The biggest show in this quadfecta was the second one, when Crash Pad played at "Occupy Pancakes." It's a monthly show that happens on the last Sunday of every month, during the afternoon. It originated a couple years ago, and until very recently was a house show, with a stage in a residential backyard and some obviously very tolerant neighbors. This year when the pre-summer Florida heat and afternoon thunderstorms began, it was moved to an actual club, the University Club, so it wouldn't get rained out, and that new partnership, at least sfaik, is going well. The University Club is our local gay nightclub, celebrating its 35th year. As such I don't go there on a regular basis (other than since Occupy Pancakes has been there, for those shows), although Crash Pad has played there, probably a couple decades ago, at a benefit for the Campus chapter of NOW (Nat'l Organization of Women), at which I also ran sound and was de facto stage manager.
And just in advance, sorry about the giant size of some of these photos. I'm a Luddite.
At any rate, Occupy Pancakes does in fact give away free pancakes for everyone there. It's a combination of local band concert, comedy, and burlesque, billed as a punk rock party but really being more than that implies. Local artists also sell their pieces. I'd been trying to get Crash Pad on the bill for several months, hopeful of getting the closing slot. Unfortunately another band we're friends with, Piss Test, had a member playing his last show, and that was used as a marketing ploy, giving them last slot (they also have two good looking women in the band), and us penultimate. As a way of ginning up our part of the show, I altered the official flyer and put our logo in it, so that we were the only act with a different typeface/logo. But I also altered our logo (which is black and white) so it would be in the same colors as the original type face:
At any rate, as luck would have it, three of the other members of my very first band, the Atomics, were in town and were able to come to the show. Two of them do live in Gainesville, but one is moving to Oz soon (his wife is Aussie and they previously lived in Perth WA) and the other is frequently out of town for business. The third lives in the Bay Area in Cali, but his mom still lives here and he visits once or twice a year. Unfortunately I couldn't get a photo of all 4 of us, as they arrived and left at different times that didn't quite overlap. But here's three of us:
And yes I'm wearing a smoking jacket. And no shirt. It gets fecking HOT in Gainesville by the last Sunday in May. But the jacket was in new condition, and picked up for a tenner even, on fb marketplace. With the closers featuring two very attractive women, since we couldn't be sexy at least we could be a little bit visually outrageous. Again, sorry about giant size!
Crash Pad is a four-piece and the one guy who works days Sundays (Mitch, our rhythm guitarist/backing vocalist) made sure to ask for the day off, and get it approved. But then some other co-worker of his had some serious health crisis (heart attack or stroke or something), and the motherfuckers revoked his approval at the last minute. So we were forced to play as a trio. The room is middling sized, but with a 2-story ceiling, and amps aren't mic'd, so I went with a mini-stack of my Peavey Triple XXX Super 40 EXP 1x12 tube combo amp (40W), mastering a slave Marshall 5275 1x12 combo (75W solid state). It sounded good and was plenty loud. Here's a shot of the mini-stack at palatial Casa Krashpad while being tested out:
For guitar I played my DeArmond Jet Star, which went with the red/black color scheme of the smoking jacket, and is my weirdest easily giggable guitar (my Ovation Breadwinner is equally weird, but finicky in live situations, and it's two-tone blue color scheme would've clashed with that fab jacket).
Plus I'll admit to having a tiny (totally platonic, of course) crush on the girl in the white hat in the photo, so that was nice.
At any rate, we managed to pull it off as a trio, but for our closer I do a lot of stupid running around and other hijinks while "soloing" (this is a
very liberal application of the term, and should probably not be compared to anything anyone here does), so I hit up an old friend before our set, who is a monster bassist, and was already on the bill as a "performance artist," and he agreed to play bass for the closer! For that song I gave my Jet Star to our bassist, to play the rhythm part, into a little Marshall Lead 20 1x10 (solid state 20W) combo I brought along, just for that song. My buddy, Tom, despite being a lefty, played our bassist's bass (like I said, he's a monster player), and I switched to a super cheapie (but indestructible) Squier Jagmaster. I think I bought it for $125 USD, with a gigbag, at a local pawn's going-out-of-business sale). The body is more compact and easy to sling around than the weird big Gumby-shaped DeArmond. That was the first time I've gigged the Jagmaster, but it turned out to be a good choice. Here's a pic of the quartet playing the last song:
For that last song I borrowed my bassist's wireless, to use with the Squier. This club has a mezzanine level overlooking the first floor stage. So I did stupid stuff in front the stage for the first solo, then "sang" another verse, and then for the outro walked up to the mezzanine and and then back down to the main floor to finish. Here's a shot from the first solo, I think:
Facebook apparently won't let one imbed viddies elsewhere, but here's a link to the solos, it's set to "public," so anyone should be able to see it if you dare:
https://www.facebook.com/ric.s.green...56674539054061
A tradition of Occupy Pancakes is a group shot, with performers and audience members, at the end of the day:
A good time was had by all, and all were had!
