9/14/2024

 It’s a band!! And I’m in it!!

Still doing the weekly at church but this new group has a monthly at the Home Club already and it’s pretty exciting. 

Tony and Scott from the jam and Fleet Street Blues, I filled in for Tony a yearish back  when he was out on tour. Anyway this other dude George moves back to the city and wanted to get something going. He and I got together once, then Scott and the two of us and it was done. We were doing something. 

Three guitars Tony on bass and Mike on drums. He’s a dude I played with a few times with Dave and he told me about the blues jam in the first place.  Blues jam. If you’d told me it would be the center of my musical life I would have said you were full of it. 

Pretty kick ass machine we’ve been working up. Mostly one or two chord blues songs and ten or so of my tunes. 

The gigs are three hours at the Home Club and I think generally people play three sets but we did two long ones and it was pretty great. We hit this extended version of my tune Splo that just killed. Not to mention any number of blues songs where the three of us knit our guitars over the bass and drums. We keep in our lanes but still react to everything else. Never did anything like this and it’s pretty damn cool. 

8/9/24

 I haven’t posted in a bit because there have not been a lot of updates. I’m playing every Sunday in church still but I’ve moved over to guitar as we expand the group. 

It’s pretty awesome! I loved playing bass but it’s really cool getting to throw down some slide early Sunday morning. We’ve also got some built in redundancy, Evander, the bass player is an incredible drummer and Tye the keyboard player can hold it down if needed. Of course I can bounce between bass and guitar if needed.  I honestly don’t care which I’m playing. I just want to play!!

We did a three day conference last week. So it was two services Sunday and one service each night after through Wednesday. With working the day job it was exhausting but a ton of good playing!

The next Sunday was the start of the month doe we had a bunch of new songs to learn for last Sundays service. Keeps my playing nice and tight. 

1/31/2024

 Last time with Dave (and Skizz)! At east until he comes back up here again on some kind of tour.  He is one of “those people” and there is a really good chance that is gonna happen some point in the nearish future. 

We were out in Rockville at a place called Hank Diedle’s.  It’s a nice little room, I’d never played there but Smitty was road managing for a group and they came through and we met up there. There were a load more people that night….

Anyway, we went up and did two rocking sets and the crowd was thin but enthusiastic, all that really matters. 

Nothing spectacular, just three dudes throwing down in a semi-empty place on a Wednesday night. Maybe not spectacular but pretty magical!

1/28/24

We were hoping to hear back from United Baptist but we did not. In fact we are still hoping but we haven’t yet. Didn’t stop Terelle from getting us another gig at another church. The man is motivated.  

This week it was United Heritage a place pretty close to my house and a really nice looking place with a bunch of incredibly sweet people. This is a theme. 

The music pastor (I think that is the correct title) is a woman named Jessica and when i met her she said “I’m a hugger, prepare”. How are not gonna like someone like that?!

There were just three of us playing, bass, drums and piano. And three singers! You could feel it in the next county. 

I am spacing on everybody’s  name but the piano player was a kick to play with. I sat right behind him and he was throwing fingers up so I was on the right chord. His left pinky meant “go to the six!”

Jessica was one of the singers and there were two other fellas as well (they were saying pre covid they had a full band/singers and horn section.  That would have been unreal to see. Better to play with!

Anyway we did  a total of five tunes that were all pretty groovy and felt good.  Everyone was in Ravens gear for the game they would eventually lose later in the day. I am not a sports fan or even a religious man, but I felt it all on that Sunday. Killed me when they lost.  

At one point one of the singers and I were talking he was saying “I really don’t like this modern gospel music, they are always going to the four… I do not like that”. I don’t even know if he is correct but I love that he feels that strongly about it!

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!