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Tales from Open Mic


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I've been the stunt guitarist in a house band for a local open mic night this summer. Free drinks, and $100 bucks to play six or so songs a night and fill in here and there. I dig it because I get to play with a lot of 20-somethings trying to play in bands and get into live music.  I love finding out what they are into and generally just being supportive.  Since we took over a couple of months ago, I think we really might be creating a scene.  All kind of kids are showing up, getting on stage, and playing with the band.  Even better, over the course of the night, I'm noticing more and more people sitting in with everyone else.  Everyone seems to be having fun, playing with new people, and actually getting better from week to week. 

I bitch a lot about rock music here, and this is my way of putting my money where my mouth is.  I don't care how bad you may suck today - if you love playing, we'll get you on stage, make it sound good, and make you feel like a fucking rock star as best we can.  Now go tell your friend playing in a band is the best time ever!  

I'm kind of the old, cool dude now I guess - god I hope that's what it is.  I was doing a solo tonight, and one of the other guys came up and put his guitar at my feet and laughingly prostrated himself before me.  He's maybe 21, loves Kiss and GnR, and shows up with his band in eyeliner and everything.  We brought him up to play with us for the first time tonight, and I just let him play his ass off.  I remember how cool I felt when older guitarist in my local scene started letting me get up to play with their bands, and it was fun paying that forward.  He's good - chops are decent, but he gets that rock is about the fucking show.  He may very well be a monster in another five years or so.

His rhythm guitarist's rig was fucked - a cheap strat knockoff through a Boss multi effects pedal and a Boss Katana.  I was playing my Friedman BE-50 through a VBoutique 2x12 Bogner cube style cab loaded with neo creambacks and playing @gwayne's old Hamer studio. I guess it's mine now, but I'll still alway look at it as his. Weird how guitars just get a hot hand some nights. For whatever reason, that one just felt extra right tonight, so my other guitar, my Shishkov, spent most of the night in the stand.  It's not the first time I've had a "Hamer" night and gigged these two together, but it has often gone the other way.  It's really funny how the exact same guitar with the same strings can feel pretty good one night but just fucking dead on amazing on another. 

Anyway, the kid asks if he can play my rig. I ask tell him, "Sure, just don't break my shit."  He promises he won't.  I give him the rundown of my board and footswitch, and he's off to the races.  At some point, they start doing Nirvana tunes, and I end up at the edge of the stage changing sounds for him. Why?  because I have all sorts of candy on the board - shit he didn't even know he wanted until an hour ago.  I told him to trust me to dial it in on the fly and that he should just have fun playing.  At one point, I clicked on a Triangle Big Muff with a Red Witch Chorus and a light Vibrato coming off a Fulltone pedal for the solo to "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and he looked down at me like I just separated the firmament from the waters.  

He gets done playing, hands me back my guitar and says, "This guitar and this rig is fucking amazing... just amazing!"

Poor kid is well on his way to crippling GAS I fear, but at least it was me who gave him his first taste. 

Anyway, it's really been a lot fun and has made me helluvalot less cynical about these danged kids these days!  Thought I'd share.  It ain't all bad out there. 

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I'd have killed for an opportunity like that when I was cutting my guitar playing teeth, forming my performance wings. You're a badass in my book @LucSulla !

 

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6 hours ago, LucSulla said:

Poor kid is well on his way to crippling GAS I fear, but at least it was me who gave him his first taste. 

Nice job getting him into a no-longer made guitar brand.

"You like these?  Yeah?  Well, too bad."

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Awesome post and story.., I can relate. Back 10 years ago I was a fixture at the local open mic scene and some people called me “Amp Daddy” cause I was bringing KILLER amps to the jams which required no pedals for dirt….unless you wanted fuzz. I’d let the kids play an amp that actually sounded great on its own, go into feedback, etc. it was fun showing up with a tweed Deluxe clone and a Marshall 18 watter clone for everyone to play. My Lil Dawg Brown Deluxe clone, the ChocoDawg was always favorite. @0054has a death grip on that one now. 
I still attend a monthly jam at the Lake of the Ozarks, but that one is dying…..this inspired me to check out the local jams again.

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8 hours ago, LucSulla said:

I'm kind of the old, cool dude now I guess - god I hope that's what it is. 

Welcome to the club.  Your membership card will arrive via USPS in approximately 8-10 days.  Meetings are held the second Tuesday of each month in the annex behind the old school building.  BYOB. 

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2 minutes ago, Biz Prof said:

Welcome to the club.  Your membership card will arrive via USPS in approximately 8-10 days.  Meetings are held the second Tuesday of each month in the annex behind the old school building.  BYOB. 

Haha...

I'm just hoping it's the "Cool Old Dude" club and not the "Deluded Old Dude" club.  

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4 minutes ago, LucSulla said:

Haha...

I'm just hoping it's the "Cool Old Dude" club and not the "Deluded Old Dude" club.  

Perhaps it's in the middle: Wise Old Dude.  I enjoyed reading your open mic adventures and would have enjoyed watching it, methinks. 

While I'm not the only middle-aged player in my rural community and considering there are a couple of contemporaries who occasionally gig with boutique gear (blingy PRS Custom, Friedman half-stack kinda kit), it seems I'm the guy that most of the younger players gravitate towards.  Probably multiple reasons for this:  my role at the local college, the fact that I gigged FT back in the early '90s when that was economically feasible, the diversity of my cover tune vocabulary, and because my gear includes an array of mostly older oddball stuff you just don't see as often in these parts.  If mentoring the young lads and lasses is a part of growing older as a musician, then that's fine with me.  Come one, come all, padawans. 

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Hanging out with young folks is probably why I am a lot less cynical about young folks than a lot my friends my age.  On the one hand, I really do like encouraging them.  On the other though, you can't sit here and talk about how shitty local music scenes are and how rock music is dying and then, if you end up in the position, not try to water those roots when you see some new plants starting to grow. At that point, you're part of the reason scenes suck and kids don't even bother to play music anymore.  

It's also kind of humbling, haha.  These younger bands play some pretty rough covers at times, but all the pretty young things are right there at the stage having fun.  We get up there and kill some songs, but we're just a bit old.  We're usually when that crowd sees a moment to go to the bar and get more drinks.  But you know, passing the torch is better than letting the fire go out altogether.  

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3 hours ago, LucSulla said:

Hanging out with young folks is probably why I am a lot less cynical about young folks than a lot my friends my age.  On the one hand, I really do like encouraging them.  On the other though, you can't sit here and talk about how shitty local music scenes are and how rock music is dying and then, if you end up in the position, not try to water those roots when you see some new plants starting to grow. At that point, you're part of the reason scenes suck and kids don't even bother to play music anymore.  

It's also kind of humbling, haha.  These younger bands play some pretty rough covers at times, but all the pretty young things are right there at the stage having fun.  We get up there and kill some songs, but we're just a bit old.  We're usually when that crowd sees a moment to go to the bar and get more drinks.  But you know, passing the torch is better than letting the fire go out altogether.  

Ain’t it the truth?  And let’s face it, pretty young things at the stage is what rnr is all about…am I right??

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3 hours ago, Jakeboy said:

Ain’t it the truth?  And let’s face it, pretty young things at the stage is what rnr is all about…am I right??

Not when I was their age.  One of the things that kicked me in the ass to really learn to play was a comment Steven Tyler made in the MTV Rockumentary on Aerosmith, something to the effect that Joe Perry started playing guitar to keep from burning the school down.  I related to that and thought it seemed like maybe I should really give guitar another shot.  Looking back, I probably met my first real girlfriend in high school via guitar, but I was in my 30s before I realized all those girls talking to me after shows all those years might have wanted to go home with me.  The right girl with the right gumption woke me up to what I might have been missing all those years, haha.

I've never been the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to socializing or had the best self esteem.

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13 hours ago, Jakeboy said:

Ain’t it the truth?  And let’s face it, pretty young things at the stage is what rnr is all about…am I right??

I was actually trying to be funny…and I failed. We all get into music for various reasons…for me it is hard to explain…I loved rock and roll so much..,I just HAD to learn how to play and create music. Had nothing to do with girls, if I am being honest.

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4 hours ago, Jakeboy said:

I was actually trying to be funny…and I failed. We all get into music for various reasons…for me it is hard to explain…I loved rock and roll so much..,I just HAD to learn how to play and create music. Had nothing to do with girls, if I am being honest.

That's why I always bring that up in these discussions.  I don't think anyone minds the expansion of options to pair bond with the model of human of your preference that comes with playing in a band - I certainly didn't and still don't - but I don't think far as many people did it solely "just to get laid" as say they did.  I think it's a good thing when people bring up other reasons they played, particularly when around younger folks.  Playing music is a way to learn you can create things out of nothing, another way to communicate - that's also really handy if you kind of suck at the whole talking thing - and, best of all, to develop your own ride or die posse.   You too can be "in a band with a gang." 

I'd even imagine the order we put those things in at the time and now in retrospect are probably a bit different.  "Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll," is a helluva war cry, but I'd be willing to bet we were all looking for a bit more out of it than that regardless of our posturing.  However, "Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, friends, and a sense of purpose and agency" doesn't really sound as good.  Hell, even when you read the memoirs of notorious bands like Motley Crue and GnR, groupies get sprinkled in for some spice, but what they really talk about is being a gang of fucking pirates pillaging the world together. 

I do remember the first time a girl hit on me though after a show.  She was a senior I had psychology with my junior year, and I had the biggest crush on her.  My band played at this yard party one of the other senior's threw at, now that I think about it, her house.  We get done playing, and she starts chatting me up, talking about how quick my hands move and asking if I want to go inside and get a coke.  The idea that this girl would be trying to hook up with me was so far outside the realm of things possible in the material world, that it never even crossed my mind.  She's sitting there putting the moves on me, and I'm at that exact moment daydreaming about how great it would be if she was into me.  

It was so lost in me that I didn't put together what was going on until I was in my mid-twenties, and I tell you what, 33 years later, I'm STILL kicking myself in the ass over missing out on that.  Then again, it was Rankin County, Mississippi.  You could wink at a girl in high school and end up a dad, so maybe it's better I didn't,  🤣

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You know, though I am an amateur and not to your standards, there are few thing that I (selfishly) have enjoyed more than being in the groove/zone/whatever, either in the pool, on a court, or playing music with friends.  There is a feeling when you can’t hit a wrong note( or, perhaps, just feel free enough not to care) that is indescribable.   In the end, sure, social interaction was always a goal, music or not, but playing in a band, in and of itself, can be and has been absolute and pure joy.   And sharing that is only good.

 

So, that is why I still keep at it, much as I can, anyway. 

 

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4 hours ago, LucSulla said:

That's why I always bring that up in these discussions.  I don't think anyone minds the expansion of options to pair bond with the model of human of your preference that comes with playing in a band - I certainly didn't and still don't - but I don't think far as many people did it solely "just to get laid" as say they did.  I think it's a good thing when people bring up other reasons they played, particularly when around younger folks.  Playing music is a way to learn you can create things out of nothing, another way to communicate - that's also really handy if you kind of suck at the whole talking thing - and, best of all, to develop your own ride or die posse.   You too can be "in a band with a gang." 

I'd even imagine the order we put those things in at the time and now in retrospect are probably a bit different.  "Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll," is a helluva war cry, but I'd be willing to bet we were all looking for a bit more out of it than that regardless of our posturing.  However, "Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, friends, and a sense of purpose and agency" doesn't really sound as good.  Hell, even when you read the memoirs of notorious bands like Motley Crue and GnR, groupies get sprinkled in for some spice, but what they really talk about is being a gang of fucking pirates pillaging the world together. 

I do remember the first time a girl hit on me though after a show.  She was a senior I had psychology with my junior year, and I had the biggest crush on her.  My band played at this yard party one of the other senior's threw at, now that I think about it, her house.  We get done playing, and she starts chatting me up, talking about how quick my hands move and asking if I want to go inside and get a coke.  The idea that this girl would be trying to hook up with me was so far outside the realm of things possible in the material world, that it never even crossed my mind.  She's sitting there putting the moves on me, and I'm at that exact moment daydreaming about how great it would be if she was into me.  

It was so lost in me that I didn't put together what was going on until I was in my mid-twenties, and I tell you what, 33 years later, I'm STILL kicking myself in the ass over missing out on that.  Then again, it was Rankin County, Mississippi.  You could wink at a girl in high school and end up a dad, so maybe it's better I didn't,  🤣

Take it easy, broham. 

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On 7/28/2021 at 3:14 AM, LucSulla said:

I've been the stunt guitarist in a house band for a local open mic night this summer. Free drinks, and $100 bucks to play six or so songs a night and fill in here and there. I dig it because I get to play with a lot of 20-somethings trying to play in bands and get into live music.  I love finding out what they are into and generally just being supportive.  Since we took over a couple of months ago, I think we really might be creating a scene.  All kind of kids are showing up, getting on stage, and playing with the band.  Even better, over the course of the night, I'm noticing more and more people sitting in with everyone else.  Everyone seems to be having fun, playing with new people, and actually getting better from week to week. 

I bitch a lot about rock music here, and this is my way of putting my money where my mouth is.  I don't care how bad you may suck today - if you love playing, we'll get you on stage, make it sound good, and make you feel like a fucking rock star as best we can.  Now go tell your friend playing in a band is the best time ever!  

I'm kind of the old, cool dude now I guess - god I hope that's what it is.  I was doing a solo tonight, and one of the other guys came up and put his guitar at my feet and laughingly prostrated himself before me.  He's maybe 21, loves Kiss and GnR, and shows up with his band in eyeliner and everything.  We brought him up to play with us for the first time tonight, and I just let him play his ass off.  I remember how cool I felt when older guitarist in my local scene started letting me get up to play with their bands, and it was fun paying that forward.  He's good - chops are decent, but he gets that rock is about the fucking show.  He may very well be a monster in another five years or so.

His rhythm guitarist's rig was fucked - a cheap strat knockoff through a Boss multi effects pedal and a Boss Katana.  I was playing my Friedman BE-50 through a VBoutique 2x12 Bogner cube style cab loaded with neo creambacks and playing @gwayne's old Hamer studio. I guess it's mine now, but I'll still alway look at it as his. Weird how guitars just get a hot hand some nights. For whatever reason, that one just felt extra right tonight, so my other guitar, my Shishkov, spent most of the night in the stand.  It's not the first time I've had a "Hamer" night and gigged these two together, but it has often gone the other way.  It's really funny how the exact same guitar with the same strings can feel pretty good one night but just fucking dead on amazing on another. 

Anyway, the kid asks if he can play my rig. I ask tell him, "Sure, just don't break my shit."  He promises he won't.  I give him the rundown of my board and footswitch, and he's off to the races.  At some point, they start doing Nirvana tunes, and I end up at the edge of the stage changing sounds for him. Why?  because I have all sorts of candy on the board - shit he didn't even know he wanted until an hour ago.  I told him to trust me to dial it in on the fly and that he should just have fun playing.  At one point, I clicked on a Triangle Big Muff with a Red Witch Chorus and a light Vibrato coming off a Fulltone pedal for the solo to "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and he looked down at me like I just separated the firmament from the waters.  

He gets done playing, hands me back my guitar and says, "This guitar and this rig is fucking amazing... just amazing!"

Poor kid is well on his way to crippling GAS I fear, but at least it was me who gave him his first taste. 

Anyway, it's really been a lot fun and has made me helluvalot less cynical about these danged kids these days!  Thought I'd share.  It ain't all bad out there. 

Way to pass down the affliction, brother.  I play about five times a year up here in Volusia County.  Guys come up and ask me about gear and tone every time.  We do have something to pass down, even if it isn't our "chops".

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