Monday, June 13, 2005
GF1 to SIJ: "You Guys Suck!"
Damn if we didn't play a lot today. TSA and I made the trek to Piedmont and the Sacora Station to do a few tunes at Steve Thorpe's open mic there. I had told Steve I'd come up to pick up some CD's of the Songwriter's Invitational for the Dunn Bros. performers. I was able to convince TSA to make the trip with me. This open mic has moved from Saturday nights to Sunday afternoons. That's going to make for a little different crowd, though I'm finding that we are getting pretty good at reaching almost any crowd once we get a feel for them.
Being a smaller open mic, we got to play quite a bit longer than we do at Cheers or Dunn Bros. That was nice because we're ramping up for the Heritage Festival show and are working in some new tunes. We did get Me & Julio in but the rest were mostly tunes we'd been doing. And, being in a bar, we didn't pass up the opportunity to play Two Condoms and Vibrator Dependent, both of which got the bar patrons to look away from the NASCAR on the TV for a second or two. A major feat on a Sunday afternoon in Piedmont. All in all a good time was had, primarily by the performers, and that's what's really important.
I figured that we'd skip Cheers tonight, but TSA had talked Cheers manager (and SMB girlfriend) Terry out of an oversized Bud Lite guitar pick POS (point of sale) item. He'd joked about taking one off of the wall last week when Terry said she had one at home and would bring it in. Sure enough, as Shawn and Gary were hauling in the gear for the open mic, one of Shawns trips included a giant guitar pick. How cool is that. I still thought it would be cool to steal the other one from the bar, but didn't out of respect for the management. Also it wouldn't fit in my harp bag.
We played relatively early tonight, a waitress asked to hear Plastic Jesus so we lead off with that, following that up with Vibrator Dependent because a different waitress thought we were a band she had seen at Paddy O'Neils doing a song about masturbation. Well, it wasn't us, but we do a song about masturbation, so what the hell. Me & Julio came next, and is really coming along. I've got it down pat, vocals and harp and TSA is as in the pocket as ever. It's pretty guitar driven and he really is right there on it. We planned to finish up with Got My Mojo Workin' with the added twist of Mojo Nixon's The Story of One Chord in the middle. It worked, but it can be much better. This is all on me, as I'm the one who really needs to learn the words here. I'll get it by the 4th, no problem. Shawn decided we should do one more. Now Mojo trashes my voice, but I'm learning to deal with it. TSA decided on The Brian Wilson. That was a good choice as it's the song I use my voice most on, and it was good to see what I was capable of after Mojo. I could tell I wasn't 100%, but my guess is that most of the audience couldn't. I guess I've already done all of the damage to my voice I'm going to with that growl thing.
Had a bar patron come up to us afterwards and compliment us on Plastic Jesus. He was sitting at the bar (what a surprise) when we were playing but had moved to a table and had gone up to the stage to retrieve his fabulous prize when he dropped by our table. It used to make me very uncomfortable when people would approach us after we played. They generally have nice things to say, but I'm not the best at taking compliments. That I'm getting pretty good at taking compliments says a little bit about our music, and that really makes me happy. Anyway, this guy knew he had heard Plastic Jesus before and wondered if we had written it. I explained that it was a public domain song, but that we had written two of the verses performed, and that he had probably heard it in the movie Cool Hand Luke. He agreed that he had probably heard it there then had some nice things to say about us. Even though our performance started with Gary yelling "You guys suck!" this was nice way to end it. And in Gary's defense, in 957 we liked it when people yelled "You guys suck!" And thanks to Josh for attempting to defend our honor, but it's Gary, and we really dig Gary.
BOJ
Being a smaller open mic, we got to play quite a bit longer than we do at Cheers or Dunn Bros. That was nice because we're ramping up for the Heritage Festival show and are working in some new tunes. We did get Me & Julio in but the rest were mostly tunes we'd been doing. And, being in a bar, we didn't pass up the opportunity to play Two Condoms and Vibrator Dependent, both of which got the bar patrons to look away from the NASCAR on the TV for a second or two. A major feat on a Sunday afternoon in Piedmont. All in all a good time was had, primarily by the performers, and that's what's really important.
I figured that we'd skip Cheers tonight, but TSA had talked Cheers manager (and SMB girlfriend) Terry out of an oversized Bud Lite guitar pick POS (point of sale) item. He'd joked about taking one off of the wall last week when Terry said she had one at home and would bring it in. Sure enough, as Shawn and Gary were hauling in the gear for the open mic, one of Shawns trips included a giant guitar pick. How cool is that. I still thought it would be cool to steal the other one from the bar, but didn't out of respect for the management. Also it wouldn't fit in my harp bag.
We played relatively early tonight, a waitress asked to hear Plastic Jesus so we lead off with that, following that up with Vibrator Dependent because a different waitress thought we were a band she had seen at Paddy O'Neils doing a song about masturbation. Well, it wasn't us, but we do a song about masturbation, so what the hell. Me & Julio came next, and is really coming along. I've got it down pat, vocals and harp and TSA is as in the pocket as ever. It's pretty guitar driven and he really is right there on it. We planned to finish up with Got My Mojo Workin' with the added twist of Mojo Nixon's The Story of One Chord in the middle. It worked, but it can be much better. This is all on me, as I'm the one who really needs to learn the words here. I'll get it by the 4th, no problem. Shawn decided we should do one more. Now Mojo trashes my voice, but I'm learning to deal with it. TSA decided on The Brian Wilson. That was a good choice as it's the song I use my voice most on, and it was good to see what I was capable of after Mojo. I could tell I wasn't 100%, but my guess is that most of the audience couldn't. I guess I've already done all of the damage to my voice I'm going to with that growl thing.
Had a bar patron come up to us afterwards and compliment us on Plastic Jesus. He was sitting at the bar (what a surprise) when we were playing but had moved to a table and had gone up to the stage to retrieve his fabulous prize when he dropped by our table. It used to make me very uncomfortable when people would approach us after we played. They generally have nice things to say, but I'm not the best at taking compliments. That I'm getting pretty good at taking compliments says a little bit about our music, and that really makes me happy. Anyway, this guy knew he had heard Plastic Jesus before and wondered if we had written it. I explained that it was a public domain song, but that we had written two of the verses performed, and that he had probably heard it in the movie Cool Hand Luke. He agreed that he had probably heard it there then had some nice things to say about us. Even though our performance started with Gary yelling "You guys suck!" this was nice way to end it. And in Gary's defense, in 957 we liked it when people yelled "You guys suck!" And thanks to Josh for attempting to defend our honor, but it's Gary, and we really dig Gary.
BOJ
# posted by Blind Orange Julius @ 12:01 AM 
