Hey Lazy Summer Friends, it’s been a wild couple of months for LSH! Since the Lost Lake Lounge show, we’ve played three undercover shows at So Many Roads Brewery in Denver. I say ‘Undercover’ because these days, when you play actual music venues vs. restaurants, the venue you book doesn’t want you to exhaust your fans, which could result in a smaller head count. The more fans you bring = more bar sales = more money = more performance opportunities. The problem is that if you don’t play live, you won’t get better playing live… The way we’ve been countering this dilemma and getting more performance practice is by doing some gigs under different band names. My favorite undercover name so far, is Popsicle.
Anyway, Happy Cinco De Mayo! We played a banging show at Moe’s BBQ in Englewood, Colorado. We’ve been on a great trail of homing in on different songs for each of these important shows. The idea is to build up our repertoire which gives us a larger song book and excites you (our diehard fans) when you come out… You get to see different songs at every show. If we play the same set every show, we’ll start losing your interest while also losing our edge of improving on our musicality.
Now for the setlist:
- Bananas and Blow: This makes two shows in a row where we start with a kick ass Ween song. It’s Cinco de Mayo and although we thought of doing some Tejano music, Bananas and Blow was a great supplement. Besides, there is a guy named Sancho in the song and our ‘Mom’ is in Ensenada.
- In my Life: Not many people play the Beatles. Let’s face it; their music is hard to cover well. However, one of our strong suits is our vocal harmony and we nail this one! After the show, a few strangers came up and thought this was really well done and it makes me want to do more Beatles tunes. Dear Prudence? Helter Skelter? It may be awhile though; we have so many songs we want to play but our goal is to bring quality of music over quantity. Let’s do what we do really well before saturating our set with songs we play that are not up to the Lazy Summer Home standard.
- Acid Squirrel: Popping into our original music, the entire band syncs well with this one. I really enjoy that we have a collection of original songs that touch upon many genres. Another thing to note for this show is we really had a hard time hearing each other and had to trust our instincts – trust each other. Seeing video after the show was a relief in that the sound was amazing for the audience, but not as much for us on stage.
- Boogie on Reggae Woman: Stevie Wonder!!! Okay so, I don’t do the keys like Stevie… like, at all. Thankfully the feel is quite true to the original due to Joe Bob’s kick ass job on the bass line. Keys are getting better every show, and this one was done true to form, but it was the rest of the band that made this special:)
- Scarlet Begonias -> Ocelot: I think this melding of ours is going to be a hit for diehards and new fans alike. The band does a true-to-the-moment version of the Dead’s Scarlet Begonias and jam that into Phish’s Ocelot. Taner did a phenomenal job swapping rhythms in both tunes (In fact, Taner was the QB of this show, his control of the tempo was driving and even keeled at the same time). And like I mentioned, we couldn’t hear each other too well, but trusted each other. We have some video of this one, hopefully we can share it soon.
- Gam Gam: After one debut, this is already a fan favorite. Jack brought out the funk on this song of his. It was this tune that I knew we could get a crowd to feel the groove. My favorite harmonies pop in the chorus: “Gam Gam don’t you shoot that gun!”
- A Real Bummer (of a Song): One of our few mellow tunes and a true bummer lyrically, but man does it sound smooth. My favorite timbre on keys other than Grand Piano has become the Rhodes electric piano. The few times we do get to slow down the beat, I really get to hold down long tones and arpeggiate the chords. I also really like focusing on Dillow’s solos during this song; Smooth and soulful.
- Loving Cup: Someday if we find some crazy Phish-type followers, it will be noted that this night was the first time Loving Cup was played at an official show of ours. A huge moment for me because I was responsible for the intro. All in all, we also played this wonderfully and more people came up to me and thought we did a great job. Harmonies, tempo, and the jam went so well.
Cinco De Mayo at Moe’s was a really good show. We each seem to be genuinely excited when we play shows together and Moe’s gave us an opportunity to perform for a ton of strangers. Our goal is to bring some great music to the forefront of the scene and continue to improve as musicians. Hoping to get a merch table started soon and lay down an EP of our originals.