Walk the Moon

I've written about the TG&Y (originally I had typed  KG&Y, apparently for a short time in the aughts I thought that was the name of it) tapes before. Back when I was just a music-obsessed kid growing up on a farm in rural Kansas, I didn't have much money and I certainly didn't have access to seeing live bands or having a cutting edge radio station, although I did have MTV before almost any of my friends. I loved music, and there was a variety store in Russell Kansas called TG&Y (it may have been called McCrory's at this point). According to Wikipedia, people used to call TG&Y "Turtles, Girdles, and Yo-Yo's" although I don't remember anyone I know ever calling it that. Anyhow, they had a small selection of cut-out records and tapes. Cut-out bins are where albums end up that don't sell well, and the record company needs to get rid of the overage. Also, sometimes with really big albums, they end up in the cut-out bin because they make SO many of them and once the sales have died off, they're left with a large amount of leftover. So, these are the albums that were in the cut-out bin and most of them were by bands I'd never heard on our local 'top 40' type radio stations or even on MTV. One tape I picked up based on the cover and the band name was called "Walk the Moon" and it was one I liked quite a bit and listened to fairly often.
Flash forward to many, many years later when I decided to look them up online, and found out they had changed their name to Eleven, so I picked up some CD's by them and rather liked them too.
Well, recently I blogged about them, because I learned online that Natasha, one half of the band, passed away after battling cancer. The point of all this backstory is that tonight, Alain Johannes, the other half of the band, was performing at Amoeba. He just released his first solo album ever, which is dedicated to Natasha.
It was another rainy day and I didn't know how many people would be there. Alain has certainly been very involved in the music business and has been linked with and performed with many bands that you have heard of, but on his own, I wasn't sure how many people knew who he was. I wanted to go and show my support, but luckily when I got there it was apparent that he had plenty of support. There was a really good turnout and a lot of the people there seemed like they hadn't seen each other in awhile, like it was some sort of reunion. I'm pretty sure I saw Steve (of Brian and Steve from the Sarah Silverman Program) there, too.
I watched the first part of Alain's show - he is a really amazing musician. He had a cigar box guitar, which he probably made himself, and his fingers just flew across the fretboard like lightning. He is certainly one of the most skilled players I've ever witnessed.
Unfortunately, I had to leave during his set because I was supposed to meet Dylan and our friend Rob at Silver Spoon for Glee Club (where they play the show "Glee" on the TVs in the bar). But when I called Rob, he was stuck at work and couldn't make it. I almost turned the car around to go back to Amoeba but by that point I decided just to go home.