Acoustic Jam, More Gigs

Sunday afternoon was October's acoustic jam meetup, and we were prepared with a new song, John Hiatt's "Gone". I'm not sure where she heard it, but Darling Wife recently brought home his "Crossing Muddy Waters" disc, and handed it to me with the comment, "I think you'll like it, it has a lot of mandolin on it."

She's right, I do like it, and it's a nice mix of guitar, slide guitar, and mandolin. We picked "Gone" to take to the jam because it's a fun, simple three-chord song with an opportunity for jamming in the middle.

My favorite song from the disc is "Before I Go", but I thought that might be too much for the meetup. I love it, and have been playing it on both the guitar and mandolin, and if I could sing at all, I'd take this to an open mic myself.

For the second straight month, I took both a guitar and a mandolin to the jam, and switched off depending on the song. Basically, I played mandolin whenever possible, going back to guitar for songs in unusual keys or with non-straightforward chord progressions. It worked out great, and I even accepted a nod to take a lead a few times - nothing fancy, but I can do a rudimentary lead that fits the song and key and sounds okay. I'll be doing this at all meetups to come.

After the jam, a bunch of us decided to continue the festivities at Molly Maguires, a new Irish pub in Downingtown. They have live traditional Irish music on Sunday evenings, and it was fun to have a meal and a cold beverage and listen to some music with good folks. It's been declared a new post-jam tradition.

Acoustic band practice was postponed last week, but we'll gather again this week. We've settled on some new songs to work on - and we have two more gigs confirmed. We have two Saturday nights (11/16 and 12/21) at the West End Alley in Pottstown. We also have some confirmed dates for the St. Peter's Bakery in 2014.

Amusingly, the West End asked for a band picture to put on a promotional poster, and we gave them the cowboy hat pic from the Folk Fest. It's a good pic of everyone (and the best smile you're likely to get out of me), but I hope people don't see it and expect to hear cowboy music!