1/21/24

One of the drummers I mentioned in my post about the blues jam, Terelle has been talking about the two of us working as a rhythm section for church gigs. I’ve never played a church gig  but it is music and I am more than willing to give basically anything a shot. 

There were a few false starts but we finally got some stuff going lastt week, three sets in one day. Bring it Terelle!

I was up at 6am getting dressed and loading gear, picked up Terelle and headed to United Baptist Church near Hopkins.  First sermon at 7:45 second at 10. This was amazing.  Joe is the organist/musical director playing a full Hammond/Leslie set up! Just a standard keyboard for Tyrone. Both of these dudes can throw down. First rate players and a real joy to work with.  

I didn’t know any of the tunes and we semi walked through them before the first service. It goes like this. Mid tempo tune with some bounce as people are coming in. Slower tune while the preacher is warming them up. And by that I mean singing in a way that made me lose my place a couple of times because it was so good. I could feel it, everybody could feel it.  Just amazing. 

The third tune is when they pass the plate and it is a mover that is made to make them shake and we threw down on it. Then we sit out while the preacher is giving the sermon and we end it all with a mid tempo tune that makes the whole room (and the people online) feel warm and alive. 

I could talk about this for hours. The way the song has structure but sometimes we vamp here and sometimes there. How in the first sermon the preacher sang one part three times and eight in the next sermon. How sometimes we just stop then all jump in hard on the one 32 bars later. 

How we played the same four songs in both sermons but none of them felt the same.  

All of this and some of the kindest people who welcomed a stranger in and made me feel like a part of everything and then paid me!! Just amazing and I went home for a bit floating. 

Then around four we headed over to Sandtown-Winchester to play an anniversary celebration for this pastors 25th anniversary of preaching. 

This was for the Laborers for Jesus Church but we weren’t in that church, this was a community center in another part of town. I don’t know what is going on here I just go where Terelle tells me to go…       

Anyway the piano player/musical director was a real nice guy (but I can’t remember his name!!) and another top level player. We did a quick walk through two songs and it was time to go. 

We only played a total of three. The third was pretty straight forward so  it was fine without knowing it. And that was kinda it. The preacher preached. They fed everybody that came around and it was another real nice time with a lot of kind people.  

That is the short version of it all. I went from zero church gigs in my life to three in one day and it was beautiful. Tons of details I left out and I could talk about this for hours. We aren’t sure where we will end up but Terelle is working this and he is bringing me along and I am not gonna argue with the man. 

1/14/24

 Patrick sent me a file with nine tunes in it the day before I was gonna help them out. No rehearsal just get up and do it. I’d heard a few of them but never played any of them. This is my normal now. 

We were at the Polish Home Club for a benefit but upstairs in the big room and I’d never even seen up there before.  Huge. It is massive. No wonder they have big stuff like this up there and keep the blues jam out of it. We’d get lost up there and it would look empty. 

This was a memorial for a fella that I never met. A music scene guy that was semi- homeless and a fixture in the Fells Point scene. From the way he was described to me, if you hang out in any music scene you already know someone like him. Similar my buddy Lawrence from Austin that we lost a few years ago. Total mess of a person but a fried all the way. I can still hear his voice, “I love you fool!”  Miss that dude all the time. 

We went up early, my buddy Larry has been in this group for a while and I was grateful for him bing there. I needed a guide at a few points in the songs since I never played them. Larry would hold his guitar neck up so I could see where he was headed, probably made his arm tired by the end for having to do it so much. 

All in all it was pretty great. I was standing between the drummer and percussionist and those dudes were dead on. And I mean DEAD ON. They were so solid they were practically holding up a sign to give me the spot where I put my notes. Incredible and needed!

We did abut a half hour in total, nothing too crazy. I was just happy to learn some new stuff, play with some new folks and to be a part of the scene. 

1/12/24

 Dave is back in town while he and his family pack up their place to move back to central Texas. I’ll take a couple of gigs with him and Skizz if we can sneak them in!

Back at “home” playing 1919. Nichole wasn’t working (kinda poleaxed over that honestly. People I saw a couple of days later asked “where was Nichole”?) and it was a rainy-assed night with wet feet that never got dry. But the room was pretty full and stayed that way all night. 

We did two solid sets and it was the regular kinda fun. When we wrapped I noticed this guy named Patrick at the bar with his wife. He plays with my buddy Larry in “The Latin Band” if you’ve ever been lucky enough to talk to Larry about it. 

We start taking and he says “I need a bass player for a benefit we are playing Sunday, are you available?” But that is a story for another post!

11/12/23

 So late on this one…

This was supposed to be a repeat of the last 1919 show with Drew but at the Cats Eye, he ended up getting sick and we did this instead. What a weird night. 

“Hey Scott, why don’t you me and Tim do a few of my tunes at the top to burn some time before the rest of the Fleet Street guys can make it we finish with a Fleet Street show?”

“Good idea but let’s get a bass player for your stuff then we let Fleet Street take over. Oh and Buddy is gonna play harp with us the whole night”

And that is how I played some of my music for the fist time in Baltimore. Last minute,showing my tunes to the band onstage. 

Honestly it was pretty great. It would not have been my first choice but it was easy to just let things go and have fun with it. Felt good going down the list of tunes for the crowd. “Let’s see we did the one about killing that guy, the one about being naked, the one about boobs but we haven’t played the one about fucking yet”. 

Solid reaction. 

We wrapped that and I switched to bass and from there we just did a Fleet Street show. Lots of fun and I love playing with those guys!!