Gig Report

Gashouse Dave @ Jax: A kick-ass gig! The place was packed and the band was rockin' hard! You know people are having a great time when women start dancin' and grindin' with other women and then exchange phone numbers immediately afterwards. At one point, Dave cued us to end the song but Ron the bassist had a big smile on his face and shook his head as if to say, "No way are we endin' this thing with that kind of eye candy happenin'!" Yes, men are pigs, but we like to have a good time too! The Gasman had to try two or three times to get us to stop the song! We finally did. Sorry Dave, but it might happen again.
~Lesson learned on this gig: Always have your camera with you!

Armen Chakmakian @ Holiday Beats On Brand Blvd. event: I felt I played my ass off and did very well. This was the first time and will mostly likely be the last time I will ever play to playback tracks for one of my own gigs. No, I didn't have an Ashlee Simpson episode like her SNL disaster. I just find it extremely unstimulating to play music without other musicians in the group. It was a karaoke version of Armen Chakmakian. Budget aside, I was thinking of putting together a trio for this event, but after finding out more details about this gig, I didn't want to subject my musicians to what I felt might be a potentially humiliating experience because I respect them too much. I felt this event was poorly advertised by the City of Glendale, the location was horrible and no one would show up (I love Milano's Restaurant, but there's zero foot traffic there on Sunday and there was mass construction on the street and a crappy parking situation that day).

So why didn't I just play solo piano? Because at most outdoor venues, the talking and noise tends to compete with the music and you can quickly turn into background music. Regarding my hunch that it was advertised poorly, I was right. I saw a poster which listed none of the artists who were performing except for the Christmas Tuba Ensemble. If I've told them once, I've told them a thousand times, it's Armen Chakmakian AND THEN Christmas Tuba Ensemble!

However, I was wrong about thinking that no one showing up and I have a photo to prove it. This is a photo of 75% of the people that showed up:

Left to Right: friend, wife, friend, and friend.

Lastly, there was nothing "Holiday" about this gig. There were seven to eight bands doing this at different locations on the same street, and they had about the same turn out that we did at our location...such a waste of money for the tax payers of Glendale.

~Lesson learned on this gig: 1) Don't expect things to go well when the goverment hires you to perform; 2) Always ask the promoter exactly how they are planning on advertising the event; 3) if it's a multi-artist event, find out if they're going to MENTION YOUR NAME IN THE FRIGIN' ADS, POSTERS/etc!! 4) Be okay with pulling out of the event even if it's at the last minute.