The Wood ‘n’ Lips Open Mic Newsletter

Hidey Ho Neighbor,

Another day in Paradise; we had some really good performers show up early, so I knew it would be a good night.  The performers were awesome, although the audience was slightly sparse.

I’ve been asked about the availability of Wood ‘n’ Lips t-shirts; I guess it depends on if we have enough interest to do a print run.  If you think you would like one let me know, they’ll probably run about $15.00.

6:30 Wood ‘n’ Lips: We were gearing up for a gig in a couple of weeks at the Water Conservation Gardens, so we did a set of Randy Sparks’s “Today”; Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman”;  Neil Sedaka’s “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”; Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”; The Everly Brothers’ “Bye, Bye Love”; and The Kingston Trio’s “M.TA”.

6:45 Jake Messig: A friend of Blake Sapp’s, and a first timer, played City and Colour’s “The Death of Me”; Thousand Folk Krutch’s “This is a Call”; and City and Colour’s “The Girl”.

7:00 Blake Sappington:  Played a couple of his own new tunes, “There’s No Harm”; and “The New One” (song); and wrapped with a cover of Kings of Leon’s, “Use Somebody”—very well done, I might add.

7:15 Anthony Guzman & Christian Gallardo: Were back again, for two weeks in a row.  They did Oasis’s “Wonderwall”; Stone Temple Pilots’ “Plush”; The Foo Fighters’ “My Hero”; and a quick version of U2’s “With or Without Me”.

7:30 John Movius: Brings his own vintage amp and attachments (like a vintage Echo-plex), daisy-chained to achieve the sound he likes, I think he brings in more equipment than we do.  He started with what he called “a home-made surf tune jam” with Greg Gross; the next tune he did at the request of Bob Arsenault, who wasn’t here, The Shadow’s “Apache”; and ended with Dick Dale’s “Banzai Washout”.

7:45 David Jones with Greg Campbell:  David announced the First Annual Crest Music Festival on November 12^th, they’ll be raffling off a Taylor solid body guitar.  He and Greg did what he called “Something in D”; Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis”. Greg adds sweet leads to David’s picking, they’ve been doing it since childhood.  They finished with The Allman Brothers’ “Sweet Melissa”

8:00 Emerald Chen: Is an a’ cappella singer of Chinese tunes; the first was her own composition, the second came from a popular Chinese movie, and the third was “Viva la France”, the French National Anthem, in Chinese. She finished with a fourth song, I’m afraid I wasn’t able to catch, or decipher, the names of most of her tunes.

8:25:  The Pony Tales: Were two-strong with Doreen and Mary, Lynda was absent.  They played an old-time number, “Mighty High”, dedicated to the memory of Doreen’s father-in-law, who liked it a lot; Bruce Springsteen’s “If I Should Fall Behind”; and Doreen’s “Descanso’s Home to Me”.

8:30 Bob Wilson: Brought back the early twentieth-century with “You Have to Get Out and Get Under” and it’s reference to that new-fangled automobile; “Keep Your Eye on the Old Back Seat”; Vincent Brian and Irving Berlin’s “Woodman, Woodman, Spare That Tree”

8:45 Gregory Martin Campbell: Did his cool versions of Patsy Cline’s “Someday You’ll Want Me to Want You” and “Crazy” (written by Willie Nelson); Pure Prairie League’s “Amy”—a tune that is impossible not to sing-along with; and Gerry and the Pacemakers’ “Ferry Across the Mersey”.  Rose gave up one of her tunes to hear him play Eddie Haywood’s “Canadian Sunset”.

9:00 Rose Scibelli: Started with an Irish lament called “Sweet is the Melody”;  Mark Knopfler’s “Love and Happiness”; and finished with Stephen Stills’ “Helplessly Hoping”.

9:15 Ricky Ruis:  Ricky is hosting the open mic at Cosmo’s in La Mesa, they take place on Tuesdays from 7:00 pm, with time slots of two songs or ten-minutes. He played a song off his CD, “After the Rain”; followed by Jerry Reed’s “The Clock”; Sting’s “Fields of Gold”; and the Chordettes’ (bet you didn’t know that) “Mr. Sandman”.

If you weren’t there, you missed another stellar evening.  Come on by, and God bless.  See you soon.

, Greg Gross, and the Wood ‘n’ Lips open mic crew