NEW DATES --- Open Mic at Sonic Junction, Feb 14th - Feb 24th

It's time for Open Mic!

We're having our 5th Sonic Junction Open Mic on Feb 14th. 

Open Mic is a time to share your music with the Sonic Junction community. Post a video of yourself playing your favorite tune--it can be a song you wrote, something you learned here at Sonic Junction or elsewhere, or a tune you're enjoying at the moment. It's a great chance to share what's on your mind -- inspire and be inspired!

From Feb 14th to Feb 24th, post your videos here.

PLEASE WAIT UNTIL FRIDAY, Feb 14th TO POST YOUR VIDEO.

We decided to wait an extra 2 weeks so we could have replies to video posts in the Forum.  This will allow us to better organize Open Mic by keeping all of the comments with their respective videos.  

Drop me an email or let me know via the Contact Us page if you have questions or need help editing or posting your video.

Looking forward to some good music!

Mike

This was my first time trying to record something, Thanks to my buddy Steve I learnded a lot and I believe I got a hang of it. Rhythm was not in sync, boy it was difficult.

Please leave some comments!!

Hy all,

recently I've been workin on this tune...Hope you enjoy it!!!

As usual i take to post to speak after my video... This is a short version of Can't Be satisfied. I would have had more time to work on it but i go tomorrow on vacation and came back after the end of the open mic... My voice wasn't strong too because i had a flu and i still was a little sick. But that the game :) hope you'l enjoy !

JD

Very neat playing, love it! I can never use my thumb like that :)

Hi everyone,

just wanted to say hello! I lurking around here using a guest account for quite some while now, but I living in Ghana comes with some Internet challenges... this might be remedied soon, however, so that I can fully join. Tempted by the nice playing showcased here, I hereby post my take on Freddi King's/Sonny Thompson's "Hideaway" as I learned it from German Blues guitarist Norbert Roschauer (he arranged it for Fingerstyle guitar and obviously it should be played on an acoustic guitar which I don't have)... just posted it somewher else but felt it fits better here, if you don't agree because I'm still not a full member, please don't hate, just throw me out - will join asap ;)

Greetings,

T.

I am still ensconced in this "classic" motorhome, getting more classic by the minute as I am getting more "vintage."  Been in a freeze here and it's close quarters so I cannot play loudly.  Tricky being as expressive as one wants to be at such subtle volume but here goes anyway.  I'm having a problem uploading large files here so this is very low res.

This first video is actually a pre-blues song by Leadbelly that I have always loved, called "In the Pines."  It dramatizes a dilemma facing a young black woman who has lost her husband in an accident working in one of the many travelling railroad work camps that littered the American landscape for a hundred years.  These camps employed laborers, but also skilled workers and even the camp bosses ("Cap'n") and their families as well.  The camps moved with the tracks and were frequently far from anyone's home, or even civilization and accidents were common; both in the camps themselves and out on the tracks.  The song is about a young woman whose husband has been killed and finds herself homeless but for a proposition from the Cap'n.  It's a tale of her resistence to coercion.  The socio-economic context of the song has long been forgotten and so I think it is not very well understood and rarely sung.  It is a difficult song to do as it is really a "call and answer" and I have always thought it should be done as a duet, although I have never heard it done as a duet.  There is reference to a "driving wheel", which was the largest wheel on a locomotive and carried the power of the steam engine to the tracks.  This wheel frequently collected debris, animal and even human body parts.  Cap'ns in these camps had virtually life and death authority over their employees.  There is an old work song that has a great lyric about a roustabout who has to wake up the laborers every day by slamming a crow bar against their bunks and screaming at them: "When I hollar, you want to fight.  But when the Cap'n hollars, you say 'all right.'" 

This is a Bukka White inspired version of Fixin to Die - played on an old  Gibson 12 string strung with only nine strings, with a vintage  De Armond pickup run through a small Roland Acoustic amp.  I am a Big Joe Williams fan and have always thought I could try and emulate his style (nine strings) by using a 12 string and only using 9 strings.  I finally found a photo of him late in his career actually playing a 12 string with only 9 strings so I thought, maybe that wasn't too crazy an idea.  This guitar's frets and action are not in very good shape so I had to lighten up on the strings a bit, thus the pickup and amp.  So this is a Big Joe Williams setup but I'm playing  Bukka White.  Usually play this on a reso but wanted to see how this sounded.

This is a sort of contemporary country blues style version of the traditional Cocaine Blues - and done "tongue-in-cheek" so to speak. That means,since everybody here is a very upstanding clean living individual and don't know anything about drugs, you will not understand any of the jokes.  About half the lyrics are original, the rest traditional with a couple credited to Dave Van Ronk who sort of inspired this version.

@JD and Mike....thanks for the compliments....I'm tryin to work more on singing too and I'm enjoyin playin with two fingers only!!!

@Peter....I'm serious....you've got a lot of creativity..I'll wait for the next chapter and the rendition of gee baby is modern but respectfull of the origanal too...the thing that I like most...

@Vinny..where are you now!!?!?!?nice to see your videos and read your post...It's rare to know real troubadours!!!!

I like your version of "in the pines"...there's some flamenco feeling in it!

I fortunately don't know much about drugs...just herb..if it can be considered a drug..what you mean about the jokes in cocaine blues??? Just a few examples...I don't know much about the song...It sounds like a person that had problems with cocaine and suggest others to avoid use of it! I mean...gary davis version

Peter - I like this - very Kurt Weill - lots of tension - the performance combined with the selection of graphics creates a subtle tension.  I'm always drawn to things like this - very creative.

Alex - nice playing and singing - you get more confident and expressive with every video.  Thanks for the comment on the Leadbelly song.  You know I don't play flamenco but I love it - very dramatic and percussive and a lot of similarities to early Delta styles in that respect. 

That comment about "not getting the jokes" - that was actually a joke in itself.  In the US where Cocaine has been a phenomenon since the beginning of the last century and even earlier, if you play in a bar people usually do get the jokes.  Cocaine was actually legal here until the 20's, and was even an ingredient in the original Coca Cola and lots of other consumer products.  Doctors used it too - very popular medicine - it always made you feel better for a while and you always wanted more.  It was always a notorious substance as addicts become impervious to it's damaging effects and are not discouraged from continuing to rely on it.  It is taken through the nose and can cause irrepairable damage to the sinuses and mucous membrane.  Even Muddy Waters had a song called Reefer and Champagne, where he sang "give me reefer and champagne - but NO cocaine. 

There was a highly publicized epidemic in the 70's and 80's with the invention of "crack" - a highly concentrated version of the drug.  Gary Davis' version of course is dark, because the drug always had a dark reputation even when it's use was not widespread.  I wanted to do something different.  Dave Van Ronk was a student of Gary Davis, and when he sang that lyric "my mucous membrane is just a memory" he got a huge laugh in clubs in New York.  Cocaine was in wide scale use in New York even in the 60's.  Gary Davis actually stopped playing the song and eventually he stopped playing all blues and ragtime and only played spiritual songs.  So the song is satirical, about a guy who keeps rationalizing his way out of misery, poverty, disability and imminent death to keep taking the drug. I don't think there is much familiarity with cocaine in Europe.  At the height of the modern epidemic It was the drug of choice for the rich and famous as well as the rich and not so famous - and the income of plastic surgeons soared as a result of all the damage done to the nasal passages.  Cocaine is literally a drug used by gamblers to make race horses run faster. 

I am right now in between Austin and Houston Texas - sort of meandering looking for a place to relocate, but I want to get the feel of some places before I decide where to relocate.  I was in Austin and played a few places there but they had an unprecedented freeze in the weather and the city shut down and it became impractical to hang out.  I'm riding the weather out at the moment - and today is actually the first
sunny tolerable day in weeks.  Houston, though looks like a very good place for traditional blues -- home of Lightnin Hopkins - and lots of support to musicians from bar and club owners.  But I might meander to New Orleans and beyond.  I don't know.  I left California too soon though - it's been warm there - but I wanted to be here in the Spring. 

JD -- nice playing -- very clean - I admire that - I am not in a very clean phase these days myself but I still appreciate it.  That looks like a very nice action because I don't notice you having to do an extraordinary amount of damping.  I will have to take a look at the Gretsch resos I haven't seen one.  But I like the tone.  Yes I have a 12 fretter too -- they are great for big sound and older material really -- if you want to play this or other Muddy Waters era stuff it is a bit easier on a 14 fretter. But for the older material the 12 fretter I think has the bolder vintage sound.  But you do such a good job one does not really notice any handicap there. 

Here's another video....a classic blues in A....I like Eric Bibb version! :)

 A little run through on a Charlie Christian tune for y'all. I am obviously in need of a lot of lessons from Duke Robillard!

Greetings from Philadelphia...i wrote this at breakfast the other day when we lost power; this song took me only ten minutes to write, but ten years to live

Alex - yes the big thing here appears to be meth and coming fast heroin which is its way into maintstream all-American neighborhoods and communities.  In my travels I have heard that all the traditional moonshiners (mountain stills making home made liqour) are now making meth.  I have spoken to a lot of older motorhome vagabonds too who are looking for a place to build a house and retire and they can't find any place that is free of drug trafficing.  Recently a young relative died of a heroin overdose who could only be described as the All American Boy - went no place but school, church and played sports for his short life, in what can only be described as a very conservative community.  By the way, nice Blues in A. 

TJ - my sympathies.   I have lived long enough to see the full circle of this higher education marketing campaign.  In my day we had a lot of PhD's who were driving cabs.  They don't tell you that if you have a PhD in British History that there are about five teaching jobs a year that open up in the entire country and about 30,000 applicants.  The educational loan system started as part of the defense budget, to help prevent a "brain drain" during the Cold War.  But now it's become a means for colleges and universities to market an endless array of useless degrees at higher and higher tuitions.  On the other hand, every plumber I know has a nice truck.  There are so few good jobs out there now for young people it is not only discouraging but frightening to think about their futures.  Here's a tip for you though -- due to the advancement in technology (that's what they call it) they are now finding that at current crude oil prices a lot of old oil wells are gold mines.  In Midland Texas, San Antonion, Texas and North Dakota - there is a legitimate "BOOM" -- people are going there from all over the country to work in the oil fields - of all ages. In Midland they are paying fifteen dollars an hour at McDonalds and Walmart.  This opportunitity comes along about once or twice every thirty years.  You can sleep in a van and pay off your loans in a year there.  Also, learn some skills you can take with you that always pay good wages.  You will have to be creative and get out and see the world as it is and sieze the opportunities that are there.  It's scary really - all the young people I do see working, are working jobs that have poor benefits, no pensions, mediocre pay and they spend all the money they do make on cell phones and fast food with no eye to the future at all.  I grew up with the promise that you could actually get a good job and keep it and retire.  That is now like a faint echo from pre-history.  But I do believe it is possible to get off the grid - live independently and on the cheap and save most of the money you can make.  I believe in education, but as an example, if you read the letters and diaries of Civil War soldiers on both sides, you will find they all had a better command of the English language and history and better writing skills and broader vocabulary than today's average college graduate - and none of them did anything more than attend a one room country school possibly through the fifth or sixth grade.  There is an old Scottish saying that every man needs a job, a hobby and a sport.  I think most higher education today falls in the category of hobby. 

Alex - I see another guitar in the background - looks interesting - what is it?

Alex Barbera knows... The Gibson J-45 is easily the BEST accoustic guitar for blues work ever, but do they cost...?!

@Vinny and Tom....that guitar is an epiphone el 00...I would really love to have a J45..and it's true..is very good also for blues even if I prefer old gibson L00 or L1 and the reissues are nice too..it depends..as every guitar is product per se..then same model, woods etc but one can sound better than another...the thing that I really can't stand is the price this gibson guitars have nowdays..people like old bluesman played this guitar as they were the cheapest...Robert Johnson loved Stella and Kalamazoo...I love Kalamazoo...let's not consider inflation...but I think that guitars could cost the nowdays kind of 100/150$? In a guitar shop hear in Bologna you could buy a J45 for 1500 euros....

my epiphone is cheap and it's a fair one....solid spruce top and mahogany back and sides...laminate.....and it's good to learn...with this nowdays gibson it's "easy" to have a nice sound...with this epiphone you have to discover a lot of things..Corey played my guitar in his concert here in Sardinia and it sounded beautifull! See what I mean?? ;)

While the guitar I'm using in the video is a lovely Tanglewood parlour guitar....al solid wood...cedar top, mahogany backs and sides...it's well refined and it's really good for blues and even better for fingerpickin in general...I'm curious to listen how it wills sound next 10 years! In fact when you buy a guitar is important to take in consideration how it sounds now and how it will sound next years! 

Well... your guitar is still made from the same jigs as a J-45. My guess is that the old cheap guitars that were ordered from mail order catalogues in Mississippi in the old days probably were made from the same basic jigs too... There is just no better sounding accoustic guitar for blues playing than that one. Lightnin' Hophins and Johnny Shines both used them. Are you in Balognia...? My grandfather was born in Colladimezzo, Abruzzo. Immigratet to Ellis Island in 1880.

This is my favourite robert Johnson's song...I like especially the lyrics...for me,this is the best description of what is the blues

It has passed a lot of time since I've played it..so I'm not at my best...but it used to be one of the song people liked more in my gigs! :)

Hope you like it!