seems like this log is slipping into a bi-weekly to monthly edition. iunderstand that some would like to read more, but I don't want to chimp a bunch of air.
after some deliberation, abe and me descided to go ahead and startplaying open mics. it gets us out of the farm, which is especiallyrefreshing for abe, and it's good for me, getting some mileage undermy belt. we've been doing a 2 guitar thing, with abe on gi-tar andharp, and me backing him up on another one of them 6 string machines.
we started this tuesday. went out to ellicot city, which is realclose, bordering to, caltimore, and went to a small pub called thejudge's bench, i do believe. got there at 730, early. and not beforelong met two cats coming in to play too. a guy called mike (ascomplainer mcplainerton) who did this cool singer/songwriter thing(covered the radiohead tune, karma police, too. righteous). had a coolamsterdam tshirt on. turns out he'd been there more recently than Ihave, 'round about 6 months ago! what a trip, traveling, being out andabout. but actually, 'twas two cats and a bird, mike, and a girl namedjen. she played the piano, or a keyboard, in this case, sang real welland lay down some great originals. she picked up the guitar too, quiterighteous. we gave them a copy of the spikedriver's cd, and got a copyof each of their cds. me and abe hit the stage second, after mr mike,at around 845. with abe, you never know what the setlist is going tobe like untill he starts playing, but he started off with the guitargabriel song, 'juice headed woman'. actually, someone else wrote that,mr q has claimed he did, but who knows? abe got it from gabe, i dobelieve. halfway through the song abe drops his gi-tar, gets the harpout of his rack, and starts blowing. hearing him play harp is always amindblow, i really dig what he does. the song is a standard 12 barblues, so I do pretty good, don't blow a whole lot of clams. i'mplaying abe's 1913 gibson, going directly into the pa. after the harpsolo i kick a loop pedal by accident, it ain't mine, it's just on thefloor, and it messes me up. i play an 'a' but i hear an 'e' comingthrough the pa? what's up with that? i look at the soundguy and heappologises a bunch, and gets that loop out of there. i tell him noproblem, it's all good. thank you, man. in the meantime, abe keeps onplaying on and laughing his ass of. the entire deal didn't last muchmore than 9 bars or so, but it was a hoot and a hollar all the same.next up is 'western plain', or 'cowboy song', as abe calls it. theledbelly tune. i really dig playing that song, that's what really gotme deep into abe's music. when i did that record with him a few monthsago. i sent a copy to my lil' sister, for her birthday and she dug itmuch. make it through the song pretty good, since i know it well,might have blown a clam or two, but nothing major. doubt if too manyfolks, if anyone, noticed it much. abe goes right into 'fan it (keepit cool)' and darn if i don't forget the part he taught me thisafternoon! i play a walking bassline to make up for it, and halfwaythrough the part comes back to me and i switch to that. reminds me ofelvis presley, the part i play. must have been the elvis documentarywe watched at abe's mom's the day before. the open mic is a 3 song or15 minute thing, but the people digs what we do much, so we getanother song. righteous! abe goes into 'green onion', his spinoff of abunch a blues songs, kind of like john lee hooker's 'boom boom boom'and 'dimples'. made it through pretty well, since it's just one riffwith a little 'tail' or 'fill' every once in a while. with that we endour set. i leave pretty satisfied. we sat, so I take our chairs backand prop up our gi-tars back in the corner. next up is jen's set. iwas spieling with this nice old hippy-looking man. enjoyed the spiel,but felt bad for trying to divide my attention between jen playing herpiano and spieling with this guy. somehow managed to catch the musicand spiel at the same time pretty well. we hung out 'till aroundthirty minutes past midnight and head back on home. had a good night,people really dug what we did, made me feel good. playing with abeboosts my confidence. makes all the difference when you don't have toworry about the music. takes away my nerves pretty quick into the set.got home at one fifteen or so, hit the deck and was out by a quarterto two. heading for sleepy town would prove to be a hellishnight........ nightmares, yuck. wake up at five.
