Chi McClean

When I woke up on the 4th of August, I was pretty psyched. I had a lot to do! After taking my friend Kate out to breakfast as a “thank you” for inviting me to crash her pad, I made my way back over to Jenni Alpert’s place to try my hand at a little co-writing. We got it started off of a riff that I had developed after coming back from Nashville when I was in my open tuning phase. Actually, it ended up being a great start to a pretty cool tune. I think we ended up rocking some pretty good music (Jenni taking the song/idea a step further with her insane piano playing and composition skills). We wrapped up before we could finish some lyrics as she had to get to a show her boyfriend was playing at the Santa Barbara Bowl with Stevie Nicks (Woah! Are you kidding me?!). Plus, I had to get going to my show up in Grover Beach… orrrr, so I thought. Actually, just as I was getting set to go, I got a call and an e-mail from the promoter that the show had been cancelled. (Grrr…)

This place rocks! So happy I found it on my way back from LA...

What to do? Well, I started to hitting the phones and the internet trying to find some options. Jenni found what seemed to be a cool songwriter contest up in Ventura at Zoey’s Entertainment Loft (really, really cool venue) and I got in touch with my friends up at Live Culture Lounge in Santa Barbara. In any case, it seemed like I could piece something together. In the end, I hauled tail up to Ventura, got the last remaining spot in the the Zoey’s songwriter contest (by cancellation, no less) and actually won! Yep… not bad, eh? I played a new tune called “Hole In My Heart” followed by “I Know”. The judges (three industry folks from LA and Ventura) ate it up and and I got some great feedback. Actually, I had no idea it was going to be like American Idol, so when I finished my songs and suddenly was receiving commentary from the judging panel, I was a little freaked… In the end, none of them had anything to say other than “it’s great… there’s nothing I can say…”. That’s good, right???

After the following nine performers/contestants played, the judges held a conference and chose the top three songwriters. They called me up on stage along with two other performers/songwriters and I won! Plus, I won $50.00 and an automatic entry into the finals in November to compete for $1,000 grand prize and recording time at a reputable Ventura studio.

In any case, after chatting with a few folks, I cruised up to Live Culture Lounge in Santa Barbara to jam out at Live Culture Lounge, where I played earlier in the week. (Thanks, Darin and Sierra for hosting me so last minute!) Darin, one of the owners of the venue, sat in on cajon and CRUSHED IT. It was SO much fun… plus, his buddy, Dylan, sat in on piano for a few tunes and we had a really great time. Plus, jamming on the the 11′-high stage is always a ton of fun.

Afterwards, I headed back to Darin’s pad, we baked some frozen pizzas, watched some ridiculous horror/thriller movie called “Species” and finally crashed out at around 4:00am. (Sound familiar?!) As I was falling asleep in a nice, comfy bed, I thought that the night turned out pretty darned well considering I started off with a cancelled gig and no alternatives earlier in the night adding some meat to the line, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. Indeed…