High School Reunion

Interesting gig tonight. I've played at King Street Bar & Oven many times. [disclosure: the owner, Troy, is a very good friend] Their Fat Tuesday event last year was a blast, playing 8 or 9 hours of New Orleans music. I did a Friday residency there from February into November 2009 which called for mostly Top 20 and hip hop, not my regular cup of tea but it was a good challenge to stay on top of current pop music. Tonight, it was a pretty specific niche occasion: the 30th reunion of Bishop Blanchet High School's Class of 1980. The task: only play music released between 1976 and 1980, go a little light on '76 because the Class of 1980 was in junior high for half the year, and go even lighter on '80 because half that year's music wasn't on the radio until the Class of 1980 was in college. The idea: focus on rock during cocktails and dinner, then shift to disco, funk and dance music after that, generally stick with the hits and not the obscure stuff. That's a pretty narrow well to dip into, but on the upside, '76-'80 was a rich, diverse and plentiful period which gave us a lot of great music that has held up over time.

A guy approached me about the play list. As it turns out, he attended this and another high school and he's in charge of the music at his other school's 30th. As fate would have it, I was keeping track of what I was playing in a notebook, just for fun. So I gave this web address to the nice fellow and promised to post the play list for him. Here goes:

Artist - Song (year of release)
Billy Joel - Scenes From an Italian Restaurant (77)
Peter Tosh - Legalize It (76)
Van Halen - Dance the Night Away (79)
Elvis Costello - Pump It Up (78)
Warren Zevon - Werewolves of London (78)
ZZ Top - Cheap Sunglasses (79)
The Police - Roxanne (78)
UFO - Lights Out (77)
Pink Floyd - Run Like Hell (79)
Steely Dan - Josie (77)
Prince - I Wanna Be Your Lover (79)
Hall & Oates - Rich Girl (76)
Jackson Browne - Running On Empty (77)
Bob Seger - Still the Same (78)
Gary Wright - Dream Weaver (76)
Heart - Straight On (78)
Bruce Springsteen - Candy's Room (78)
Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way (77)
Ram Jam - Black Betty (78)
The Rolling Stones - Shattered (78)
The Clash - Clampdown (79)
The Knack - My Sharona (79)
Talking Heads - Life During Wartime (79)
Rush - The Spirit of Radio (80)
Bob Dylan - Gotta Serve Somebody (79)
Marvin Gaye - Got To Give It Up, Pt. 1 (77)
The Grateful Dead - Shakedown Street (78)
The Who - Sister Disco (78)
KISS - Calling Dr. Love (76)
Steve Miller Band - Jet Airliner (77)
The Pretenders - Brass in Pocket (79)
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Here Comes My Girl (79)
Lynyrd Skynyrd - That Smell (77)
Aerosmith - Last Child (76)
Cheap Trick - Dream Police (79)
Atlanta Rhythm Section - Champagne Jam (76)
J. Geils Band - Come Back (80)
Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) the Reaper (76)
The Ramones - Rockaway Beach (77)
Led Zeppelin - Fool in the Rain (79)
Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing (78)
Billy Joel - Only the Good Die Young (77)
Boston - Rock & Roll Band (76)
The Eagles - Life in the Fast Lane (76)
Michael Jackson - Rock With You (79)

At this point, we made a change. The way we'd set the DJ area, the music could only play through the main PA speakers on the dance floor, which is normal in most venues. King Street has satellite speakers on the far end of the room and outside under the canopy of the beer garden, and while the sound board inputs are at the dance floor, the brain of the system is located in a closet office on the far end of the room. In all the nights I've played here, the current set-up allows what I'm playing directly into the PA to also pipe through the satellite speakers which makes for even distribution of sound, i.e., we don't have to blast the main PA in order for the music to be audible to people on the far end of the room and outside. It's a nice system which I enjoy, all the gear is top-notch and distributed sound is simply better than a PA in one corner - which makes sense given that Troy is a serious music buff and among the things that separate him from most bar and restaurant owners (and people), he identifies with the value and importance of music and sound. But tonight, for reasons none of us can figure out - not I, not Troy, and not Jeremiah the bartender who doubles as sound guy and has been priceless in all my gigs at King Street - it seems everything is wired the same as it ever was, but it just isn't working the same way tonight. With the music only playing through the main PA, it's too loud for those close to it, too soft for those on the far end, and there's no sound outside. If we abandon the DJ station and just play music from a laptop in the venue's office, we can enjoy the benefits of fully distributed sound but will be limited to only playing through one laptop. Tonight, I'm working with two laptops and a case of 200 CDs. We're faced with a choice between distributed sound with far less music options and flexibility, and the PA-only system which offers three times the music options and flexibility but which will drown out half the people's conversation while the other half won't hear much of anything. Troy decides and we all agree, distributed sound for this occasion is the priority. So while I played a longer song at the DJ station (Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" clocks in at 6:12), Jeremiah migrated one of the laptops to the closet office, I jumped over and got the next song going in time, created an iTunes playlist of late 70s dance/disco/funk which would get 'em through the night while playing the last four songs on the list above, then ran the new playlist on shuffle with a 3-second crossfade and let it ride.

Tonight's gig was not ideal, but thanks to some good people (Troy, Jeremiah) and our collective ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome, hopefully we were able to provide a seamless soundtrack of music that brought Bishop Blanchet's Class of '80 back to the tunes they knew and loved in high school.

To the guy I posted tonight's playlist for, email me for tips on the dance party side of things. sodapopseattle@gmail.com