 1500? Cooooooolll.

29 Jun 08, Exil Bühne, Singen StadfestThe next morning it was back off to Singen to play on the Exil Bühne as part of the Singen Stadtfest. Exil is one of the best known music clubs in that area--RACK isn't quite big enough to play there yet. As the pictures show, the stage was huge and the sound was fantastic. This time we had great weather and were playing an outdoor gig, HA! HA! We've beaten you, Weather Curse!, but the weather was a little too good. It was hot! Damn' hot! But the crowd that made it out loved the show. We've talked to the booker, and we should be playing the Singen Stadtfest again next year. Whoohoo!

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03 Jul 08, Halbhuber, Friedrichshafen. Sambinha returns to Halbhuber. Our gig, as part of the weekly Thursday Jazz shows put on by Jazzport, in 2007 was the best attended concert of the 2007 season. This year, we were hoping for the same. Brazil Music is Summer Music. The people love that stuff! Well, not when it's raining. There's construction in the airport parking lot, and I think that a lot of people that would have come, looked out the window and said, "I ain't walking 200m in that shit." Instead, we just had a very busy evening for Halbhuber--it seems that the attendance there has been a little lacking lately, so even the 60 or so people we drew were a lot more than the weekly average for the last little while.

Playing in Halbhuber is always fun, but it's a bit of a bitch loading out after the show. The restaurant is on the second floor, and sometime around midnight they turn the elevators off. WTF!? so we have to carry everything down the stairs by hand. Fortunately, there's five of us, which makes things quite a bit easier when everyone helps out.

The gig was, again, a very nice show, and the new singer, Angelina, continues to show her natural talent. She's turning out quite nicely.

05 Jul 08, Strassenfest, KißleggThis was not a great gig. This is the first not-great-gig that Sambinha has had in a long time. What was wrong? Let's see:

• Big Stage. Check! The stage was quite large, but it was on truck trailer, so it rocked a little bit which was a little unsettling.
• Outdoors with good weather. Check! The weather was perfect! I'm still beating you, Weather Curse!
• Money. Check! The gig was nicely paid.
• Crowd. Check! We were within earshot of several thousand people.

So what went wrong? This is a Street Festival in a backwoods town. Sure there were lots of people there, but unless you're playing festival/Fasching kind of music, it just isn't interesting for them. The crowd was polite, and a few really dug it, but most of the crowd seemed much more interested in finding the shortest route to Alcohol Poisoning. Sambinha, a Jazz band, is definitely not the right band for this gig.

11 Jul 08, Bisonstube Bodenwald, Bodman-LudwigshafenThe Weather Curse strikes back! With only a half hour before leaving for the gig, the heavens opened up and let loose a torrent of rain, and even a tornado that severely damaged the nearby town of Baitenhausen. The gig for RACK was supposed to be outdoors. Gig canceled! Dammit!

12 Jul 08, Private Party, Nersingen RACK's acoustic program really is a good thing. We get booked to do small intimate things like birthday parties, which really are a lot of fun. We get to go to the party; we get to play music; we get to meet new people. It's win, win, win. This time was no exception, and we had a great time. We're looking forward to the next private parties on the calendar.

19 Jul 08, Klangschiff, Friedrichshafen Time for something completely different. Sambinha's drummer and leader, Ralle Fricker, is a drum monster. He's spent time in Brazil, Cuba, and India studying the drums and rhythms at the source. He knows it inside out. Raviindra is his India project that showcases his compositions influenced by Indian Carnatic music. He asked me if I'd play bass for the gig, and naturally I jumped at the occasion. I've been turned on by Indian Music ever since 2000 when I was on vacation in India and I discovered A.R. Rahman (before Bombay Dreams, mind you.) Although I like the traditional classical Indian sound, I like the Indian/Western fusion even more, and that's exactly what Raviindra is about. Around 2000 is also when I discovered, or really started to pay attention to, the Western/Indian music of Jonas Hellborg and Shawn Lane.

The truth of the matter is that this is the hardest gig I've ever done, just from a musical perspective. The scales are all wrong--I really had to work to get the pieces under my fingers. The rhythms are odd-metered and complex and performed on unfamiliar instruments. Uhhh, where's the one again? We were to perform the CD Goa because it's just been re-released in India. Did I forget to mention that Raviindra has a record deal in India? Hours of practicing. Hours of trying to internalize things like a 7/4 feel at 142 bpm. Hours of getting the pieces under my fingers. The result of all this work came to it's goal on 19 Jul: The single hardest gig I've ever played.

It's all about Headroom. This is a concept that I was beginning to form in my head, before my good friend, Markus Setzer, formed it for me. You need to get your playing level high enough (enough headroom) that should anything happen on a gig, that you'll immediately be able to take care of it. Break a string? Not a problem; play it somewhere else on the neck. Topless girl in the front row? Not a problem; look and look for a long time. For this gig, I had gotten my level up to where I could play the material at the rehearsal with mostly no problem. But keeping my concentration during the gig, and this gig was T-O-U-G-H tough. We played at from 11am to 1 pm (read: High Noon), and it was hot! Damn hot! We were playing on a small stage made out of iron out over the lake, and it felt like sitting in a frying pan. Then came the distractions: the music is quiet, but the PA was loud. This is the kind of thing just asking for feedback, and we got it a couple of times. One time, either the heat made my preamp wacky, or I hit a button without realizing it, and I couldn't hear myself all of a sudden, but due to the bright sunlight, I couldn't read the LEDs to find out what the problem was--the bass was just gone. Other times, just when I was getting into the groove, a fish would jump out of the water with a loud splash. And the worst thing of all, twice planes flew very low overhead so that nothing could be heard. Keeping one's composure and concentration in this environment is very challenging, but we pulled it off. The press was positive, and I'm really happy to have been a part of the premier show of the Seeklang concert series. (with the debut performance of this line-up for Raviindra).