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...

Hmm..Ravari Room, Michigan...what else?

Well the Andy Shaw Band had a great time in NYC. We are back now and just played a show at Ravari Room with Playhouse and One Under, two bands we have not had the pleasure to share the stage with yet. They are both great bands Billy's Playhouse brings a great live improv show with Carlos Fisher wailing there back on the drums, a sitar player, Mateo on B3 and everyone else was just awesome too. I especially like Carlos with his drum and bass beats..man he is sick. One Under killed it too and Justin Campbell sat in on drums with them, another beast behind the "skins" if you will.

I played the bluegrass jam the other night at Dicks, always a fun time..constantly trying to remember all the songs, they have such a big catalogue. The are slowly seeping into my brain and I love playing with those guys.

We are actually in a Red Roof Inn right now on our way to Saginaw Michigan to play with our friends The Banana Convention. They are a fun group of guys *and girl* we met a few years ago and I was trying to think of how we met or who we met through. I really can't remember...they are really good people and killer musicians, they used to ride around in a short bus they dubbed "The Cool Bus". The last time we saw them in C-Bus it had broken down, :(..hopefully they will revive it soon. ASB played last night in Dayton (where we are now) at One Eyed Jacks, a new spot for us. I really liked the place, good size, they had food which was pretty good (I just had fries), a great beer selection, plenty of pool tables and good people that jammed out. We sold like 10 CD's and by WE I mean our very helpful friends Melissa and Ro..thanks guys you rock! Our friend Kelsey was there and London who we met last time at Trolley Stop so that was awesome to see everyone, Dayton has been good to us.

My duets album is coming along and all I need is ONE more track to get ten. Matt Monta and I wrote a song waaay back and have finally decided to record it. It has taken a long time to get each other on the same schedule for recording but it will happen next week I think..finally! Once this is done I am going to be mixing it with Jay maybe adding a few things and then it's time to print it! I will be heavily promoting the album so look out for that, still untitled..any suggestions? It may be called Just Duet..if I don't get any suggestions...ha. Kidding.

I am still doing some booking for Thirsty Ear Tavern which actually officially changed its name to "Woodlands Tavern" which is really fun. The show I booked last night on a Thursday at 74 people at it, NICE work Phillip Fox and The Olde Souls! Thanks for making a great show. Let's see what else is going on? ASB got into the Park Street Festival. If you don't know about this one it happens every year and like a huuuge amount of people come out like 10,000 I have never been to it but they close the streets over by the North Market (Gaswerks, Brothers, Park Street Patio, etc..) and I think they may have vendors and a few live stages. This year none other than SMASH MOUTH is headlining...WTF? That is crazy! I didn't even know they were around still. Blues Traveler will also be there and some other local groups including ASB! Woot.

a busy week and it's off to NYC on Wednesday

This past week phewww it's over. Let's see Monday booking meeting at Thirsty Ear, Tuesday busking (more about that later), Wednesday gig w/Andy at Beekman Park for an OSU Engineer picnic, Wednesday night writing with Matt Monta for duets project, Thursday Lucky's gig w/Andy and Theo, and Friday a gig in Athens with ASB, Saturday 2pm blistering cold gig outside w/Shaw Bros. and finish the night off at Club Diversity another Shaw Bros gig.....ok Sunday...DAY OFF!!! Spent time with the lovely gf Ginger took her out to Marcella's (mom was out of town) had a great lazy day!

So I met Andyman Hopkins last week and we had a common interest: busking. He has toured all over the world and has recently planted himself in Columbus. I had never played with him and had only heard him on myspace in a couple videos, needless to say I loved it and busking with him was exhilrating (since I didn't know any of the material) and humbling (this guy kicks ass). We had a great cajun lunch at DeLevee (try it, it rules) chatted with some great folks, and made around 11 bucks each!

Thursday was our first gig at Lucky's for our acoustic patio sessions with Andy, Chris, and Theo..we don't call it Andy Shaw Band only because we aren't playing a TON of ASB songs...we may have to use that name soon though it's kinda confusing. It was a great night, we added drum set this year..a tiny version of my real kit. Bass drum, snare, and hi hat, and it worked out great...we will be there every Thursday starting in June.

Saturday Andy and I played the Gahanna "Spring Fling" and it was like 20 degrees outside. We showed up to a stage with no one in front of it and half the vendors (that woulda been the only audience) leaving. The other vendors were way far away from the stage. We set up, and played, the wind blew our speaker over...so we were like..well we're getting out of here. The woman organizing it came over and was like "can you play just a little longer?". So Andy and me being the troopers we are, set our speakers on the floor and played maybe an hour more...felt like 4 hours...in the blistering cold. How the hell does it go from 85 to like 45 in a day??

A busy and interesting week to say the least! Wednesday we head to New York for a gig in Brooklyn with our friend Pezzettino on Thursday at Goodbye Blue Monday, Friday at The Bitter End, and Saturday at Sinclair's Pub in Long Island..I am very excited hopefully the weather is good for driving!

Bluegrass Jam at Dick's..Lucky's...engineer picnic?

Andy and I just played at Fred Beekman Park, it's that huge sports park on Lane and Kenny wow, confusing..finally we found our gig after searching that behemoth park. It was a nice little picnic for the electrical engineering students. Went and played the Bluegrass Jam at Dick's Den and took some video, since I have been problems embedding them I will just share the youtube link, unfortunately I have found limits on my iPod as a video camera but that is to be expected, it peaks in volume a lot, my apologies. Here is a cover of Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried" -- not EXACTLY bluegrass but it's all related. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGE7_0iTXS4

Andy, Theo, and I will be playing on the Lucky's Stout House patio on High Street again this warm season. We had a great time last year and this year will be even better. We will play tonight (May 6th) and then the next two Thursdays we will be off because of out of town gigs (NYC next week!) and then we will continue our "residency" when we get back. We will play some ASB tunes, some Shaw Brothers tunes, Theo originals, Chris originals, Andy originals, and a bunch of fun covers too..it'll be half acoustic half rocking out adding a drum set this year..I think I'll bring a bass drum, snare, and hi hat so a "half kit" if you will. I love playing this patio always filled with good people and just a great atmosphere for music under the stars. 10p-2am with great drinks come out and support us!

Buskin' in the Bus

Here is a short video shot from my iPod, wow not bad huh? I woulda been playing fiddle but I can't do both (yet). The first of many busking videos. So can I name the group "Columbuskers"...ha..or "Go Busk"..instead of Go Bucks..ok I'm done.

Busking, OCB, ASB at Rumba...more??

So I have decided Columbus needs more busking musicians and the response I have gotten on Facebook alone shows that apparently I am correct. The other week I thought of an idea to have a busking "association" or group like the Columbus Busking Group...I even thought of maybe doing like "The C-Buskers" or "Columbusking"...I dunno, kinda clever maybe? Well, anyway lots of people on FB were intrigued and really the idea is just to get more people playing in the streets, liven up people's days walking to the bank, help raise awareness about the music scene to people that have never been to see a live band in their own town, or make Columbus THAT much cooler to people that are traveling through the city. So besides making a name or anything official really we just need to go out and start playing on the street, bottom line. So we did it, and it was great. My good friends Jake Young on banjo/guitar, Steve Moeller on dobro, and Chris (sorry, I haven't learned your last name) on upright bass joined me a couple weeks ago in front of Northstar during Earth day, it was packed cuz they give away free veggie burgers (shh) and all my dreams came true, well sorta. A woman that apparently lived next to FloRida in town from Miami loved us and was just shocked at how talented we were, she took a business card and a cd and was just very nice, despite her only knowing what bluegrass music was from the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" she was very nice..I think she even gave us a 10 in the ol' guitar case. So, one objective already done, make Columbus THAT much cooler to people from out of the state/city...nice! We then had a girl from CCAD newspaper (what?) I went to CCAD and they never had a newspaper, not a student lead one atleast...she then told us it was the first issue. So she asked us our band name and said she was going to write us up, niice! Us not having an official band together besides the less-than-official Dick's Den bluegrass jam on Tuesdays...we called ourselves "The Streetside Hillbillies"...ha! So more attention locally..and we made a few bucks doing it. Apprently when I left the other guys were asked by Northstar to stick around and play on the patio, I am not sure if they did but originally I thought there would be so much dissent but people welcomed the busking. Great times! We went out this week as well in front of Funky and Functional and they thanked us for playing and said we were actually bringing people into their business, niice. We met a mailman that plays pedal steel, a dude from Pittsburgh looking for local music, and a woman that got right in our faces and conducted..I think she gave us a $5 or $10! So busking has been great, it's nice to go out on a beautiful Columbus sunny day and just play some music with some great people, I am very happy to have met the Jake, Steve, Nicole, Chris and all the guys from the bluegrass jam and am excited to busk with other people in the C-Bus community.

So my duets album is coming along fast,,,finally! I have 9 tracks recorded!! And it looks like Matt Monta and I will finish the album out with an even 10. Dave Huffman of Jakob Freely fame works for the Ohio Center for Broadcasting and is a good friend. He and the Underground Columbus team at OCB will be helping me promote the duets album and really emphasize the community aspect of it. Getting C-Bus musicians together to collaborate is one of the great things about this duets album..in addition to the album greatly helping me in the process of writing, recording a ton, and learning off of great musicians (Megan Palmer, Heidi Howes, Larry Cook the list goes on) it is about collaboration in the end and I really want to just emphasize that and see this as a community driven project. So I will be meeting with Dave/OCB soon to talk about how we want to do this. He wants to have artists interview each other and this will be a good opp to do that. Another idea he had was to have musicians cover other musicians from the local scene which I love, I gotta start working on some tunes..maybe Josh Krajcik or Floorwalkers or hmm Hebdo maybe.

ASB played Rumba last night with Los Caminos. I have played with Paul Gaul at the bluegrass jam but have not seen him play that Tele for a while and maaan I forgot how good he was. As far as "chicken pickin' goes in this town, I don't know anyone that can match him besides Mike Nugen of McGuffy Lane fame (this video is goofy but it shows a little of Mike's amazing guitar work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF8wmm6Uezc), but that is my experience..touring with him last year. To be fair I don't really know anyone that does that except those two guys and man it's just a pleasure to watch Paul rip that guitar in half! The whole band is awesome as well but man Paul, cheers. The crowd was great and the energy was greater last night, wow. We had our good friend Monica up on stage for Damien Rices' "Volcano" and Terrence Farmer up on sax for some tunes, it was just a fun show, though I always have a hard time w/sound at Rumba. Jason does a good job doing sound but I think it's just the way the sound bounces in that corner and my ears feel like bleeding even despite my earplugs shoved deep into my canals. Thanks for all who came out..man lot's going on!