The D below middle C broke first - the action has these cloth ribbons connectors that let the lower part act as a counter-weight for the upper hammer part.  With the strips intact, the hammer rebounds sharply off the strings; with them broken, the hammer goes clunk! against the strings and sticks.  After 50? 60? years, not sure how old this piano is, the cloth is brittle and breaks pretty easily.  So I was poking around underneath the D key and broke the E-flat next to it.  This has happened before - I’ve fixed 5 or 6 keys broken like this before, I just couldn’t remember how I had done it.  Rose replaced a few of them, and I seem to remember actually sewing the cloth strips together on a couple of them, but I don’t see how I ever got my big hands in there to do that.  Then I saw a bit of string tied on one of the keys - aha!  Once I saw how I fixed that one, these two were a piece of cake.  Just took two pieces of shoestring, some clever close-quarters knot-tying, a bit of tacky glue to hold the knots in place, and voila!  The acoustic’s back in business. 

Only problem with Afton is, they expect you to make advance ticket sales, which didn’t happen this time (a few who did buy tickets, though, didn’t make it in the end).  So I’ve told Afton I won’t do any more downtown Houston club gigs.  Although Afton puts on an “all-ages” show with a wide variety of music, I think a lot of people I know have looked at the Warehouse Live website calendar populated mostly with heavy metal, grunge, screamers, rap and hip-hop, and just don’t feel comfortable with that kind of venue.  The other downtown Houston clubs tend to have the same type of lineups.  Most of my acquaintances are suburban or country folk, and a lot of them consider downtown a scary place at night.  I didn’t feel that comfortable playing there at first, either, but it’s turned out better than I expected, truthfully.  Musicians who can stay away from the drugs and excessive drinking turn out to be a pretty good group of people that are fun to hang out with.  Still, though, I just can’t guarantee the ticket sales Afton wants downtown, so no more downtown gigs.  Until I get big enough to play the House of Blues, anyway.

See ya next time - hopefully in some coffee shop or wine bar in the far north Houston suburbs, where I can actually get people to come out to.

Meanwhile, I’ve started sanding the bottom to remove the old anti-fouling paint, was making good progress but have blown out 2 sanders - one ancient Sears one that’s survived two previous bottom jobs finally blew its bearings, and a fairly recent Black and Decker, still works, but the pad just disintegrated.  Still, though, I got about 2/3 of the bottom sanded before getting sick Sunday - either breathed a bit too much copper dust from the paint or just had a mild flu.  A few small dings and blisters to repair on the bottom, but that should go pretty quickly, then it will be 4 coats of epoxy and 3 to 4 of bottom paint.  Still have the interior wood in the garage, partially sanded, and still have to tear out rotted wood around the companionway step/icebox.  Also took parts of the old bent mast and made two crutches to hold the mast for travel.

We took the bowsprit and mast back off when we returned the boat to storage, though.  Just didn’t like them sticking out that far in a pretty tight storage yard - that’s how the previous owner got the original mast bent, the wires kinked, and the bowsprit gone.

After nearly a month without bringing the boat home from storage, working on the woodwork in the garage and the mast in the back yard instead, got it backed in the driveway last Saturday, got the wood re-installed around the companionway, then had rain all day Sunday - not complaining, we needed it!  So we just left it in the drive for a week, which means we’ll probably be getting a letter from the homeowners shortly, but I did get some things done this weekend - plugged all the screw-holes in what I’d installed the week before, which nearly drove me crazy - they kept breaking off below the surface when I tried to chisel them off, put some in 4-5 times - but I finally got them all done and got a couple of coats of varnish over the top of them.  I installed a traveller across the stern above the tiller notch in the cockpit, didn’t turn out as neat as I’d hoped - should have bent the track to shape first instead of depending on bending it into place.  Then I got the seat drains in the cockpit working - the bronze elbows below deck had corroded away, and someone had put a rubber tape with a butyl rubber adhesive over the holes on deck.  That took an hour scrubbing with Interlux 216 solvent to get that stuff off.  I put in bigger plastic scuppers but still had to neck them down to the 1” existing pipe, replaced all the plastic tubing clamps below deck with 1 stainless steel and one plastic at each connection.  All-in-all, the scuppers turned into quite a job, so I didn’t get to other things I’d hoped to, like starting on the electrical system.

The weeks before that, I’ve painted the mast and got most of the hardware on it, except the masthead is different and I still have to figure out how to attach the forestay and backstay - the existing tangs don’t fit.  I considered installing the original Blackwatch masthead by cutting a sleeve from the old mast to fit inside the new, slightly bigger mast, but it really looked jury-rigged.  Besides, the new masthead is set up for internal halyards, and I’ve already set the exit sheaves into the bottom of the mast.

In the meantime, Deb’s got the interior cushions finished and started polishing the hull.  A real disappointment with the gelcoat I sprayed over the repairs, though - I had the color matched perfectly, but after sitting in the sun a couple of weeks, the yellow faded out and the repairs took on a pinkish hue against the ivory hull - roughly back to where I was before I did the last color-matching.  I told Deb to just go ahead and polish over them anyway - who knows what color they’ll be in another month!  Maybe we’ll sail the boat a couple of years, then re-gelcoat the whole topsides if it’s looking bad - not that much to it.  Right now, we just-want-to-get-sailing!

I’d give the show overall an “OK,” mainly because the acoustics and sound setup in the Studio Room aren’t that great - set up more for pure volume for the rock bands than for clarity in the music.  People said it sounded good right in front of the control booth, otherwise the room’s acoustics pretty much muddy the sound up.  Still, I enjoyed playing and people seemed to enjoy all the songs, even the younger crowd there for the later bands,  I played second; the first band was a sibling-and-others group called Richard Kelly & Chased Faces that I would have really enjoyed with better acoustics, especially their originals.  The band after me, I didn’t care for, didn’t bother getting their name - a grunge-rock screamer group that got the 13-to-16-year olds on their feet moshing, but basically chased all the adults out of the room to head either home or to the bar across the street to finish out the evening.  So sadly, I don’t know what the remaining bands for the evening sounded like.

THANKS AGAIN to the small crowd from work who made it out, and especially to my groupie Deb and my roadie Jeff, and to Amy and Chris from the Afton group for putting on the show.  It was fun, we’ll do it again, maybe not the same place (it’s geared toward a younger crowd), but someplace.  For the next two months or so, though, I’ve got a sailboat restoration project to finish up, ready to get back on the water, or what’s left of it in our lakes down here.  I’ll still try and keep practiced up for an occasional open mic or whatever gig pops up.  THANKS.

Details:  OK, so it’s not “my” show; I’ll be one of seven acts performing from 6:30 to around 11:30.  My part will be 20-30 minutes, and the exact time slot won’t be set until closer to the date (I’ve asked for earlier rather than later).  This will be one of my “secular” sets (which doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t hear the words “Lord,” “God,” or “Jesus,” just that it won’t be what I’d consider praise and worship or “church” music).  Expect 2 or 3 songs I’ve got posted here on the site, on ReverbNation, and on Bandizmo and 2 or 3 you’ve never heard (unless you live with me or have been hiding in my closet).  Here’s the rub:  even though it is at a venue that serves alcohol, Afton likes to put on “all-ages” shows, which this will be.  So instead of a free show relying on big alcohol sales, they sell TICKETS to the show.  $10* - not bad for a 5-hour show with up to 7 different bands and musicians.  *Update - EARLY ticket sales discounts are EXPIRED - sorry!

So here’s what I need from you:  BUY MY TICKETS!  Here’s the link:  www.aftonshows.com/BrentClifton.  Or I do have the option of handing you a physical ticket for $10 cash.  It’s IMPORTANT that you buy tickets beforehand because (a) you’re more likely to show up, (b) I get PAID for the show based on my pre-sold tickets, (c) I’m more likely to be invited to play more shows based on ticket sales and (d) it’ll cost you 2 bucks more at the door.  Use the 2 bucks toward a drink instead.  PLEASE help make this a success and come on out!

Here’s the LINKS:
MY Afton ticket site; (BE SURE to buy your ticket HERE so I get the credit)
  All Afton shows;
  Afton info for artists;
Warehouse Live,
STUDIO ROOM, 6:30 PM Sunday, September 25th.
813 St. Emanuel Street
(South of Minute Maid Park across Hwy 59 )
Houston, TX 77003
~All Ages~ & Bar w/ID

Note:
I’ve been on Facebook for awhile, will try to get the “Band Profile” page working again in the next week (Facebook cancelled it for awhile, then it came back all screwed up, with an incomprehensible setup page).  Some of Afton’s music links are tied to MySpace, which I’ve never bothered getting on, so I’ll be trying to set up a “MyBand” page there too.  Look for it.

I got the gel-coat matched very well finally, and re-sprayed all the repaired spots. The spray I got from my airbrush is a bit rough, because I hated to thin the stuff too much, but finally did thin it out a lot anyway so the last 2-3 spots I sprayed came out a lot smoother.  Most of the rest needed some sanding; got some of them wet-sanded, polished out and blended in pretty well, still have some left to go.

I was hoping to start on the mast this afternoon, have to cut it to length, drill holes, and plan on painting it white.  But as I was starting to set up, it started thundering!  Yay!  First time I’ve heard that in months! Lord, we need the rain! - but I don’t need to be working with an aluminum mast with potential lightning around.  Maybe next week.