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.
