For the Love of Mic: Wood 'n' Lips Newsletter

Hi all,

We had received some welcome publicity through an article in The Reader about open mics; it was a bit of a quirky article, but I guess we came out sounding better than most of the other venues they covered.  I’m pleased that they portrayed us as a friendly group that’s generous with applause.  You might want to pick up a copy to check it out.

The “For Love of Mic Music Festival” received an enthusiastic response—it’s going to be a great show with some awesome talent, mark your calendar for July 16th.

6:30 Tim Woods: As the evenings host, I led off and attempted to play a tune I had just dusted off, called “Hey There Delilah” (The Plain White T’s); it didn’t take me long to discover it needed some more dusting, so I aborted and went to the next tune.  That was “The Water is Wide”; which I followed with Jud Strunk’s “A Daisy a Day”; Tom Paxton’s “The Last Thing on My Mind”; Hank William’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart”; and Patsy Cline’s “The Wayward Wind”.

6:45 Sandy & Ralph Lowe: Ralph chose not to do a set of his own, so they paired up for “Gull’s Flight”; “Bag of Spuds”; “Across the Great Divide”; “A Soulin’”, and “Black Nag”.

7:00 Bob Cool & Bob Arsenault, with Greg Gross on bass: Rolled out a set of “My Blue Ridge Mountain Home”; “The Arizona Waltz”; “Up Jumped the Devil”; and Bob Cool’s composition, “San Diego Breakdown”.

7:15 Tom Towns:  Played for us for the first time on his $60.00 Goya guitar, which sounded pretty good, as he did his set of mostly his own originals.  They were: “All The Funny Shoes”; “Another Cell Phone Son”; and “She’s Always Dressed in Black”. He ended with Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey”

7:30 Greg Gross: Added some fun into the evening with Jim Stafford’s “I Don’t Like Spiders & Snakes”; Fred Kohler’s“God’s Gift to Women”; Dave Gates’ “If”; and the traditional “Danny Boy”.

7:45 Les Armstrong with Roger Hale on Bass: Les is as heck of a good country picker and Roger is an all-around good musician, he added bass to Les’s set.  They did Waylon Jennings’ “Good Hearted Woman”; Merle Haggard’s “Ramblin’ Fever”; John Schneider’s (The Dukes of Hazard Star) “I’m Going to Leave You Tomorrow”; Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”; and Sonny James’ “Eleven Roses”.

8:00 Travis Cronan, (Jennifer Firebaugh & Travis Murphy):  Played his own composition he calls “Stoopid Song”; followed by Slightly Stoopid’s “Collie Man”; Jennifer Firebaugh stepped in to play her own, “Dance With Me”; then Travis Murphy jumped in to finish the set with Slightly Stoopid’s “Somebody”.

8:15 Pamela Reinagel, with Dan Strum on guitar: Attempted Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown”, it didn’t seem to be working for her so she bailed and instead went to Townes Van Zant’s “If I Needed You”; followed by a more successful try at “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown”; then the traditional “St. James Infirmary”; and Fred Neil’s “A Little Bit of Rain”.

8:30 Dan Strum: Is a big Townes Van Zant fan, so for his premier performance for us, he did “Pancho & Lefty”; then his own tune he just refers to as his cancer song, a sobering tune written while sitting and waiting for chemo; and Sarah Azzera’s “It Takes a Lot”.  With another biopsy the next day, he was in a reflective mood—our prayers are with him.

8:45  John Movius: Drafted Greg Gross to join him, they did Ricky Nelson’s “Garden Party”; Marty Robbins’ “Singing the Blues”; Buddy Holly’s “Every Day”; and The Beatles’ “All My Lovin’”.

9:00 Moon Shine, previously the Jordan Blake Band (Jordan Lucero & Blake Sappington, plus Curtis, & Josh): Shook the walls with two guitars, a beat box and a rain stick; They did Mumford & Sons’ “Awake My Soul”; City & Colour’s “Sleeping Sickness”; Good Old War’s “Coney Island” (DADGAD); Augustana’s “Fire”; and Local Natives’ “Who Knows, Who Cares”.

Greg Gross: Agreed to close the evening with “The Old Mother Tongue”; John Denver’s “Country Roads”; and Dale Evans’ “Happy Trails”.

It was a good show with some new-comers and lots of talent on display, who can ask for more?

God Bless and have a good week.

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