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.

John Elliot House Show

House Concert, Cowtown

Man good good weekend. Unfortunately I missed the Surly Girl Parking Lot Blowout but you can check out highlights on donewaiting.com. I did however have a great weekend with shows of my own, ASB, Shaw Bros which I talked about in the last post. Sunday night we had a house concert with John Elliot who is from Minnesota originally and no is not the Floorwalker. I met John and Raina Rose at Rumba about two years ago Eric Nassau had told me about the show and I just loved their stuff. I followed both of them online through mailing lists and when we went to SXSW I caught up with them and told them both if they ever wanted to do a house show I was totally down. So Sunday we did it and it was well..I said it was great already! John's songs are brutally honest, sad at times, and very funny at other times. In the same breath he will make you laugh and then make you think. "Grandpa cheated all the time, grandpa told 'em where to sign kept his family alive...grandpa sat on the lake, grandpa ate a sandwich". "It's like I never learned to love no one ever walked me through it no one taught me how to do it no one told me that it's real and it's not enough to feel and it's not enough to promise and it's not enough to try".

So lots of great friends surrounded our couches and chairs and watched in awe as John Elliot played a heartfelt set. Eric Nassau played as well as the Shaw Brothers. I can't say enough about Eric's songwriting either, just love what he does. Monday night John and I joined Jason Quicksall for Cowtown Round. A happy hour show with New Water Moonshine brought a healthy built in crowd for a Monday night. The crowd kept around and somewhat shifted to a later crowd but was pretty steadily busy the whole night which was awesome especially for people to see John. I had a great time playing my solo original tunes it was nice to have that forum to do that. On Tuesday a whole bunch of friends joined me at Cafe Bella along with John (who decided to stay in town one more day because of the rain) and we all had a great dinner, felt like a big family. It is so great to have such good people surrounding me. We all tried to get John Elliot to move to Columbus..ha it was great. He lives in LA and I figure if you are gonna tour so much you might as well have a base that is super cheap...and more awesome then LA..ha actually I have never been so I can not hate. It just sounds expensive..I am from the midwest after all..I am cheap. So thanks to John for coming in we had suuch a good time. Andy and I (Shaw Brothers) now have plans to tour with John next May so I am suuuper stoked! I will post a video of the house concert ASAP.

Oh on another solo note. I am playing Woodlands (formerly Thirsty Ear) July 23rd 5pm-7pm for a happy hour type show. The actual "happy hour" shows are 6p-8pm but this one will be outside on the patio (weather permitting) and kind of overlap that show. Happy Hour starts at 4pm there so come on out and have a drink ($2 on ALL drafts ALL domestic bottles and ALL wells....pretty effing awesome..better than Bodega I believe). Sweet.

Long weekend..not over yet!

A long weekend for me and it aint over yet! Thursday night 2 Shaws and a Perry (That's Andy, me, and Theo) played at Lucky's stout house where we rotate singing lead. Andy Theo and I rotate playing drums, guitar, and singing. I play fiddle as well and Theo and Andy play backing guitar..it's a good time so come out if ya want every Thursday 10p-2am. Friday was Andy Shaw Band at Ruby's. Our "home base" is always so welcoming and the band Shrub opened for us. We had a great great crowd and just an awesome night all together, not much more we can say but thanks to all who came out! Saturday Andy and I played North Market Wine Festival 1p-3pm always a great people watching gig on the porch. A bunch of good friends came out to see us which was awesome considering we have played like 50 shows this weekend, the die hards are what keep us going! Saturday night was Callahan's on the roof top which is such an awesome gig. It is free to get in and you can chill on a rooftop and look at the downtown skyline and get a beer. The weather was perfect and the crowd was great, we sold some cds so that is always good. Sunday (Tonight) we are hosting John Elliot who is traveling through Ohio. John is an amazing songwriter we met through Eric Nassau when John was playing at Rumba a couple years ago with Raina Rose (also amazing). We connected again at SXSW 2010 with John and Raina and we talked about doing a house show so it is happening tonight at 7pm at my house with Eric Nassau and the Shaw Brothers. I am really excited to play tonight it is gonna be great. John will be performing at the Cowtown Round tomorrow night with Jason Quicksall and myself I am really excited about that as well.

After last nights Callahan's gig we headed to KOBO for the grand opening. We got word that LES Crew was playing with their former singer Ev who I am a huge fan of but we ended up missing the show. The former Oldfield's on High (the sign still says it..) was buuuumping. Tons of new faces (atleast at Oldfield's) were there and two DJ's wearing Jawa-esque hoodies with laser beam eyes came onto the stage and started an all out rave including a projector and a flat screen proclaiming "drugs, drugs, drugs" and "holy shit, holy shit, holy shit"...it was insane. Not the typical thing you would have seen at Oldfield's atleast not when I was ever there. I hope Kobo does well I am optimistic about it being a hot spot again and can't wait to play there again.

Slim White and The Averys are hosting the monthly Ranch Party Round Up tonight at Shrunken Head, sad I will miss it for the house concert. Slim is a great guy and his band The Averys lay down some great old school country, I am talking honky TONK, not this new pop Carrie Underwood crap. Gotta see them in action and the line up looks great. Follow their story through this great blog complete with country accent and all. That's it for today, till next time!

Been a While

Hey so wow it's been like a month since I updated and the Bixbys/Byxbe's/Bix-something..gig. So I will try to summarize a month..ha. The Shaw Brothers played about 3 and a half songs at the Columbus Arts Festival and then a torrential downpour happened. Tip Top was enjoyed by all who came with us after packing up our stuff and running through the rain. ASB played at a rugby tourney in Crew Stadium..my back gave out that day and Theo played drums on the fly..go Theo! A great guy named Roy Davis played at Rumba in Columbus and we some how connected through Facebook I think and we ended up busking together out on High Street. Great guy and great musician check him out, he's from Portland Maine. Sam Corbin and Jen Sygit came to town from Michigan..great bunch of people and amazing songwriters. I sat in with them at a happy hour set at Woodlands tavern along with Eric Nassau who I just love more and more..such a great songwriter peoples, get hip to the Nassau! Played North Market with Shaw Bros., Park Street Festival (so did Smash Mouth..yeah that's right), played Athens with LES Crew, watched Theo get reallly drunk, heard about an after party with a stripper pole (damn I missed it) where all the LES Crew guys danced on....(second though, glad I missed it)...stayed in the world's crappiest motel, phew that was bad right out of a 70's porno or horror film, you choose...oh and those last three gigs were all in one day! Made a video with Theo passing out ASB cds for the "Give Back Show"..hilarious! LES Crew MC's (some of them) hopped on stage with ASB during our set and spit a couple verses within "Indiscretion". I loved it, oh and G. Finesse some how popped up and did one too, he also performed with us at Comfest (more of that later). Sold a ton of CD's at Creekside Blues/Jazz Fest and had a great crowd, good to see some Gahanna people we never see anymore!

Ok new paragraph for some reason. So Comfest was fun this year but it was a little weird for me. The crowds were thinner, the police were obvious but not mean or anything, and the schedule was all over the place. They seemed to spread out all the good bands so as not to have really heavy crowds at night..oh and that was weird everything ended before dark almost..a bit odd for me. I did not get to see Mojoflo which I heard was reallly good. I loved the Phantods, Floorwalkers had a great set, Paper Airplane, Stucco Jones (gonna miss u guys!), Old Hundreds were cool..never saw them before..I feel like I missed a bunch of people I wanted to see. The rain forced us into the Offramp stage right before Stucco and that was kinda fun. We played an after show at Woodlands with $1 PBR fill ups in Comfest mugs, that was crazy! A great time had by all and Josh Krajcik Band also played and blew the people away.

I finished recording the DUETS album..finally! Matt Monta and I finally got together to do a track and now we have 10 tracks! I have been mixing with Jay in the past weeks so that is great great news. I need to find a venue/date for the CD Release.

ASB played at the Trolley Stop in Dayton last Friday and Park Street Tavern on Saturday. Dayton was fun and our good friend Mellissa is helping us a tooon with merchandise and working the crowd getting those mailing list sign ups so thanks soo much to her!

I have decided to start a project with Genean Grantham of Greenleif fame and Justin Campbell who plays drums all over including Descendre, Bum Wealthy, Max Power Trio and more..I hope he is not too busy for me! We are trying to find a bass player right now that can groove. We are starting with a framework of just solid groove drums, guitar, fiddle, possibly a banjo, and some soulful lyrics/melodies. That is what I want atleast..I talked it over with J and G and they both were vibing on what I had brought in on cd so let's hope it works out. I am really excited about it and have been writing a bunch!

Oh I went to Taj Mahal open mic the other night, wow it was packed. I was glad to see the inside stage was still intimate though and people gathered around to truly listen to most of the bands. There was an outside "stage" when I came because of the number of people but it was more like kids busking out in front of the restaurant/bar. No amplification and people were just kind of hanging out and not listening, that was a shame. I really enjoyed some songwriters I have never heard before. Josh Montgomery was one of them..good lyrics and he was doing some crazy stuff with his falsetto. Craig James is a musician I have run into a few times and have only seen him once, he played at Taj on Tuesday and he was great! Backed by Sharon on piano and Mike on guitar (sorry no last names at this time)...Craig finger picked his way into my heart with his lyrics on love and pain. I just feel like Craig just wants a good woman and maybe a beer and seeks for the simple life, his raspy vocals bring it all home. I really enjoyed the night at Taj with all the musicians seeming very passionate about what they were doing...ok maybe not ALL but most of them especially as the night went on.

A lot has happened in a month, the Columbus scene is vibrant and I keep hearing new bands that I had never heard before. I want to explore the even more sides of the scene I don't even know...man it's amazing to think how much more there is out there...till next time!

Open Mic

Ok I gotta check my Gmail calendar to see what has happened in the last week. Man..ok show at Lucky's with Theo and Andy last Thursday good times indeed apparently the owners have changed hands so we will see what happens there. I hope we still are able to play music on the patio every Thursday (well, most Thursdays..June 17th we will be at Dan Dougan's Listening Hours at Gateway Film Center 8p-11p). Friday we traveled to Delaware to play at Bixby's/Cabo Wabo/Coco Lindo/Bixby's? This place has changed hands a few times and has changed names and concepts a lot more times. Well ok, the concept since the last time we were there is the same but the name is back to the original Bixby's or Bixbyes..not sure the spelling. Let's just say there were not a TON of people there, well there was a huge table at first and when they left, it was like crickets. To summarize the night after that I will attempt to do so in a few words. Break, chips, great salsa, very tall beer, discussion with manager, chips, check cut almost in half, drunk couple, girl passed out in woods, manager cursing a lot, more yelling, leave early, drive home, Cafe Bella...hey atleast it ends well right?

Friday was a busy day. Before the Delaware gig Andy and I played "How Sweet it is to be Loved By You" for my dad as a surprise at his school (he just retired). That was really great to see the kids sing along. Then Andy and I played a happy hour biker night of all things at Gaswerks in the Arena District. It was hot but a good time I think some bikers actually liked what we were doing, I played some Johnny Cash and Hank I figured that would make sense, they seemed to dig it. Then on to Bixby's which you know that story.

Ok so on to Saturday where Andy and I (Shaw Brothers) were slated to play Arts Festival. We arrived at around 3ish I think, for our 3:30 slot. Since the budget got cut a few years ago there is no acoustic stage I believe there is just one stage for the bigger bands. Well, all I know is that we have not had a stage the past two years we have played and we have had to supply our own PA. All good, we are totally used to this especially with the duo, we set up in 10 minutes. So there was a tent in the parking lot of Batelle Hall of CCAD and we are technically supposed to be "roaming musicians". Andy and I kind of surpass that and just set up our PA in the tent. By the first song we had probably 20 people watching us, in and around the tent. By the 3rd song Andy switched to djembe and I took my acoustic guitar. As I was strumming around the third chord of the song a woman came over and basically was like "you all have to leave..there is a huge storm coming". So I had to stop my song and figure this all out. We opted to just have everyone come up close and we'd turn the electric off and do it acoustic. People were into it and the one volunteer girl said it was cool. I started to play and another girl comes up "this is not an option, you have to leave"...I said "we are unplugged we are just going to wait it out the other girl said it was cool"...."oh ok that's fine".... I am standing there with my guitar kind of dilly dallying at this point wondering what to do...a third girl comes up "this is not an option"....OK OK we are not playing the Arts Fest this year, I get it. Ha. All we wanted to do was play a set for some great people. We had so much fun last year and sold a ton of cds we were just really upset we could not play. It ended up raining pretty hard and Melissa, Ginger, Andy, Theo, Michelle, and I went to Tip Top and had a great lunch. The sun came out and we went back to the festival but the Shaw Brothers did not play a set, bummer.

Saturday night we had a night off, wow?

Sunday my back/neck totally gave out and I was in tears...not sure why just a lot of drumming/violining/guitaring I think is taking it's toll and I need to find some good excercises to do soon. I am getting a massage next week! I will ask her about stretches and such. So ASB had a gig at Crew Stadium for the college rugby tournament and Theo ended up playing drums. It was only like 4 songs or 3 so I heard he did well, thanks Theo! That sucked I didn't get to play but oh well gotta stay alive, luckily it has gotten better...phew more in a bit.

Michigan, Hoggy's, Open Mic

ASB played in Michigan and Dayton last weekend. Good shows all around White's Bar in Saginaw Michigan is a cool place, people buy cds and they have not even HEARD you play. The Banana Convention despite them not taking themselves seriously (or it would seem that way) are musically great, and great people as well. I always enjoy hanging with those guys and wish when we got together we would do so more. We played One Eyed Jacks for the first time in Dayton and it was very cool indeed. Good food, good people (shout out to London and Melissa and Ro for driving out) and a good set overall, I felt really good about that performance.

Tonight after a torrential downpour and tornado sirens...oddly enough I went and played with a band called...wait for it...SIRENS. Molly Pauken, Kay Harris, Pete Carey, and Jeff Peters (tonight it was Louis Chamouse filling in). They play every Wednesday at Gahanna/New Albany Hoggy's. This is just a hidden gem of a group and night to see live music...atleast if you are in the scene I am in, it is definitely not hidden to people that come cuz they pull a crowd. I was fortunate to go on tour with these guys (as Jonalee White band) and I looove playing with them. Kay Harris has one of the best voices I have ever heard, Molly Pauken is a BEAST on the bass and she is a beast on the guitar and anything she touches really, Pete is great, and Louis was great too filling in for Jeff who I love. Anyway so I asked them if I could sit in tonight and they let me play a few tunes. Man hearing Kay sing "The Ocean" is just a treat. Oh the other song tonight that really blew my mind was "The Whipping Post" by the Almann Brothers..wow Kay is just a bad ass.. I will try to get some brief video I took but gotta see if the sound sucks or not.

After this I went to Thirsty Ear (ok it's called Woodlands Tavern now..) to get some money for booking I do there and also to check out the open mic. Great crowd, Molly Winters is doing a great job with the open mic and a ton of great people out. I feel like playing all the time I know a lot of people in town but there are continually more and more people that I have never met that are doing their thing right in Columbus. Andyman Hopkins (who I do know..fortunately) asked me to hop on stage with him and that was great. I met his band the Slick City Ramblers who are awesome and a few others tonight I hadn't met..Columbus is just bursting with talent. Eric Nassau is one of my favorite songwriters in town and I played fiddle with him too, so awesome. Good night tonight.

ASB plays June 19th at Skully's we are auctioning off ..or raffling off a FREE house concert for you and all of your friends (if ya win) so that should be cool. We are giving away gift certificates and what not as well..it has been branded "The Give Back Show"..Billy's Playhouse, LES Crew, and ASB I am excited about this one. Until next time...