Once upon a time, Silicon Valley had fruit orchards, farms, affordable rents and audiences that actually listened to the club music they'd paid to hear.

That's all changed, of course, and now you're as likely to find a nice four-bedroom in a good neighborhood for $250,000 as you are to find club-goers who will turn off their cell phones, beepers and flapping gums long enough to listen to a band.

The last time Chris Cain played at JJ's in San Jose, for instance, a group of Mercury News editors were crushed in next to a couple of morons who spent the entire first set high-fiving each other and yelling about how great the music was and how cool they were to be there. They couldn't actually hear the music over their own shouting.

Such things used to really bother Cain, back in his younger days.

"I used to get, like, really pissed," he confessed in a recent interview. "There was a time in, like, Nebraska, the guys in the band, that I used to play ... still talk about today. It was great.

"These gals were like sitting out front and we were playing, and we poke it way down, and we're playing this thing and then, all of a sudden they 'SCABBERBEAHBYAH!' They're like talking, so then I go up there and I go 'Hey, what'd you pay to get in here?' and they're like 'Six bucks!' I go 'Look, here's 12, get the hell out, and those that want to listen can sit here, OK?' I gave 'em my 12 bucks. Sometimes you just snap, you know?

"Back then I was hard-headed. I had no idea. Now I'd be begging them to stay. 'Hey look! I'll give you 12! Stay! Call your friends! Come in and chat! I just need bodies in here!'"

Cain -- Silicon Valley born and bred, and at 44 one of the greatest blues musicians on the planet -- has come to understand the local audience, which tends to be worse today than that Nebraska audience was in 1990.

"People, you know, people just, uh, they just came from work and they're having drinks and they're still caught up in what Chad did, like, at the water cooler today and they're like 'EHEHIMNOTGONNABEUH!' and they're caught up in the whole thing that's been going since about 3 you know, down at, like, Zytron, and then ... they just can't pull out. They're at the gig, but they're still caught up, like in that episode back at the water cooler. So then you get about three of those going -- you know, they wanted to hear probably what you were playing, too, but they're still caught up in this chat thing, and just can't rectify it. So it ends up being a thing.

"Like when a cat gets a phone call, like on on his phone -- I mean it could even inside Wendy's or something, ya know? -- but then he's like talking, like, on 12, ya know? -- He's like 'OH YEAH, WHEH-EH!' Like he's all alone and nobody else would notice that this thing is going on, but it's on 12, you know, but he's just like caught up in his little thing. But then get like about 45 and they're all caught up in their little thing at the same time when you're doing that, you start wanting to ... man, uh, hey, ya know?

"But you know, it would be nice sometimes if, like, the sensitivity factor could kind of creep back into the thing.

"People, they ... end up doing like about three or four things at the same time. You know? Which is kind of like going to the beach to like do your homework or something. You're gonna try to do a bunch of stuff, but you're not really going to get anything good out of either one of them, because you're gonna be kind of confusing a bunch of stuff, I think.

"I'm always happy that people are there, sometimes, you know, when you're really gettin' it, and you're trying to uh ... you know? and you just hear like a bunch of these conversations going on and ya think, oh ... what am I doing?

"They don't mean that. I don't think anybody means to do anything like to make you feel invisible, but, they just get caught up in their little moment. Or their big moment. It could be a big moment, you know?"

Cain's certainly had his share of moments over the last few years. The touring continues, around the nation and the world, as it has for years, in the best clubs in the best cities. And, he's expanded his audience a bit: In 1997, the title song from his first album, "Late Night City Blues" was used in a movie, "Just Write." ("That was a kick," Cain said, "To hear that tune coming off the screen.") Also in '97, he composed the score for "Thunder Knocking at the Door," a blues musical which played at San Jose Rep, then at Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre.

His recent albums include "Live at the Rep" -- a blues performance after "Thunder" closed in both cities, of Cain's tunes and tunes from the show -- and "Christmas Cain -- Blues for the Holidays," recorded just last year. "Don't ever start a Christmas album in October," he says now. He's hoping the album will have a better chance to sell this year than it did last year when he made it.

When we talked, a couple of weeks ago, he was just back from playing at the King Biscuit Festival in Arkansas and at B.B. King's club in Memphis. He has gigs booked every weekend somewhere, pretty much, and spends his off time in his Santa Cruz home making music. On guitar, bass, piano, saxophone and clarinet.

"If I'm really thinking properly, I'll probably go outside," Cain says. "Hey, there's a whole world out there! But mostly I end up inside, playing piano or something. .... I got about 82 tunes that nobody's heard. Haven't been back in the studio for a while.''