Our "First" Gig

My brother and I have been playing around Austin for several years now. We've played for most of the jerk leaders in town, who are far more numerous than the public suspects, keeping their sidemen in a permanent state of fear and servitude. These guys—each one of them—grow wealthy while their musicians live in poverty. Want me to name names? Duck Soup's Sam Irwin. Mr.Fabulous' Dino Lee (none of which is his name). There's two. I've beginning to feel my bile well up so I'll stop now. But you get the idea.

In December of 1999 I left Duck Soup, the first rock band I'd played with in my life. I came away with the idea that a band that could do Sinatra tunes and rock tunes could find a lot of work indeed. But not wanting to have a band full of proud non-readers, I set out to write a book of charts that could be played by anybody with the good sense to read music. (I found myself calling non-reading musicians last night "one legged marathon runners." No flys on one legged marathonners, though. I've just heard this explanation why it's a musical advantage NOT to read.)

Eventually, I wrote about 400 charts for 4 horns and 4 rhythm. Lots of work, aided by unemployment insurance when South by Southwest laid me off in 2002. We rehearsed on and off, over and over, for a couple years. The book eventually found its way into the hands of another bandleader, who hired me and my book for about 2 and a half years. Every once in a while we'd book a gig under the name Goose Gumbo (get it?), but basically we were just rehearsing tunes as I wrote them.

Despite all the antecedents, we've managed to emerge with a band that played its first gig for the public last night, July 3. Performing under the name The Fenno Brothers Band, we played Cabo Loco in Lago Vista, and we knocked them stone dead. They usually book rock quartets and trios up there, but we came at them with everything we had.

We made the big noise with 4 horns, 4 rhythm and 3 singers. For the record, John Vander Gheynst on trumpet, Jerome on trombone doing an excellent job of sightreading, Chris Kapral on bari and me rounding out the horns on the high chair. Rhythm was young Javier Cruz on guitar and vocals, Leroy Rodriguez on piano and organ, Gary Feist on bass and vocals, and my brother Jimmy on drums. I wanted to have a girl singer too, because without Aretha's Respect something is lost on the evening, but alas Marilyn is mourning her father's passing. I also wanted to have my son come out and do latin percussion, but he plays in a band that actually called a rehearsal on Saturday night. (Gigs, yes. Never heard of rehearsing on a Saturday night.)

Jan (spouse) came up and because so excited that she started taking notes on the performance. She announced that she would be able to hook us up with some of the Advertising/Marketing students at the business school at UT, where she teaches in the accounting department. She's thinking they could use us as a case study.

Musical highlights of the evening: Jump Jive & Wail with the vocal lead shifting around. Javier singing My Girl, then my brother doing Mustang Sally (two indispensibles for a band of this nature, about which more later), followed by Where or When like Sinatra meant it to be sung (Jimmy again), Then we Did the Hustle, had a little train wreck on With A Little Help from my Friends, redeemed ourselves with Soul Man (needs a little work, though not enough that the crowd noticed), Choo Choo C'Boogie (Jimmy again swinging), Skin Tight with the astonishing Javier, Jazzman by Carole King with me doing it as an instrumental, Fly Me to the Moon (Jimmy does Sinatra once again), and Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire ripped by Javier.

Second set was Soul Bossa Nova, Ain't Too Proud to Beg (JF), The Summer Wind (JF), What's Going On (Javier), I've Got You Under My Skin (Gary, should have been JF though), What a Wonderful World (JF doing his best Louis Armstong, but almost trainwrecking it when we got to the end of the first chorus. No harm no foul.), Banana Split for my Baby (Gary redeeming himself), and Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody (JF, need to work on that ending) rounded out the set.

Then the third set was Pick Up the Pieces, Smooth (Javier kicking ass!), Just in Time (JF), followed by Rainy Night in Georgia (JF kicking ass!).

I post these from memory, The third set was about 20 minutes long so we could get out of there around 12:30.

The bar manager was effusive in his praise, the crowd was sad to see us go, and we've already booked another gig there the end of the month.

I experimented by taking the set list and comparing it to the tune list for the band, and I've decided we could do 4-5 gigs this length without repeating a single tune. Very nice.

Now the star of the evening award goes to Javier Cruz, my son's old friend from school band, who is only eighteen but has an incredible sense of musical maturity, This kid rose to the occasion, taking on a bunch of tunes in three afternoon rehearsals and hours of practice time. His proud parents were at the gig, and they have lots of reason to be proud of Javier. It's my hope that his enthusiasm will infect us all!