Day Off in San Diego

We're staying at the W Hotel in downtown San Diego today. W's are nice, upscale, kinda foofy hotels. Sorta like Monaco's and other Kimpton properties. I've got a pretty cool room. Nice seating area in the windowsill, complete with a lap desk:

A wall-mounted wine rack:

And even a blackboard, which of course the first thing I drew upon was a big ol' peepee. (Why is it that men always act like they're 12 years old?) Post-peepee, it was a bit more acceptable looking:

Took an awesome run down by the waterfront. Ran a couple of miles, then walked several more. Lots of great sites to see along the way.

On the way back to the hotel, I wandered a little bit around the downtown area. Accidentally stumbled across the House of Blues, where the billboard informed me that the Arc Angels were playing tonight. A couple of minutes later, after speaking with the club's stage manager Dave, I was hooked up for the show.

Back to the hotel where I worked another couple of hours, then I headed out to the Gaslight District, where I had dinner at the Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina. I had an appetizer, the Tequila Lime Shrimp starter, along with an order of guacamole and chips. The best part of the meal was the sauce that came with the shrimp – it was made with butter, olive oil, garlic, cilantro, red pepper, lime juice and tequila. It was served with garlic bread for sopping up the juices. Yummy!

Won't soon forget this place:

Something funny about the crew on this tour - seems like none of them really likes music, they're just out here working for a living. Me, I got into this business because of my deep-seated, lifelong obsession with music. Nearly everything in my life revolves around music in one way or another and it's the one thing I could never give up. For the life of me, I can't understand or relate to people who aren't equally obsessed.

I asked a bunch of folks if they'd like to go see the Arc Angels and – surprise, surprise – no one had ever heard of them. Uh, let's see, Doyle Bramhall has played in Eric Clapton's touring band for how many years now? And he plays in Roger Water's touring band, too? Yep!

And how 'bout Charlie Sexton? The guy's been a guitar legend since he was a 16-year-old kid out of Austin who had a record deal with MCA Records. He plays in Bob Dylan's band, for chrissakes!

But wait, there's more – the Arc Angels rhythm section is Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton, the same guys who played with Stevie Ray Vaughn! How people can be unaware of this (or worse, uninterested) is completely beyond me.

The other day, during some conversation, a fellow crew person said to me, "You're really into music, aren't you, Bob?" Well, duh…

So anyway, I went alone to the Arc Angels.

The folks who hooked me up were kind enough to have the club stuff a bunch of free drink tickets in the ticket envelope I picked up at the box office. Nice, that guarantees me a good time and a sore head tomorrow, hahaha.

I will state for the record right here and right now, that with the possible, possible exception of Jeff Beck, I have never seen a finer guitar player than Doyle Bramhall II. And trust me, I've seen a LOT of guitar players.

Sorry about the quality of the following shots – they were all taken on my iPhone because I didn't feel like carrying my digital camera with me tonight.








Now get off your ass and order that first Arc Angels record from 1992. You can buy it for $7.97 from Amazon.com via this link right HERE.