Looks like the devil Insomnia has got me tonight, so I might as well write about the gig on Saturday.

It was our friend Rob's 50th birthday, and we were asked to play the party about 6 months ago. It was held at the Suffolk Boat Club, right on the water out in Patchogue. Even though the weather was kinda nasty in the morning, we caught a break and the skies cleared for most of the afternoon.

Our first set was pretty subdued - there were a lot of older people (besides us!) there, and we kept the volume down so as to not scare everybody away. We let loose a little in the second set (and featured our frined Nancy Goetz on vocals for half the set, and by the third we threw away the set list, cranked it up and took requests from the crowd.

Rob was happy that we did the party, and his guests had a lot of great things to say about the band. We had a really good time playing for a bunch of friends and helping Rob turn 50 while rocking the night away.

Back to work this week - we have two rehearsals to get that new set of tunes ready for O'Reilly's.

Rehearsal last night mainly consisted of playing a lot of the older songs on our list - we're playing a private party on Saturday, and we've been told there'll be a lot of older people there, so we want to concentrate on more of the 60s and 70s stuff...

And we had our friend Nancy Goetz over - she's a friend of the birthday boy, so we're going to do about a half-set's worth of stuff with her. As always, she sounded really good. This party should be a lot of fun.

I finally got my ass to work on an update of the Diesel promo kit. New pic, bio, artist list, song list and list of venues we've played. All that's left to do is burn and label the CDs.

Speaking of venues - if any of you know of a club you think we should be playing, leave the name in comments. We'll be hitting new clubs this week, so any suggestions would be quite helpful. Thanks!

The band was talking over the past few days and we've decided to try and add another full set of new material before we do the next show at O'Reilly's. So last night we added another six tunes....

Blitzkreig Bop - Ramones
Surrender - Cheap Trick
My Sharona - The Knack
All the Small Things - Blink 182
Hang Fire - Rolling Stones
London Calling - The Clash

And we've got another 6 tunes on the list for next week's rehearsal - more about those next week. It's all part of our effort to keep from boring y'all.

This weekend was an odd one, in terms of the gigs we played and the circumstances of each one.

On Friday, I sat in with KC at Fadeley's Pub out in Patchogue - TD sits in with KC quite often, and when KC extended the invite to me I figured I'd give it a go. KC plays a lot of older American R&B, country and blues - no British stuff allowed. I ended up playing mostly slide with him on a few tunes by Hank Williams and some other old R&B stuff. It kinda moved me out of my comfort zone a bit, but overall it was pretty enjoyable. If you get a chance to see KC, check him out. He's a very entertaining dude.

On Saturday we played our usual monthly gig at O'Reilly's, and it was the first month in nearly half a year that we didn't have a huge crowd. We didn't play to an empty room by any means, but the club wasn't as completely mobbed as it has been for our gigs dating back to last winter. Still, a lot of fun.

Yesterday we played a benefit for our friends Emil and Pam at the Outfield Pub, right around the corner from my house. While we were happy to do the gig, this one was just pretty weird.

First off, we played outside - and it was pretty cold throughout the afternoon thanks to those sea breezes. We spent the better part of the afternoon standing outside and freezing waiting to go on. We were originally supposed to open the show, but Soulstice decided at the last minute that they wanted to play earlier. We, being nice guys, let them go first and as a result hung out in the cold all day.

Stevie wasn't available to play yesterday - he had family commitments, so we decided to play the show with our friend Tommy Mizell. As a result, we went with more of a classic rock set than what we usually do. It was probably the smart way to go considering that it was an older crowd at the gig, but it was much different than your usual Diesel set list.

And all of the stage electricity was run out to us from one plug inside the bar. As a result, we ended up blowing the fuse 3 times during what turned out to be a drastically shortened show. One guy said that people were kicking the plug out of the wall and that was making the power go down, so I went inside with a roll of duct tape and taped the plug into the wall. Having sorted out that problem, I went outside and was told that the club owner was getting complaints from the neighborhood about the noise levels and that we were done. Fair enough.

But in the mean time, they started giving away the raffle prizes and were using our sound system to announce the winners. That meant another hour-plus out in the cold, waiting until they were done announcing raffle winners and we could finally pack up the truck and get someplace warm.

Like I said, we had no problem doing a benefit for friends of ours that have long supported the band. But between the weather, power issues, raffle giveaways and noise complaints, we ended up playing parts of four songs and staying an hour later than we should have.

And on top of that, we've been trying to book a show in one of the Outfield's owner's other clubs (what used to be Pub 454) and were told that this would help us get a date there. No date was offered - in fact, the club owner said pretty much nothing to us all day.

Like I said - just weird. And today I have a cold from standing in the weather all day yesterday. I'm glad we've got next weekend off, to be honest.

I posted last week about the guitar my wife got me for my anniversary and the problems with its finish.

Well, I spent time on the guitar last week and here are the results.





I had intended to finish the entire guitar in 'TV White,' a sort of transparent white that showed the finish through the color. The sides and back of the guitar did not take the stain very well, so I sanded them down to bare wood again and left the top white.

I've taken to calling this finish a 'Cowboy Top,' after the way that old-school cowboy singers like Roy Rogers used to to the tops of their guitars in a color and leave the back and sides natural.

I played the guitar at Saturday and Sunday's gigs, and it's a little beast.

So, Thursday was my fifth wedding anniversary, and my wife informed me that the designated gift for anniversary #5 is supposed to be made of wood. She then said that she wanted to buy me a guitar for our anniversary (another reason why I love my wife!).

I remembered a guitar that I had seen on Craig's List: a Gibson Les Paul Special Double-Cut in their legendary TV Yellow color. I found the post, got in touch with the guy, and luckily he still had it. We went out to Mastic and picked the guitar up on Friday night.



The downside: The paint job is a re-finish in what they seller thought was closer to Gibson's TV Yellow than its original finish, and he kinda hacked it. The guitar most definitely has another re-finish coming when the weather gets warmer.

But the guitar plays really well - I'm really digging these small-body Gibsons lately. And despite its dodgy paint job, this one is definitely a keeper.

This is why I love being in Nurse Diesel.

We went into rehearsal tonight (at least I did) expecting to knock down a couple of songs and spend the rest of the night working on stuff we already play and listening to stuff to add to the list in the coming weeks.

Instead, we ended up adding five songs to the list. They are:

Three Strange Days - School Of fish
Low - Cracker
Danny's Song - Me First $ The Gimme Gimmes
God Save the Queen - Sex Pistols
Hey Tonight - Creedence

All of these will be in the show the next time we hit O'Reilly's (Saturday, April 18), and we'll probably have a few more in the can by then, too.

As promised, here's more info about Sunday's gig at Ollie's Point.

This show is a memorial for an old friend named Barry Ambrosio, who ran stage and sound at the Sparks clubs in Huntington and Deer Park in the late 80s through early 90s. Barry passed away in December, and this show is an all-day event to celebrate Barry's life.

The bands on the bill are either bands that played Sparks, or (like in our case) have members who played the club. A few bands are getting back together just for this event - Fallout (the band that Barry managed) is making their first appearance together in 19 years, and Black Jack Bomber's guitarist Paul Kayen is coming in from Florida to appear at the show.

Here's how the schedule breaks out:

-- DOORS OPEN 2:30 --

SHOW SCHEDULE:

3:30 - 4:00 Earth Eatz Dog! (Rodney & Mickey James - Freedom, Snakeyed Su)

4:45 - 5:45 Nurse Diesel & Guests (Donny Waller - South Of the Border, Up All Night, Snakeyed Su)

6:00 - 6:25 Fallout (Rich Orofino, Rob Lucchese, Rick Saijun & Andy Vegoda)

6:35 - 6:55 Strike Twice (Strike Mike, Robbie Luv, Trixx)

7:05 - 7:10 Mike Pont Solo

7:15 - 8:15 Stiff Richards Feat. George Cintron

8:30 - 9:30 Rondinelli Feat. Bobby & Teddy Rondinelli And Very Special Guests

9:45 - 10:15 Black Jack Bomber with Dominic Esposito, Paul Kayen, Rob DeMartino & Jeff Cropper

10:30 - 10:50 Bad Medicine Feat. Steve Sage

11:05 - 11:25 Mr. Murray Feat. Spencer From Knockoutt

---

GUEST ARTISTS:

Chuck Bonfante (Saraya, Ethel Mertz)
Frank Vestry (Devias, Last Temptation)
John Cappadona (Beggar's Opera)
John Sherry (Snakeyed Su, Gypsy Rose)
VERY SPECIAL SURPRISE GUESTS

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Admission is 10$, with door proceeds going to the American Cancer Society in Barry's name.

Ollie's Point is located at 140 Merrick Rd., at the southernmost end of Route 110.

If you're looking for something to do on Sunday afternoon, come on out and catch this show. I guarantee there will be a few surprises.

Nothing new this week - we spent the night running down tunes for Sunday's show at Ollie's Point in Amityville.

We'll be doing mostly 80s stuff, and there will be a few guests getting up to play with us. We'll be doing stuff by Van Halen, Motley Crue, Whitesnake, The Cult, and we're also gonna do the Diesel originals. There's even a semi-reunion of one of my old bands in the works if we can pull it off.

We'll be taking the stage at 4:45, so if you're coming out get there early!

I'll post full details on the show tomorrow. I'm including a link to the official site (click 'related link' at the bottom of this post), which will also get you to the Facebook and MySpace pages for the event.