Palookaville, Santa Cruz, CA

November 10, 1998

by Ron Hromoko

make no mistake about it, you *know* when you're in santa cruz, the town also known as a time machine. and, now i know why they call it palooka-ville.

check out http://www.sco.com/palookaville for a replay of this show. you may not be able to appreciate all the 'cultural dynamics' of being there in the flesh, but you'll be better off.

chef norm was picked as stenographer du jour, proudly wearing his Horns, receiving cooking jokes like a chef boyardee. a large screen TV monitor remained an idle purple throughout the performance.

todd starts playing the chords for 'hide your love away', but singing

it's a few lines into the song before he realizes and corrects the chords. then, a similar, resolving is aborted after a great verse with the takamine through a fuzz box. todd levels the mood on the piano with is slower and more operatic in parts. drool speech included. is completed tonight, though not without it's falters. is complete and performed better than the previous two, which is not a compliment.

jesse joins for some lap-steel guitar accompaniment to the uke for

giving it an arthur lyman hawaiian sound. the bossa nova set kicks, as are a welcome stability pill for this unstable show. ends the main 'reverse set' with a broken string [same fourth string as caprice?] giving LotCM some interesting sounds at the solo. put a fork in him. the surprise encore toon and, the not-so-surprise encore toon draw your own conclusions from the webcast, but TR give us not as good performance tonight. the crowd was loud and obnoxious. the first few toons flowed well, but the piano section spiraled. jesse and todd continue to make magic effortlessly.

it's a jungle outside, people just survive
romo