Bube's Brewery open mic night, 1/6/11

Decided to check out the scene for this open mic night. Second one I've played at in the area, and I saw one of the same players I jammed with before. He's Ric Emery, a guitarist and instructor who's been driving home the point that he runs his own open mic night downtown and I should come out.

So I'm sitting here by myself, got here shortly after 9 and the band has just started up for the night. They're guitar, bass and drums, and they're available for anyone who wants them to play along. Good news for me, because I don't really care for playing and singing alone on a stage. Especially not when players of their caliber could be playing with me.

They do some jazzy and funky stuff that makes me want to jump up there and play keys right along with them. They sounded like Booker T. & the MGs -- only Booker T. was absent. Next up, they played a couple of classic rock tunes. I could tell they were watching and listening to each other, so it reinforced for me how much I wanted to get to join them.

Some singer/guitarists went up there when called and changed the mood to solo acoustic Beatles covers, couple of relaxed blues tunes, some originals that were easy to follow along with, then jam band material. When my turn came, I wanted to return to the original mood. That's pretty much why I still wanted to go up there. I used the setup time to talk to the guys about some song ideas I had. I wanted to start off with some funky stuff.

Namely, "Watermelon Man." On it, I played about five different keyboard sounds: acoustic piano, electric piano, and maybe three different organs. The vibe was good. The band knew all the different riffs. I arranged it, let the guitarist know when he should take a solo, when it was my turn, when it was the bassist's. I took a couple different solos.

It was pretty much the same deal for my second tune, "Cissy Strut," but I stuck to one organ sound. We really rocked out that instrumental. The guitarist was leading me into some really dissonant jazzy territory, and I followed right along behind him, creating some nice interplay. Another dude came up to get a good look at the band, and at the end he applauded and told us he recognized it as a Meters tune.

At this point, the drummer asked if I'd like to do something with some swing. Not my forte, and I wanted to do some singing, so I countered with "L.A. Woman." So this would be my singing debut with this crowd. I have sort of an arrangement I like to do: during the keyboard solo, throw in some familiar melodies with similar chord progressions. In the past, it's worked only with rehearsal in advance. I could tell with these dudes, all I had to do was fill them in on the spot. So they were right along for that one. I think it was probably nine minutes of greatness, hahaha.

That would have been a great one to go out on, but I suggested one more. I wanted to do "Glad," a Traffic instrumental. As I was thinking of it, I thought it was only three chords and would therefore be really easy for any of them to catch on in case they didn't know it. Not so! As I played it through, I realized it jumped around a lot and I didn't think it was working. So I pulled the plug mid-song and announced over the mic, "Tell you what, we're gonna change it up a little. You guys know this one?" And I led them off on "Badge," the Cream song that George Harrison played on. They knew that one! I wasn't sure about the lyrics, but I made some up. I don't think I ever got to the swans in the park though. But at least it worked out and we got some applause at the end.

Now Ric Emery is leading the guys through a medley of Allman Brothers Band numbers with a common key of A. This is a good jam. Glad to be here!

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