Brew's and Blues Practice Log

[Rick]

Holey Moley Brown Ale Guy, did this just happen last weekend.

How are you doing now?

[Eric Stahl]

Hello Brown Ale Guy,

It's good to hear that you're on your feet and not badly injured. Life has a way of jolting us, out of the blue. Watching our children growing into adulthood makes it all good. So does playing the Blues 

-Eric

[Beelzebob]

I smell a song out of this....it could be like a long, talky Arlo Guthrie thing, or a good old blues of some sort.  Anyway, hope you're okay, get checked out to make sure. 

BZB

[Brown Ale Guy]

Stil sore, but yes, I'm OK. Beelze, interesting that you commented about about the Arlo Guthrie thing. Was hugely influenced by him many years ago. I sent this same diatribe to a friend in town who was thinking just like you apparently, because he read this out loud on Thursday at a poetry reading in a bar while another guy plucked away at Alice's Restarant on the guitar. I wasn't there, but he said in an e-mail that it was a big hit.

[htrain]

Holy shit Marty - so glad to hear you are 'OK".Something like this does bring things onto perspective and makes you realize how vulnerable we are. Yeah, road riding is dangerous with those drivers that just don't see cyclists!! (and to be fair, those cyclists that don't bother with the rules of the road). My only bike accident was on the mountain trails and trying to take on a windrow (logs piled up for later burning) that had been set up at a right hand turn that I tried to take too fast. Broken wrist and ribs with stitches on my leg made me realize I was going too fast. But unlike your situation, I only had myself to blame.

Take care, get better and keep watching out for those drivers that don't watch out for others. I hope he at least paid for bike repairs and any other bills you were faced with. Man, having seen a few of those uglies, I am just glad your story had a reasonably good ending.

[Brown Ale Guy]

Wow and now I know that I am old. My eldest daughter is getting married next Saturday. I could do a whole diatribe about a whole lot of stuff about that, most of it positive and we are very excited and really like the future son-in-law (even if he is from Wisconsin. Sorry, Ringer. Might get to do some salmon fishing with him in Lake Michigan next year), but most of it has nothing to do with harmonica. The harmonica part comes now.

Somehow I agreed as father of the bride to sit in on harp with the band on a couple of songs. Right now I am scheduled for: Long Train Running and Johnnie B Goode. I also want to sit in on Mustang Sally. Tricky part is these are three songs that I've never played and I've never met the band. There will be a couple of hundred people there that have never heard me play harp and of course many are soon to be relatives that have no idea that I even play harp.

Suggestions?

Big smiles just checking in with you guys.

[Beelzebob]

LOL, I was fine the first 200 times someone asked if I could play Long Train Running.  After that I had no tolerance.  If I were you, I would tell the band to play a blues shuffle and do your thing.  Or a third position minor, you're great at that.  Let them hear some good harp, not Doobies, Billy Joel, Love Me Do, or whatever people think is harmonica playing.  When they asked if I could play that stuff, I would blow the solo from Pack Fair and Square and their jaws would drop (well, sometimes). 

But if I had to pick something that was a hit, I'd pick Canned Heat's On the Road Again, Zeppelin's Levee or the Doors Roadhouse Blues.  And run a Lone Wolf pedal into the PA. 

Yeah I was a grumpy young harper, and worse now.  ;  )

[Ringer]

I'm with Bob.  Ask them to play some Blues your comfrotable with.  if they are any good, they can play most anything.  And then sit back and wail away!!  And don't forget, I'm originally from Minnesota!!

[Rick]

You are paying them.  And as Daddy of the bride, the closer you get to the wedding, the less time there will be to do anything.   So, have them play some blues you already know.

[Steamrollin Stan]

Just did a st in the open mike to one of my fav bt's by Floppy, mess about, listen if you wish to.

[Rick]

Hi Brown Ale Guy,

How did the wedding "gig" go?   

Your daughter is married now.

[Steamrollin Stan]

Ever noticed how our 'style' is regular, like i can pick many players here without knowing who they are by name, ..just listen and i seem to work out by the repeat's and playing, i seem to have got into this 'thing'...sometimes 3rd pos is a mix n match of an Aussie song mixed with some 3rd pos stuff from Ronnie Shellist...but to my ears it seems to work, an observation is all this is, ..