Nostalgia Night

I try to NEVER get involved with booking shows, especially when it involves throwing together a group of people that aren't already used to playing together.
Tonight I made an exception, and hopefully nobody will depend on me to create another night as magic as this again. Lightning struck once, and that's enough.



It all started with a loving husband trying to make his special wife's birthday unforgettable.
The phone calls and texts finally reached down the chain to me, and the only thing that made sense on all levels was using the Sea Monkeys plus Mike G to almost re-create the legendary Hitmen.
We had the sound and lights, Steve (drums) and me (sound) are former Hitmen, and Mike was THE singer everyone remembers.

All I had to do was brush-up on some bass parts so nobody else would have to learn new (to them) songs, and suddenly a good approximation of circa 2002 Hitmen was possible.
I loved getting to play bass with Mike and Steve again--just wish I could have remembered to suck in my gut for the photos...


Mike's an entertainer in a way that a lot of "musicians" aren't. He's got the Dean chops plus the Jerry ring-a-ding-ding:
Mike will act the fool if it means people have a great time.
That's brave and comes from the heart.

Rikk on bass is the heart and soul of the Sea Monkeys as well as our country band A Beautiful Mess, so major props to him for playing along and letting us turn back the clock. He's actually a closet Hitmen fan, so that probably made it easier.


I had to play bass on a mini-set of the very best Stone Temple Pilots tunes like Plush, Interstate, and Vasoline:
No rehearsals, so theoretically my quick onstage schooling on tempos and keys and such saved untold amounts of precious time and gasoline in the days prior.



Sea Monkey's Chris Cortez is our gifted guitarist and lead vocalist, and I already try to make him sound rather similar to original Hitmen/Televators guitarist David McCall, so again we made a good go of it without wasting too much of anyone's time having to practice. As usual he carried most of the show with skill and passion yet didn't have an ego problem with Mike coming in and getting all the attention.
A true pro.



The bonus tonight was that Mike's children finally got to see their daddy sing in a rock band, now that they are old enough to "get it".
That might be my favorite thing, but it's hard to choose with so many people getting so much joy from a single night of stupid old rock music.


Happy Birthday, AmyDawg!
Glad you had a good time but to tell the truth, we ALL did!