Marylou's 50th

Jan, Ginny, Dave, Harry

Our friend Marylou from the acoustic jam meetups just turned 50. (As an aside, Marylou has appeared on my blog before - we ran into each other at the Martin guitar tent at the Folk Fest and had an impromptu jam with their demo guitars.) She's a huge fan of music and jams and open mics, so her family and friends rented out a big room at the Thorndale Inn two Sundays ago and threw an open mic.

We went without any specific plans to play, but I took my acoustic/electric with me, just in case I found someone who wanted to do a few songs (and more importantly, could sing.) I found two such someone's almost immediately. Our friend Ginny had her guitar and her ukelele with her and was looking for someone to play with. Then we got talking with Jan, a mutual friend who runs the Monday night open mic at Jasmine Thai, and we were a threesome for the day.

We gathered in an unused dining room to pick songs and briefly rehearse. Ginny had a list of songs she'd been practicing, and I jumped at Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane." That's one of my favorite songs, and I know it well. We ran through the changes a few times and agreed on who'd play what. The ladies would both sing, and I'd take the guitar lead.

We had a bit of trouble settling on a second song. Jan wanted to do Lucinda Williams' "Drunken Angel." I didn't know the song, but she assured me it wasn't complicated, and taught me the chord pattern. It's a nice song with a simple progression. So we were good to go.

Marylou's friends had a PA and a sound system set up, and everyone sounded great. We ate and drank and talked and watched other people play. Then finally it was our turn. We set up and plugged in, the guy running the sound checked our levels, and we launched into the Neil Young - with our friend Harry playing blues harmonica with us. This was the first time I've had this guitar plugged into a real sound system, and it sounded fantastic (and was quite a rush.) Then it was the Lucinda Williams, with Jan singing and Ginny switching over to her uke.

I think it went great and it was a lot of fun. And I now have an open invitation to play at the Jasmine Thai on Mondays. I've got to see if I can make that happen.