Making Music in San Francisco

A city of poverty, riches, art and history, San Francisco is a quirky, expressive - and quite friendly character.

Our experience staying at HI San Francisco was brilliant. We could park right in front, load our things taking as long as we needed. Our room was clean and had everything we needed for less than a night in the creepy old hotel we stayed at the night before in Mill Valley. Parking for 24 hours was a steal at $25 at a nearby garage designated by the Hostel. This was, we had to remember, downtown San Francisco! AND best of all, our gig venue, 50 Mason Social House was a 5 minute walk down the street. As soon as we showered and prettied ourselves, we headed over.

Two solid local acts warmed up the stage for us: a young woman, Yea Ming, with a smoky alto voice played acoustic indie dreamy ballads accompanied by band mate Steven on slide guitar.

Starry-Eyed Cadets followed with slightly more upbeat indie pop. I liked the songs that had energy and fun dance-able grooves, but I'm still getting used to the concept of smooth, childlike (bland to my ear) vocals that some groups favour. Maybe the problem was the sound system that had the singer's already gentle tones quite drowned out by the drums and guitars. Clem's instructions to me were, "If you're going to write more about indie music, you need to listen to indie music." Yes, maestro, better get to it!

Our set went fairly well despite less practice than I'd hoped. I like to work the physical memory of who does what into my fingers and had a bit of the jitters but my musical colleague put me at ease: "We'll be fine. Relax!" Sige, sige ("okay, okay"), if you're not worried I won't be either.

A highlight was when the guitar player from the house band joined us for a brisk 3/4 beat on drums for the Canto de Maria Clara. Our set consisted mostly of Dragonfly Collector album project originals: There is No Remaining in Place and title track The World is Your Oyster, plus The Camerawalls' classics including My Life's Arithmetic Means and Birthday Wishes.

Photo by Grace Cometa James

A couple of the evening's organizers joined us on stage for a finale of The Cure's Just Like Heaven and The Smith's There is a Light that Never Goes Out. 

Post-show dinner was at a Thai place called Osha. 

Post-dinner work consisted of working out harmonies for another song: yet another hat for me in this project besides string section and communications manager is backing practice vocals. The music never quits around here! And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Next...Monterey and Henry Miller with a fellow Manitoban!