Last night was the monthly Saratoga Acoustic Blues Society's open mic at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs and my fourth appearance on the stage.

Well, actually it is my 6th since I attended two other open mics since then.  Caffe Lena has a weekly Thursday night open mic that is for any music style or spoken word.  I went solo for one and took my wife along on another.  Both performances were good and I had a great time in what felt like a more casual setting than the Acoustic Blues Nights.

 

Last night started off with the feature performer, Jimy Graham on stage.  He was ready to go and played at least two songs before his set opened up. He stopped himself when I sat down with my Sawzall Box Dobro and said, "What is THAT?"  I replied that it was my guitar.  "And from what planet?", he says.  "The planet I come from" was my reply.  I handed the guitar over for a few minutes and we talked about it a little.  He started playing again, but would stop to make a few comments about the guitar in the front of the room.  "Ladies and gentlemen, there is a monster in the building."  I joked that he was totally screwing up my night.  I'm a big nerd and social introvert and calling attention to me before I was on stage was not my desire.  This was said jokingly, but I was a little serious.  I'm more comfortable with quiet curiosity than, "Hey! Look at that guy!" Anyway, Jimy put on a terrific performance.  It was a great start to the night.

Wednesday nights are becoming a show of regular performers and fellow CBN member Ron Whitford was in attendance with a freshly-built cigar box uke he made from pallet wood.  It was good to have a brother in the audience again.  I was #6 or 7 on the list for the night.

The host, Sonny Speed introduced me and mentioned that the next three performers would be playing different instruments (I don't remember if he said unusual, non-standard or something else).  I tried to play off the guitar as completely normal.  It's got 5 strings, a painted neck and a tool box for a body?  What's so unusual? 

For my songs, I chose three of Uncle John's classics.  We agreed to a royalty scheme for the use of his songs and I think it is quite generous.  The songs were topical since it was just the 18th wedding anniversary for my wife and I and all the songs were about failed relationships.  I told the crowd a bit about this and mentioned that the humor was almost completely lost on my wife, but she wasn't with me so I was going to play the songs anyway.

The first song was "Wiener Dog Run", a song about finding a surprise when coming home late one night.  I enjoyed hearing the audiences laughs throughout the song.  I brought out the blueshammer style and played it differently than a video I posted here, but with a nice walking bass line as the driving force of the song.  Even though another performer had played "Trouble in Mind" earlier, I heard this song described as the saddest song of the night.  :)

The second song was "Unkind Woman Blues" and I told the crowd I was really taking a risk when practicing this song at home.  Again, lots of laughs from the crowd during the song and it was a good time playing it.  This was mostly talking style with a little singing mixed in.  I had a lot of fun with this song.

My third song I had to introduce as being a bit naughty and casually asked permission to play it.  I was going to play it anyway, but at least everyone was set up for it.  It is a true Uncle John masterpiece.  Given the public nature of social media and my future career in public education, I won't go into detail except to say it is a country perspective on the lament on the similarity in relationship troubles with females and mechanical contraptions that have wheels. Nuff said.  It was a fun performance.  And as a disclaimer, it was an comedic and artistic performance.  Lots and lots of laughs from the crowd throughout the song.

Overall, I felt like my performance and my night were very successful.  I was feeling good enough to consider busking on Broadway on the way out of town.  There were enough shenanigans going on among pedestrians that I could have probably earned a couple bucks quickly, but I decided to head home.

My next challenge is for June.  I don't have as long to prepare since the blues night is pulled up to the 17th instead of the 24th.  Unlike the last couple months, I don't have a plan yet for what I will do.  I'm considering using one of my new Straight Relic slides to play Amazing Grace in G minor, but not sure yet. It will be a bit of a search around before I come up with something for sure.

The overall message here, if you are keeping up on the chronicle, is keep at it.  Struggle.  Suffer even.  It does get more and more fun.  If you never get out there, you'll never find out.

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Comment by Bad Finger (Eric) on May 31, 2015 at 11:01am

Thanks for having a read, Glenn.  I owe a lot of thanks to all the players at Caffe Lena.  They have pushed me and made me push myself to do better each time.  Even if I don't actually end up doing better.

All the trees are red?

Comment by Ron "Oily" Sprague on May 31, 2015 at 9:05am
It came from Planet Claire...
Comment by Bad Finger (Eric) on May 30, 2015 at 9:17am

Thanks Uncle John and Pick.  :)

I had a really, really great time Wednesday night.  And I almost missed it because the holiday had me thinking it was Tuesday.  It wasn't until about lunchtime that I got the calendar straight.

Comment by the anonymous pick on May 30, 2015 at 3:35am

good stuff!

Comment by Uncle John on May 30, 2015 at 1:47am

I enjoyed reading this.  I would have enjoyed it even without you using some of my songs.   But I'm proud you did.   I just can't seem to play T and T anymore.   I better work on it. 

Comment by Bad Finger (Eric) on May 29, 2015 at 1:42am

Thanks Clock.  I never realized. . .I have great legs.

Jim, yes it is nice to get that reception.  I plan to meet up with Jimy again in July when he plays at a local tavern. He is a great performer and I like his resonator guitar, even if he plays in standard tuning and no slide.  :)

I have decided to challenge myself to do three songs with the slide for June.  I have not played any slide guitar for this audience yet and it is not as well practiced as my blueshammer.  But I have 3 weeks so that is 21ish days or at least 80 hours of practice.

Amazing Grace (G minor tuning)

No Ice in My Bourbon

<still thinking of a 3rd song>

Comment by Jim Morris on May 29, 2015 at 1:24am

Glad to hear it went so well! It's cool to get reactions from experienced players about builds even if you didn't really want the attention. Now get on back to your planet.

Comment by Clock The Wolf on May 28, 2015 at 11:02pm

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