Play Guitar

I don't really talk about my band/music/playing out here on my blog page.  I try to keep them separate.  I think if I started to talk about my music on here, I would just do it constantly, and that would turn a lot of readers off. 

But I still start at the beginning.  I have a band (of which it seems that I am the only member) called Possum Apple.  I put out a self produced album called, "This Divided Highway."  You can hear the entire album up on Reverbnation.

https://www.reverbnation.com/possumapple

My bandmate/producer/friend Josh was the one who did all the percussion.  Unfortunately, he left to pursue other projects.  This happened just before the album was released.  So I played one album release party, and haven't really played much since.  I did play a few open mics here and there, but it wasn't anything consistent.

The fault lies with me.  I really didn't want to get outside of my comfort zone.  I would play the open mic at Sacred Grounds Coffee House, but nothing else.  But in the last few weeks, I've had a friend Nick, who has helped me get out of the house, and go to a few other open mics.

It seems that the local Sam Ash music store has different open mics.  The singer-songwriter night is on Wednesday.  The cool thing is that they give you a $10 store gift certificate for playing.  And if you do this week after week, those gift certificates start to add up.  I've been wanting a new guitar strap and some tubes.  So after playing a few weeks, I will be able to nab a few of those while spreading my music to a new audience.

A friend of mine, Phil, hosts a blues jam at Gaspar's Grotto in Ybor City.  The thing I like about blues jams is the crowd.  They tend to be older, and my Americana style music goes over really well with them.  The other fun thing is that, since we play outside at Gaspar's, we can turn the amps up, and the sound won't be overpowering like it would be inside.

I've played there twice, and my music has gone over really well.  And I have to admit I was worried.  I know my music is a touch out there, and may not be liked at all.  However, I had people in the audience laughing.  Even the other musicians (in the band, "Eyes Above Me") were holding up their hands doing "the wave" while I was playing my song "Buffalo."  I think it also really helped that I had other musicians playing with me, so I had a full band playing my songs. 

Thing went really well.  It went so well, it occurred to me that I forgot to bring hard copies of my album to sell.  I think I could have sold a few of them.  Oh well, next time I'll make sure to bring them.

A new friend I met, Robert, told me he hosted an open mic at the newer, hipper coffee shop near USF called "The Boba House."  Again, it's tough to play in front of younger, hipper college students, in that, you never know what they will think of your music.  A lot of them have no idea what Americana is.  Most think I'm playing country music.

When Florida Ave. Ales hosted their first open mic, I was the first one to play.  So I've been proud of that.  However, the open mic only seemed to last two weeks, and then it was gone.  I found out it was still being hosted, and was able to play it the other day. 

It's weird, in that, I feel like I am touring for my album that I released a while ago.  I have the second album pretty much ready to go.  I just need to get the money together to get the ball rolling. 

When it comes down to it, I think John Mellencamp said it best when he said, "Forget about all that macho shit, and learn how to play guitar!"  And that's what I'm doing.  I'm just going out there, and playing guitar.

Unfiltered

Note:  No real names will be used in this blog.

I have this friend by the name of "M."  It seems his birthday is coming up.  One of the things he likes to do in his spare time is stand up comedy.  So his girlfriend "Dee Dee" wants all his friends to throw him a roast for his birthday.  For those who don't know, a "roast" is when a bunch of comics get together, and rag on/ make jokes about their friend.  The other thing about a roast is that, the comics also make fun of the other comics/guests at the roast. 

This left me to thinking...  Since I am a friend I would be invited to this roast.  And it also made me think....  I would get to roast M.  And then, I would not only get to roast M, but everyone else.  And thus, the ultimate thought would be that I would get to be completely unfiltered.  And let's be honest, my unfiltered thoughts are much like the pictures in my blog.

Honestly, I am filtering about 80% of my thoughts all the time.  I'd hate to think what would happen if they were unleashed upon an exsuspecting crowd.  Heck, even an expecting crowd would be equally impressed/offended by my stand up.

That's the one thing that Dee Dee didn't think ahead.  As M's girlfriend she would be a main target.  And I gotta admit that I've already got a few jokes in mind.  And that's the funny thing.  I don't have many for M yet, but boy do I have a few zingers for Dee Dee.  In all fairness she gives a comic a lot of ammo.  She's a former stripper/ webcam "model" with 16 tattoos.  And that's not to mention all the rings in her head/tongue, etc.  And then when you actually get to meet her, you can get a whole lot more zingers come to your head. 

The idea is to hold the roast at the independent coffee shop we all go.  This would be a great place to make fun of.  I can make fun of the menu, items, overpriced drinks and things.  I would also be able to make fun of the groups that meet there.  Namely vegetarians, Green Party, and persons going through gender reassignment surgery.  Really, the place is Rush Limbaugh's worst nightmare.

So then I got to thinking, there are other people to make fun of too.  The owner Kay is a lesbian and her partner Mand are a great couple to make fun of.  Mainly because they are quite a bit different from each other.  There would be a great opportunity to make all the power roles in their relationship.  And of course I would get to use the words bulldyke, powerdyke, and fisting.

There's a guy who works part time at the coffee house is an openly gay man named B.M.  I think he kind of likes me in a more than platonic way.  He's a really nice guy, but I'm sure there are quite a few jokes I could tell about him trading me tea for sexual favors.

There is an amazing person that I met at the coffee house.  His name is J. and he was born premature.  He was not supposed to live, but he made it.  He has M.S. but a lot of people think he is retarded.  He's not, but he has the speech impediment, and rough walk that makes people think he is.  Despite all the crap he has endured, he has become an amazing person.  He is also surprisingly gay.  So there is a lot to have fun with except one thing.  He has endured so much ridicule in his life that he can't take a joke or insult, even if that is the norm with a roast.  I would have a few things to razz him about, but only if he wasn't there.

A lot of M's friends come on game night.  One night I was there I heard them arguing over Pokemon facts.  I didn't know them, but I wanted to comment on what total virgins they were.  So that's a definite when holding a roast. 

There's also a woman, I'll call her "S." who hosts a comedy workshop.  She would be a great one to poke fun at.  I already have a good one lined up in that, I'm not sure if she's a lesbian, straight, bi, or just playing hard to get. 

The funny thing is that M is totally against this idea of a roast.  He thinks that a roast is only for people at the height of their genius.  Since he is an amatuer comic he thinks he is undeserving of a roast.  I kinda like the idea since it's an after hours/ only between friends sort of thing.  I hope he goes through with it, but I understand if this doesn't happen. 

Goth Night at the Coffee House

In an attempt to drum up a little more business on Sunday nights, the local coffeehouse I go to has decided that Sunday night is Goth Night.  Honestly, I can't make this stuff up.  Oh, and since I am in the Tampa Bay region, which has a ton of Goths despite it being "The Sunshine State," the turnout was not too shabby.

So the big question for those who have never encounter Goths before is, what are they like?  Well, they are exactly how they are portrayed on South Park.

So the next question is how do they dance?  Well, again, it's exactly how they dance on South Park.

And the music?  What kind of music do they listen to?  Well, it appears to be some song called "Soultaker" by Bluengel.

Goth Night was also sponsored by Anarchist Closet.  Really, not kidding.
http://www.anarchistcloset.com/#!Home/mainPage

I didn't really get to talk to too many of them.  The ones I did talk to were pretty nice to me.  But the story of the night was this one girl.  You know, you always get that one hot goth chick, and she was it.

She had on this well,... it was hard to describe.  It was made of black leather, cut like a one piece swimsuit, except that it went all the way to her neck.  It kind of looked like this:

Oh, and there was no skirt.  It was pretty.... nice.  Damn nice.  She had on some sort of fishnets as well.  I'll admit, if she stepped outside in that outfit, and the police saw her, I was wondering if she would be arrested for indecent exposure.  Being the smartass that I am, I was seriously considering putting a dollar bill in her garder.  But then again, I have no money so that was out of the question.

Edit:  I found a picture of her.  Here she is on the left in the "small" outfit.

My next thought was, where do these people work.  If you look like this:

Who is going to hire you?  I don't even think that Hot Topic would go that far.  When you out-punk/ out-goth Hot Topic, you know you've gone too far.  And there aren't enough alternative record stores in Tampa to hire all the goths out there.  Where do they work?

They tend to play goth type movies on the screen during the night.  This last night was a Batman marathon.  They showed both "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight."  I just sat back in the recliner and watched both movies while people danced and mingled.

Even though I am having a bit of fun at their expense I do want to say that I was treated nicely.  No one said a bad word to me, and most left me alone.  The two hosts of the evening were both really nice to me, and I do appreciate that.

Despite all the jokes I am making I am thinking of heading back on Sunday night.  Maybe I'll wear something   a little more appropriate....like black.

And for a little humor.  This is my favorite goth article of all time:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/goth-metalhead-overcome-subcultural-differences-to,1767/

No Cover Songs, and Good Cocaine, Part 2

The original post: http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2011/04/no-cover-songs-and-good-cocaine.html

It has been one year, and three weeks since I thought about covering Dick Justice's ole time rag, "Good Cocaine."  Yesterday I finally performed it at Sacred Grounds Coffee House.  It's not that I've been lazy, I've just had other things to do.  Like work and stuff.

But a few things actually held me back.  First, the song was recorded in a tuning other than standard E, and then on top of that a kapo was used.  So, the first thing I had to do was find the correct chords, and put them in E standard.  Then, I had to change them around to fit my voice.  Let's be honest, I don't have the best vocal range.

I also had to update the lyrics a bit.  It's a bit of a blues tradition that every player will change the song up a bit. Like I had said earlier in my previous post, I wanted to change up the part that refers to certain groups as "monkeys."

Like any performer will tell you, generally the first time you play a song live it doesn't go that well.  Well, it couldn't have gone any better.  I played it as the first song right off the bat, and it just killed.  I wished I had of recorded it.  I was also very thankful I had a friend Josh playing percussion for me that night.  All in all it was a great night.

And I think I would be remiss if I didn't post Dick Justice's version here.  It is a funny video.

Who The F--- Is This Guy!

The following story is absolutely true.  In fact, true stories are better than made up ones because you just can't make up the weirdness that is real life.  Right now I am writing this in the morning, and I haven't been to sleep all night.  I am too wired from the weirdness that has happened to me.  Since all this is true, I will use real names.  If anyone has a problem with it, I would like to say that telling the truth is not against the law.

It started out innocently enough.  A local singer that I like named Anna Gavin posted on Facebook that she was playing Sacred Grounds Coffee House tonight.  In fact, here is her exact post.

Anna Gavin: "So if your not doing anything tonight, you should come hear me pour my heart out on stage at Sacred Grounds Coffee shop. If you play guitar bring it and sing me a song!"

Sounds great huh?  No harm there.  Just an artist who wanted people to come out and see her perform right?  So I responded with this:

Adrian:  That's great Anna! You can do that song called "Suicide" that's not about suicide. I totally get what you mean about that "AWKWARD" feeling running into the "ex." You didn't say when you were going on. I'll definitely bring a guitar if requested. Big hugs.

She didn't get back to me, but then again I figured she was on her way to Sacred Grounds.  When I get there she is happy to see me, and gives me a hug. 

I want to say right now that Anna is an extremely kind person.  When I first started playing open mic nights, I was downright awful.  But Anna was really nice to me, and told me to keep on trying and I would get better.  She gave me great encouragement to keep playing.

Anyway, I told her that her song "Suicide" is great, and how I totally related to everything she said in that song.  It really isn't about suicide.  It's about showing up to a place where your Ex is, and how it's suicide if you go, or suicide if you stay.  In other words there's no good choice.  If you stay you will be miserable.  If you go you will have let your Ex dictate your life. 

I was hoping it would be on her reverbnation page, but I'm sure it's going to be on her new album.  That's why she doesn't have it posted yet.  But give her a listen.  She's amazing.

http://www.reverbnation.com/annagavin

Anyways, I get back to the house, flip on the computer, and see this comment under her post:

Gary Osbourne:  Who the fuck is this guy?

First I think, "He's not talking about me is he?"  Then I think, "Why would he be worried about me?"  Then I remember, that's Anna's boyfriend.  I check her regular Facebook page, and see something wrong.  She says she is single.  What?

On Thursday at 9:02PM she changed her status to "single."  As in two days ago.  This made me think, "Uh oh." 

I look at Gary's feed, and I see someone post this:

Jordan:  Hows your relationship counseling going? Lmao!

Gary's reply to that:  Suck it jordan

That conversation was on Feb. 19th.  I guess things hadn't been going so good for the not so happy couple.  So I guess what happened was this.  They broke up two days ago.  I then post that I'll be happy to come see her, bring my guitar, and that she should do her break-up song.  I can't blame Gary for being mad.  It does look rather odd even though nothing has gone on between Anna and I.  In fact, before last night, I hadn't even talked to her for months. 

I just picture Gary as an angry Jason Lee (as Brody) from Mallrats.

Any guy who does the "Who the fuck is this guy?" is great in my book.  Oh, and here's the strange thing.  Even though him and Anna are broken up, his picture on Facebook is of him and Anna together.  Awkward.

Hairy Fishnuts?

I was at my usual place on Monday nights.  That being, Sacred Grounds Coffee House.  Monday nights are open mic nights, and I love playing my original songs there.  I have also gotten to know a lot of the people there, and I've got to say they are some great folks.

However, open mic night can bring in the weirdos.  One night it was one guy who was a terrible comic.  Actually, I've seen a number of terrible comics there.  There was one guy who got on his soapbox, and complained for 15 minutes.  He said he was going to do a spoken work thing, but he just complained a lot.  There was the time that these two want-a-be gangsta rappers came in, and acted like they owned the place.

However, all this pales in comparison to the yellow and orange blitz known as the "Hairy Fishnuts."

They were kind of dressed like this:

I know that is rude to comment about how they were dressed, but it is pretty close.  One guy even had that accordian type thing, just like the guy in the picture.

Now I want to make sure it wasn't just about the dress of these folks that put me off.  It was the odd haircuts as well.  I mean, if one of them had looked like this I might have talked to one of them.

But they did not.  It was more like this:

It kind of freaked me out.  But let's get to the entertainment side of it.  They did two songs.  But they only used three words during those two songs.  Two of the words being "hairy fishnuts," and one other that I couldn't make out.

Now, I will be the first to admit there have been other bands that use a very limited amount of words in their songs.  The Exploited did that in their masterpiece, "Sex and Violence." 

Here it is:

The other thing that irked me about the Hairy Fishnuts was the fact that they started passing out business cards, and recruiting.  It's an open mic night, not National Signing Day.

I didn't actually talk to any of the Hairy Fishnuts.  With my smartass tounge, and a lot of weird luck that I have had in my life, I felt it was better just to not say anything.

But!  If I had said something to them, I'm sure it would have gone something like this:

I'm Gonna Have To Step Up My Musicial Game

I had a "Dewey Cox" moment earlier this evening.  For those who don't know, I'm referring to the movie "Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox Story."  Early on in Dewey's career, he was on a tour that had a lot of musicians.  Think of it as a modern day mini Ozzfest.  Back then, they had the same format as they do today.  You would have the lesser known musicians open up, and the bigger stars would be the headliners.  And of course, the headliners go on last.  But in one weird night, Dewey Cox had something kind of strange happen to him.

Here's the youtube link.  Note: Go to the 50 second mark to see what I'm talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llGzo9fGcdk

Due to Elvis wanting to get out of there early, the line-up order changes from The Big Bopper, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, and then Dewey Cox.  Dewey then becomes the headliner, and it puts him in a very bad prediciment.  It's called getting upstaged, and it isn't a good thing for the headliner.

Here's an example.  Motley Crue were kicked off multiple tours because they upstaged the headliners early in their career.  Now, I should point out that the official reason they were kicked off tours was that The Crue were making too much trouble and being too rowdy.  However, they were putting on a better show than the headliners, and the headliners didn't like that.

So how does this relate to Dewey Cox you ask?  Well, tonight I went to open mic night at Sacred Grounds Coffee House.  I got there a little later than most, so the sign up sheet was mostly filled up.  The earlier you show up, the earlier you can sign up, and you get to choose when you play.  I showed up later than a lot of the musicians, so I signed up at the best available spot.  In this case, every spot from 9:00 PM to 11:30 was taken.  So I signed up at 11:45. 

This is where it got weird.  At 11:00, one of the most talented musicians at Sacred Grounds, James M. (I will protect his identity here on the Internet) when on.  Then at 11:15, a wonderful songstress named Jenna when on.  Then to top it off, one of the most popular (and talented) musicians, Jonny J. went on.  Jonny does make his profile public on Reverbnation.  Here is his band:

http://www.reverbnation.com/algorhythmsky

So here I am.  It's 11:45.  I am going on after three incredible musicians.  I am Dewey Cox in this moment.  But I did the only thing I could do.  I rocked.  When I played last week, I didn't perform that well.  While the songs I performed were my own and good for a coffee shop, they were tough on my limited vocal range.  So I decided to do three of my more rocking songs that are also easier on my vocal range. 

So I cranked up my amp, and cut loose.  I'm not bragging, but I think I held my own.  In fact, I still think out of the four of us that went on that hour, I came in fourth.  But, I can at least say not by much.  Again, I think I held my own.  But I will say, I really don't want to have that kind of Dewey Cox moment for a while.