David Chen & the Muddy Basin Ramblers

Dream Community Show

As always, I had fun playing, and our set culminated with one of the band's favorite numbers, Nagasaki, with Tim, Will, and Sandy bustin' moves downstage with the crowd. It was a great having Wayne there to help out with our live sound -- it took a lot of stress off the band as far as set-up was concerned, since we were using two large condenser mics for our sound, which can be tricky, especially in larger outdoor spaces. But I think we pulled it off all right -- after the soundcheck earlier in the afternoon, one of the soundcrew told Wayne, "This is how all bands should do it!" With Wayne, it was nice to have a "third" ear as well, a different/critical perspective to keep us honest.

According to the organizers, a good number of people there had never heard of us and were asking a lot of questions. People also asked if we had a CD out -- we're working on that one (see the post below).

Also, saw plenty of familiar faces, lots of Taipei friends, and also Ian from Hsinchu, and another very nice guy also from Hsinchu who saw us at Janis R's Earth Day jam last year. The nice guy (sorry I forgot your name) apologized to me because at the Earth Day show, he went up to my mom (who was visiting Taiwan and watching me perform for the first time ever) and said to her in a drunken glee, "your son's band FUCKIN rocks!", or something to that effect. He seemed a bit sheepish recounting the story to me on Saturday. So, to my Hsinchu friend -- it's all right, dude. It's pretty hard to rile up my mom -- I think she had a fun time at that show. (And thanks for the compliment!)

It was a great day with performances from the artists-in-residence -- three multi-talented circus performers who were just amazing and Gary the samba teacher from San Franscisco, and his students.

The Anglers and the Soundclashes both put on great shows -- the Anglers laid down nice, soothing reggae grooves and the Soundclashes were just the right kind of frantic. Fireflower played before us, and I'm sorry to say that we missed a lot of their set because we were getting ready, but later in the evening, I took part in a great jam with Fireflower's lead singer/guitarist Douglas, Zoe, a banjo player named Charlie, Wesley from the S-clashes and Conor, who was as ebullient as ever. I had completely lost track of time by then.

Thanks to Dory, Yingqi (Inchi), Gordon Tsai and the Dream Community for a nice party.