We rolled into Indy around 1 a.m. with me driving, and opted to hole up at a Motel 6 until
checkout when the Noodle would be providing a band house. We all had had experiences with
"band houses" before, so with the low-dough penalty already in place, there were definite
trepidations swirling about the potential conditions of this house--it could be anything from a
roach motel to a mansion--we had no idea. After missing the turn off to the club because of a
non-existent sign, we actually accidentally found the Noodle while trying to get back to the turn
off. It was about two blocks from the freeway exit, standing there plain as day--a building first
erected in 1850, and established as a blues club about six years ago. With copyright and
trademark approvals personally from Dan Ackroyd, the Slippery Noodle had Blues Brothers
paraphernalia and likenesses sticking out all over the place, even featuring statues of Jake and
Elwood Blues out front. Pretty hilarious.
The venue sported several rooms and two performance areas. We loaded into the main room in
the back which had a long four-foot high stage that was only about eight feet wide. A balcony
overlooked the stage less than ten feet away, and the stage monitors were mounted there, which
had me wondering about hearing problems from the stage. This proved to be true later... As usual,
it seems on this trip, we wouldn't be doing a full sound check, so it was "on the fly," which was an
additional aggravation. Nonetheless, the club manager was all over getting us something to eat
and making sure all the details were covered. And he gave us the band house key and a map to it.
We had to wait for the house to be readied for us, which we took as a good sign or a bad sign. Were they shoveling masses of beer cans into plastic bags, or hosing the roaches out of the showers, or sweeping cigarette butts off the kitchen table, or what? There was about an hour to wait, and I couldn't sit still inside with a beamingly beautiful day going on outside. With digi-cam firmly in hand, I set out for mid-town Indianapolis....
The house was about two miles from the club, on a main drag, but from the outside looked quite
nice. Upon entry, we realized it was very nice, actually--very homey and clean, with various
handwritten notes all around informing all residents of the rules of housekeeping. There were four
bedrooms and two baths, and a full basement housing a pool table and a life-sized cardboard
statue of Bart Simpson. Former visitors had piled their magazines on a table in the living room,
and a bulletin board over a desk was plastered full of business cards and fliers--bass players,
drummers, guitarists, sound techs--just in case you'd just happen to need one of those...
I took a nap for about an hour, after cruising through the next-door IGA store for water, grapes and Smart Food popcorn (my favorite road food--only three ingredients). We headed back to the Noodle to eat again and do a quick sound check. I could tell from the check I was going to have problems hearing Kenny's bass, although the vocals were coming through fine. It was a weird sound situation in there because of the immediate balcony kind and the high stage, blocking the possibility of using stage-side mains. Their solution was to hang several smaller speakers on the ceiling under the balcony, in the corners in front of the balcony, and then upstairs in front of the balcony. This created a very uneven sound in the room, which could be somewhat remedied by a full audience, but we wondered about attendance on a Monday. And, there was no cover, which causes it's own special effect on a casual audience. Again, as with almost every show, there was no advance publicity. Curtis Salgado was the act for Tuesday, and he got a full page writeup in the Indianapolis weekly. So we wondered how many folks would simply save up to see him--especially because of Curtis' John Belushi connection...
Attendance was light, although the bottom floor did fill up for a little while halfway through the
night. Meanwhile, I was struggling to hear Kenny. What ended up happening was because I had
no drum monitor beside me, I was having to get most of the bass through the distant suspended
monitors, but by the time I heard the notes, there was a time delay, further mushed up because
Kenny's onstage sound was somewhere before that. I could not lock on to what he was doing, and
so felt isolated and off kilter the whole gig. The audience seemed to have a good time, though,
but I cringed a little bit when somebody pointed out the presence of John Cougar's guitar player in
the room. Oh well...I did the best I could with what I had to work with...
I did meet one couple on a break from North Carolina, and the husband was a pro drummer. His
wife bought three CDS from me, and they were highly complimentary.
News of the Queens American Airlines crash had been on all day, and at the beginning of the third
set, a woman who claimed to be a backup singer for Allison Krauss & Union Station, was cajoled
by her enthusiastic cohorts to get up and sing "America." She actually did a great job, and it
seemed a nicely fitting mood piece, although I'm leery of such maudlin patriotism myself--I just
know too much about American oil agendas and the people behind them... After the set, admirers
took some photos of the band, so I joined in with my digi-cam...
We concluded that the gig was more than likely a kind of audition, where if we passed, we'd be asked back for acceptable dough next time. The size of the place, and the traffic it looks like it gets on good nights would seem to put it in the higher-money category, from what I could see anyway. With Terry's new no-compromise policy, however, it would doubtful we'd be returning.
As we loaded out, Kenny opted to stay back as he had some "action" in the works with a couple of local ladies, and for us not to expect him at the band house till tomorrow....