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So, I've come to terms with the sad reality of family issues preventing me from traveling this Summer—that means no IGC for me this year.

So, what to do? I've stepped up my game locally: I've joined the local Blues Society, and I've uncovered a great local venue that hosts weekly open mic sessions. I showed up cold two weeks ago, my PRS acoustic in hand, and started networking. By the end of the night the organizer had me up on stage playing her electric bass(!) with some of their stuff, and comping rhythm with my acoustic on some other stuff. Second week went similarly, except I brought the "Strat" I built and she shoehorned me in for an unscheduled 2-song set.

This week I'm signed up for a scheduled 15 minute set and I'm not even remotely nervous about it. Thanks to TG and to my experiences at ICG last year I know I got this. :side:

spinland wrote:

So, I've come to terms with the sad reality of family issues preventing me from traveling this Summer—that means no IGC for me this year.

So, what to do? I've stepped up my game locally: I've joined the local Blues Society, and I've uncovered a great local venue that hosts weekly open mic sessions. I showed up cold two weeks ago, my PRS acoustic in hand, and started networking. By the end of the night the organizer had me up on stage playing her electric bass(!) with some of their stuff, and comping rhythm with my acoustic on some other stuff. Second week went similarly, except I brought the "Strat" I built and she shoehorned me in for an unscheduled 2-song set.

This week I'm signed up for a scheduled 15 minute set and I'm not even remotely nervous about it. Thanks to TG and to my experiences at ICG last year I know I got this. :side:

Nice one and good luck!


Tom N.

Hey Mark,

Congratulations on taking your musical journey up a couple notches. We are really happy to have been part of the progress. Keep the faith and I hope to see you at one of next year's camps, or maybe here if you ever make a trip out west.

Neil

TGNeil wrote:

Hey Mark,

Congratulations on taking your musical journey up a couple notches. We are really happy to have been part of the progress. Keep the faith and I hope to see you at one of next year's camps, or maybe here if you ever make a trip out west.

Neil

You bet! I might have to take a couple of trips out that way next year...you know, to make it up to myself for this one.

Mark

Way to go Mark! Great to hear your progress. Maybe a video of a future open Mic would be fun to share?

Can't believe, after all this time, I am still not networked here locally.... just with TG buddies world wide! :laugh:

Sounds awesome Mark, proud of you taking on the challenge, good for you! :cheer:

And yes, hope you'll be able to share some footage.

So many thanks to all youse guyz.

Dwelling on how things have panned out on the personal front this year might have me wanting to cry, but on the plus side you're an indispensable part of my musical family and so the appropriate emotion is bittersweet. None of you are going anywhere, and ditto for me; we will meet again, sooner rather than later, and will proceed as though nothing untoward has happened.

Much love to you all!

Maerk

So, a post mortem:

First off, no video, alas: the person I asked to handle that got wrapped up in the moment and forgot to film. No biggie, there will be many other times.

Went great. I did three tunes, all "old standards" in terms of my knowing the vocals inside, out, and backwards so I could focus on playing: "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen (in C), and a couple of Buffett tunes: "Bama Breeze" and "Breathe In, Breathe Out." Played the Spincaster direct into the Nace, with the former tweaked for an acoustic-y sound (the BL Blades plus the Q Filter are amazing for that) as befit the material. Got a raucous round of approval and it was a blast.

Now, for the really interesting part....

One of my main current clients is a big defense contractor (where I used to work full time) and I'm on a small and close-knit team doing some killer cool stuff. The technical lead has been trying to get me to meet her husband (Steve) who plays lead guitar; they're semi-new to the area, he doesn't know anyone, and I got them to come to the open mic to hang out and network. He plays mostly classic rock, but thinks the blues are cool, and he writes a lot of original material. We're gonna collaborate, starting next week.

It gets better....

He brought a Strat, and I goaded him into agreeing to play some. The organizer was all in for us to do some generic blues stuff starting at 9PM when the scheduled sets were done, then she upped the ante and got her regular rhythm player to join us and as a foursome we did a couple of blues tunes from her catalog while she belted out the vocals and Steve demonstrated that he is, indeed, the real deal as a soloist (he plugged into the Nace with me). I didn't know the songs, neither did he, but it didn't matter. Her rhythm guy called out the chords in case we lost count and we rocked the house. The tunes were Sweet Home Chicago and Deep Ellem Blues.

Now she's sending us her favorite three blues tunes from her band's repertoire and we have two weeks to be ready to rock 'em with them. Steve and I are also going to work up a short set list of both his original stuff and a couple of covers (Led Zep and April Wine tunes) I want to do rhythm and vocals for.

Yeah, this is gonna be fun. :side:

Mark

So, no video but someone did get a couple of pics of me comping with the organizer and her main guitarist. So much for plausible deniability.