If your an avid Jester of the Bull St. Palace reader, you'll remember my debut performance at the Texas. A buddy and I found a shared love of music and started jamming together. Let's say that since then our rise to stardom has begun. After our initial Texas gig, it was another 2.5-3 months before we had another. At our second gig we dedicated the entire set to American country and folk music. Cash. Rogers. Spirituals. Nickel Creek. Denver. And yes, we even did a cover of "Colors of the Wind" from Pochahontas (which I will have you know has been a consistent crowd pleaser, so don't judge).
So, I invited a few friends to come listen to our performance. As is often the case, one friend invites their friend. We had a nice turnout and a lot of fun. It turns out that someone in the crowd knew the host of a radio show at one local station. This certain host has a weekly show where they have live musicians on each week. Long story short, Saturday night found me sitting in a studio with guitar in hand chatting in Chinese to who knows how many people. "What does this song mean?", the host asked me about a cover of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". I tried to give a little history lesson about black spirituals and songs of hope in the midst of the oppression of slavery. Not sure if I got my point across. "So. it's about dying?", she said.
Soon, we had callers asking for Green Day covers and even Amazing Grace. Sadly, Jeremy and I are just in this for fun and aren't actually that good. We were sad to disappoint that we couldn't whip songs out on the fly. However, the hosts did try to set me up, on-air, with one of the other guests on the show. A little bit awkward. It might have otherwise been a good opportunity save for one big strike against me. A common requirement women look for in a man here is that he have a house AND a car. They announced that I had neither, so any suitable matches need not want a man with a house or a car. Needless to say, no ladies called in asking me for a date.