January -- We Start The Year Out Fine

Because we work so little -- by comparison -- in December, January, and February, I've decided to do one blog entry for the entire month of January 2010. But I'm going to cheat just a little bit.

There are several reasons why The Tim and Bob Show haven't done a New Years Eve gig. For one thing, we like to stay indoors and leave the highways to the drunks. For another, some of us find it hard to stay awake after 10 at night, never mind upright and coherent. Finally, nobody ever offered us one until this New Years Eve just past -- and since it was Vicki and Mara who offered us the gig, it was kind of hard to say no. It was a private party and we're not going into a lot of names, but we all had a good time, and had repaired back to Steve and Kathy's in plenty of time to bring the new year in with wine, snacks, and Singin' in the Rain.

The next morning we were off to perform at Patty Lou's restaurant for the fourth consecutive New Years Day brunch. It had been a good luck charm for us the last three years, and we were hoping for more. There was a change this year, as Patty has moved her wonderful restaurant to the historic Olmos Pharmacy [renamed "Bharmacy" since they offer adult beverages]. So we set up at Patty Lou's at the Bharmacy, and the joint was jumping. There were surprisingly few glitches from the evening before, and we even discovered that in coping with the interesting acoustics at the venue, we could enhance our sound. We decided to use only our monitors for amplification, and they worked very well. In addition to making quite a few new friends in Patty's new neighborhood, we were happy to see Tim and Bob Nationals Mary, Marcie, John, Sandy, Milton [and his mom], Rodney, Chris, Elizabeth, Emma, Florence, Chris, Lindsay, George, Alice, Mara, Linda, Vicki, John, Rich, and Steven O. Good music, good food, good company. Good karma? We hope so.

Our next performance was a full two weeks later. Once again it was the slimmed-down Tim and Bob Show that played Orderup at the Colonnade. They prefer fewer voices there, so Steve and I worked alone. It was fun, though, although we missed Mary Lou and Kathy tremendously. We debuted a couple of songs -- America's "Sister Golden Hair" and The Beatles "The Word." We also played a lot of our originals on the night. Tim and Bob Nationals Ellen, Meara, Lawrence, Margaret, Karen, Crystal, Casey, Jason, Meghan, Paul, Melissa, Phoenix, and Fiona showed up and brightened our night.

With Steve and Kathy busy with Fein Tuned and Kathy involved in her stage production, the band briefly reunited at First UU Church on January 24, and performed as part of their Sunday service. We opened proceedings with "Let's Work Together" -- the first time most of the church had seen Kathy play bass -- and finished the day with "Ob-la-di Ob-la-da" to a standing, clapping, swaying congregation. In between we performed our a cappella rendition of Johnny Mercer's classic "Dream." It was good to sing together and to do so before so many of our friends.

We finished up the month with an impromptu "house concert" for a friend of ours who is recovering from surgery. After a delicious dinner prepared by Tim and Bob National and all-around-good-gal Stanna, we played a 75 minute set filled with four-parters for several of our friends. The person we "aimed it at" enjoyed it immensely, and so did we. There's nothing like the four-part sound of The Tim and Bob Show if I do say so myself.

January was a long month, and we didn't get an opportunity to work together as a full band nearly often enough to please me. Our "outdoor season" begins in early March when we return to Beto's, and we'll have our usual contingent of gigs at venues who enjoy our full sound. Until then, watch for Steve and me at Orderup, and check out this website [link] to find out when Steve and Kathy are performing as Fein Tuned. And, if you stand on your tip-toes you'll see that February [or as we like to call it in South Texas -- Springtime] is almost here.