Music
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Last night’s open mic
Not so good. I couldn’t hear my guitar in the monitors, and my playing was a bit off because of it. It was a noisy, but nice crowd. The previous act was having problems too. Evidently the problems were only noticeable to me. I did the usual material.
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Friday rapid fire
- Reno 911 is popular in Iraq of all places. It seems they think it’s real.
- A nice collection of flatpicking tablature, all in Tabledit format.
- Hounddog Radio seems cool.
- View System Uptime.
- A nice article on using curves and levels in Photoshop.
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Recording attempts
Last night I attempted to record four flatpick tunes, and eventually to create a Steve French, Musician site on MySpace. I was unable to get the recording levels right on three of them (I blame the Samson digital pre-amp) and I can’t seem to get the musician page set up right on MySpace.
In any case, one of them did turn out okay; the volume level is very low (just like me!) but it’s not terrible.
I played Cooley’s Reel, which is an old Irish fiddle tune in E-Minor. I do it a bit faster than it’s normally done, but I think it turned out okay. I originally heard this song done by Steve Kaufman, but the actual music I got from BluegrassGuitar.com. I do both lead and rhythm on the song.
You can download it here (right click and choose “Save As” (Command-Click on the Mac)).
Thoughts?
UPDATE: Eric remixed it for me, which helped the volume levels a lot. The file is updated.
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Another open mic night done
Due to the small number of entrants, I wound up doing six songs. They were “Walkin’ Cane”, It’s Raining Here This Morning”, “Red Clay Halo”, “Ruby Ridge”, “Blackjack County Chain” and “Tin Foil and Stone”. Tin Foil and Stone was the new song for the week. I think I’m going to work in a Guy Clark song for next week.
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Last night’s open mic
It went well. I did Red Clay Halo, Walkin’ Cane, Ruby Ridge, Blackjack County Chain, and a new (to me) Tom Waits song.
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Quick zinger roundup
- “George W. — We will be forever in his debt.” (Bumper sticker quoted on Andrew Sullivan’s site)
- “If he was shot in the head by the front, that is good marksmanship, if he was shot in the head by the back, that is good judgement.” (from the WikiPedia entry on the outlaw and gunfighter John Wesley Hardin)
- “like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car”
and
“like how you’d sound if you drank a quart of bourbon, smoked a pack of cigarettes and swallowed a pack of razor blades… Late at night. After not sleeping for three days”
(people describing the singing voice of Tom Waits)
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The open mic night went well
I was quite pleased with my performance and the response. It’s reassuring to hear yourself through the monitors. I did “Raining Here This Morning”, “Red Clay Halo”, “Walkin’ Cane”, and “Blackjack County Chain”. I could have slowed them all down a tad, but on the whole, I’m pretty happy. A good first real open mic night.
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Yet another gallery
My black and white phase continues with my visit to the Oakhurst Earth Day celebration. It was dark and I forgot the new monopod, so the photos turned out a bit grainy. I decided to accentuate the grainyness in most of the photos via photoshop. -
The article I referred to at lunch
Where did I have lunch? What was the reference?
These things are a mystery. However, here is the article
Man accused of diverting others’ mail to himself
A man was charged with using scores of change-of-address forms to divert mail from all over the nation to his address in Beaver County.
Federal prosecutors this week charged Fred Hill of Aliquippa with wire fraud, accusing him of diverting mail from people both living and dead.
Postal inspectors said in court records that when they entered an Aliquippa home where Mr. Hill had stayed, they found “a significant volume” of abandoned mail along with lists of Social Security numbers and names of people in California, Georgia and Arkansas.
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Since January, Fred Hill had used the Postal Service’s Web site to file 170 change-of-address forms since January, authorities alleged in court records. The same credit card had been used to pay the $1 charge for filing change-of-address forms online, they said.170!
On another note, Ralph of Luttrell Guitars did a wonderful job installing the new FishMan pickup.
That’s been my day so far.
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An interesting evening at Mulligans open mic night
Last night I attended the Mulligans Acoustic Thursdays event. While not really geared for me (I like the strict structure and announced keys of bluegrass) it wasn’t bad. I basically played with Matt Greenia and various members of the Sour Mash band for a few hours. While I am not a fan of the jam band sound, they do actually get up and play out, which is nice. I did figure out Me and Bobby McGee for this girl from the crowd to sing.