The crowds came out to the Living Room’s weekly open mic tonight. Roz King, Keith Lewis, Gilligan hat-wearing Dom, and a number of others turned out for a solid night of music. Willie Tapps even brought along a tuba player to help him out. It turns out the tuba’s sound and style are a natural companion for Willie’s music. For the second time I caught Sarah’s act covering bands like the Cure and Counting Crows. She’s only 15 or 16 and plays guitar about as good as I do now and sings a hell of a lot better.
I played “Why Now Satan,” “I Hope I Die on the Moon,” and my latest cover, Nirvana’s “Serve the Servants.” I’ve known how to play the song for years, but the way Nirvana does it is a little too intricate for me to sing and play acousticly. I decided to modify it a little and the melody holds up surprisingly well with the shortened chord progression. My version only uses the Bmin7 and the Emin7 during the verse and replaces the F# and E by playing the first two chords again. Kurt Cobain’s version has a much different feel to it, but I think mine comes out more fun as a solo act. Thanks go out to Kevin, Adam, and Joanne for stopping by.
If anyone’s interested Roz King is setting up a new recording studio. Here’s the contact info:
Roz King-Engineer
The Farm Studio/Workshop
422 Ongs Hat Rd
Southampton, NJ 08085
(609) 346-1190
Comments
2 responses to “Open Mic Recap @ The Living Room”
Nice job last night, Ben! I particularly enjoyed “I hope I die on the moon”. That was pretty darn cool. What kind of tuning did you use?
Thanks for the kind words about my tuba playing. Willie and I met during rehearsals for The Music Man, which is when he told me it was literally a dream of his to play “Cakewalk into town” (by Taj Mahal) with a tuba player. I’m glad to have been able to do that with him! He’s a great guy and a lot of fun to play with. We played it a couple of times backstage on closing night and it was a big hit then as well. In fact, The Living Room felt a lot like the backstage area since so many cast members came out to see us. Thanks guys!
Thanks for stopping by the site. “I Hope I Die on the Moon” uses standard tuning.
The Willie fan club really turned out last night and that’s good because it’s been kind of slow lately at the Living Room.