TJ's acoustic music club - Open Mic night - June 30th

Bob-Dubery · 2011-06-21T11:23:06+00:00

Date: Thursday June 30th 2011 Where: Marks Park sports club, Judith Road, Emmarentia, Johannesburg Time: Doors open 19:30 for 20:00 start Admission: R25 Drinks and hot meals available. TJ's provide a PA system. Friendly room. Friendly, supportive crowd. Performers get 3 numbers, maximum of 15 minutes. Preference is given to people who have not played at TJ's before. You know you want to do this ?

Bob-Dubery

Sorry... no time to do the pseudo blog thing tonight. Theoretically it's an easy job running the open mic night. It starts at 8, finishes 10:30 and the slots are 15 minutes. So 10 slots. Only thing is we had 12 acts turn up tonight. We started 5min early, I shortened my set and I cracked the whip early on and the performers took it well and got on and off the stage quickly. By 9:15 or so we were back on time. Two acts agreed to share a slot (more on that later) and we managed to conjure 15 minutes out of somewhere.

The GFSA roll call: Squonk, Deeftes, Jack Flash, Fingerpicker (as always, the hardest working man at TJs), X-rated Bob and one time member, gone but not forgotten, Stratisfear. Squonk, Stratisfear and XRB played. Fingerpicker did the sound.

We had our youngest ever performer tonight. A young lady named Una. Una is 8 years old. She had a lot of support - several of her class mates turned out to watch her. That was the shared set. She did 2 songs and then turned over to the guys who had been backing her.

We had an absolute first time performer - well apparently she had some experience playing to her dogs. Nechama Brodie. Played her own material and acquitted herself well.

I would like to embarrass Squonk at this point: He played well and he has some great things going for him - a good rapport with the audience, unique sound and compositions, and a lovely ring in his playing.

Ja. Nice evening. In the end it all worked out and everybody who wanted to play got to play. We had bluegrass, contemporary singer-songwriter stuff, the totally unique Squonk, folky favourites, blues meets raga on a lap steel...

I need to get some shut eye.

Bob-Dubery

Partial guitar roll call

Morgan OMR - X-rated Bob
Larrivee LV-05 - Stratisfear (actually my guitar that I loaned him and he played it well)
Squonk's Takamine which is a great sounding guitar (which I suspect is something to do with having a Squonk attached to it)
Martin D28 - John van Nierop
Martin D18, refinished in tobacco sunburst and with braces scalloped by Andy McGibbon - Hugh Cumming
National Tricone - Richard Bruyns

And it's not a guitar but it's way cool - Scott Baldauf's resonator mandolin.

Jack-Flash-Jr

That was a ten minute shut-eye!
The evening was fantastic, seriously worth checking out for the intimate and cool venue, diversity of acts and killer performances... not to mention friendly GFSA'ers! Bob's got a great ear for Thompsonesque performance (I wonder why) and brutally cut himself short just as I was getting into it. Luckily Squonk was up next with incredibly engaging compositions, nimble fingers and a wonderful sense of dynamics. I would buy the album. Really.
Stratisfear was as good as those who've seen him in a plugged setting would have expected, he also threw in a Shins number and a well received Kenny Loggins tribute (all part of the fun!). Fingerpicker did the sound proud what with a completely different set up every 10 minutes.
Bob covered the other artists already... a mixed bag, all entertaining, some quite mind-blowingly entertaining (open D lapsteel hypnosis!)
I took care of the beer drinking and Deeftes revealed himself to be quite the good looking fellow despite that avatar we see - I think he's playing next open mic?
Anyway, thanks Bob, you should open your own bar/venue.

deefstes

Yeah, that was a real lekker evening. Thanks to all parties involved, specifically XRB. I'm not going to give my own assessment of the various acts as well but I'll gooi in some pics. I enjoyed the evening, listening to some really good music and getting to meet a bunch of real pleasant GFSA'ers.

X-rated Bob kicking it off

Squonking the Takamine

Stratisfear

Una. I reckon she's gonna have a killer voice soon.

The Bluegrass assemblage. Sorry, can't remember their names. I really enjoyed these guys!

Richard sliding it out on his lap steel. Excellent piece this was!

Nechama with her unique songs. She was very nervous but totally without justification. I really enjoyed her singing.

And two more guys who's names I can't remember. Notice the special guitar on the left. Not only does the neck sprout out the wrong side of the body but it also has a cutaway for your chin and the strings are strung such that you have to strum it upwards. Your man there did a great job of it though.

Bob-Dubery

deefstes wrote The Bluegrass assemblage. Sorry, can't remember their names. I really enjoyed these guys!

From the viewer's left to right they are John van Nierop, Scott Baldauf and Hugh Cumming (of Hugh's Fine Guitars). Hugh is not blowing on his hands ? he is playing harmonica.

And two more guys who's names I can't remember. Notice the special guitar on the left. Not only does the neck sprout out the wrong side of the body but it also has a cutaway for your chin and the strings are strung such that you have to strum it upwards. Your man there did a great job of it though.

Chris Smith and Brian Deuchar. Chris can be alarming to the uninitiated. He plays upside down and in some tuning of his own devising. Note the Baggs M1 pickup he is using. That's a recent installation and I was impressed by the sound of that pickup.

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