Busy week!

Wow, it's all I have been saying to myself just a busy week for me. I got a call from Andyman Hopkins who is a recent addition to the Columbus music scene to play a gig with him on Friday in Dayton at One Eyed Jacks. I have never played a gig with him and was hoping he would make the call to ask me! So we will be playing with Adam Cummings, and Ian Hummel as the Slick City Ramblers doing mostly old school country covers with a few originals peppered in. We rehearsed Monday night and it went really well so I am pumped! Tuesday I went to the Taj Mahal open mic which is just really awesome, a young but very enthusiastic crowd just looking for music. I love playing this open mic run by Andy Gallagher of Trains Across the Sea fame. There was some crazy stuff that happened too inluding some 20's/30's style gypsy jazz and a touring band from Minnesota that included an accordian, banjo, fiddle, two guitars, a bass drum, a floor tom, and a keyboard..it was great! I have video to share soon. Wednesday was open mic at Woodlands and another greeaat night of music, I feel like I see 5 people every time I go out that I have never heard of and that blow me away. Phillip Allen was one of them, wow amazing songwriter/voice/guitar playing. So subtle in his guitar playing and the Martin he was rocking just sounded great. That in combination with Jason Quicksall working the sound board made a great night. Another guy who is great and I know but had not seen play (annoyingly) is Zach Whitney. He did this song and had the whole audience singing along, wow I envy that ability to work the crowd. "paper plates around the kitchen table and barbecue in the frying pan...." That's all I remember but it was a greaaat tune. Also I saw Phillip Fox who has been doing a wonderful job at Woodlands (I have booked him a few times) but I unfortunately had only heard him through online live videos he has done and recordings. It was nice to see him live as well and he did a greeat job. Man..it really is insane on how much good music there is in this town. If you are a fan and understand how good the music is here please tell someone, invite them to a show, pay their cover one time, have them come to an open mic..it's just oozing with talent and people need to know. I feel like it's getting there but there is no reason why Columbus and Austin shouldn't be in the same sentence when talking about music scenes. I stopped by Rumba to catch Zach Deputy last night after I snuck out of the open mic. This guy was surrounded by a fortress of gear and he used it well. Loop pedals, four mics, a couple drum machines, a guitar of course, some other gadgest I don't know what they do. He played some Michael Jackson sounding tunes (very well I might add) some Virgin Islands sounding island music, some Bob Marley and some funky tunes all together. This guy has a ton of talent.

Thursday is tonight I played at Lucky's with Theo Perry. Andy was on the road scouting out venues/vacationing/playing open mics and networking so it was just us. We actually had like 15 or more people come up and compliment us individually which is really nice. People don't always clap there but they definitely like it so that is cool. I am always trying to find the perfect song to get people going. I even got requests for Citizen Cope so I am going to have to learn some of that for sure, along with Sublime (duh..college crowd) and Guster..also makes sense.

Friday I had a solo show at Woodlands 5p-7p on the patio the first time they have done this. I had a good time but I felt like my voice was not up to par and singing 2 hours by yourself with an ok feeling voice is not all fun and games obviously. I did enjoy playing for the people though. Some songs I really felt went better than others. Overall a really good experience for me especially not playing out solo a ton. I then went on to Dayton with the Slick City Ramblers which is Andyman Hopkins, Adam Cummins, and Ian Hummel and I were the two "guests". Ian did a lot of the lead singing cuz Andy was playing bass. We did a bunch of old school country covers, I especially love the trucking one...ok there are like 1000 trucking songs, I can't remember the name but I love it. Andy and Ian eventually switched roles and Andy sang a bunch of great songs some original some not. Adam played brushes on the snare most of the night and then switched to cahon, sometimes we played a little cahon/brushes combo and that was really kicking. I tried to play bass for a song and quickly gave it to Andy..ha it was terrible. Overall a fun night we even got the crowd into it as at first they were kind of dead. One Eyed Jacks is always a great place to play..so many nice people and the staff is great, can't wait to play again with ASB.

So Saturday no gigs, I sleep and rest...that will be nice my voice was almost completely gone last night after the gig so I will try to drink lots of fluids and rest up to be able to sing next week. Phewwww what a nice long busy week, till next time America.