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

Stop by the Wood ‘n’ Lips Open Mic at Frubble every Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

Hi All,

As I’m typing (keyboarding) this, I’m contemplating attending a Wednesday night meeting of the San Diego Mandolin Orchestra to check it out; Carol Knudsen tells me it’s a great way to learn to play the mandolin. 

Actually, I’ve been on an odyssey this week, trying to see how many music events I can attend while my wife is out of town for a couple of weeks—in fact I wrote a tune to that effect.  Saturday night I went to Valley Music’s open mic, saw a lot of friends, and played.  Sunday I led the song circle at the Folk Song Society’s monthly meeting; I took Monday off and spent the evening with my adult children (Is that an oxymoron?); and last night (Tuesday) I went to Cosmos open mic in La Mesa, where I also saw quite a few people I knew.  Wish me luck—I have a week-and-a half to go.  By the way, people seem to like my new song which I titled “Two-week Party Animal”.

The crowd gathered early this last week at , and it was a good one—both performers and audience alike.  The evening got off to a quick start.

6:30 – Alan Land – Alan played a few of his originals; a recently written song called, “I’d Rather be Alone with You”; then, “Really Not Over You”; “Johnny, Don’cha Know?”; and “Coyote Choir”.  He started out with an old English sea ballad, “The Bold Fisherman” (Twink-a-doodle-dum).

6:45 – Cliff Niman – Returned to our stage after a couple of weeks as an audience member.  After reminiscing about San Diego’s musical past, when people like Jackson Browne and Steve Martin were active in the area, he played a recording from the days of his coffee house, the Candy Company.  It was a college student named Jack Tempchin, debuting an original he titled “Peaceful Easy Feeling”.  After that Cliff had enough time left to sing one of his originals, “Knowing You as Just a Friend”.

7:00 – Mitch Wilson – Mitch had a miniature six-string called a guitarlele.  It sounded great and he didn’t have any problem playing it well, as he demonstrated with a set of his originals including; “Sunday in the Park”; a medley of tunes he wrote to play for his kids  at bedtime, “The Sandman Rag”, “The Goodnight Song” and “Go to Bed”.  He followed those with “Sing a New Song”; then a partially written new tune, “What Your Love Has Done”; and the praise tune, “Holy, Holy, Holy”.

7:15 – Rebekah Williams – Becky mentioned that she has been learning new songs; she demonstrated with Sarah McLachlan’s “Sweet Surrender”; she also did Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind”; Israel Kamakawewo Oli’s “What a Wonderful World/Somewhere Over The Rainbow”; and Dolly Parton’s “Backwoods Barbie”;

7:30 – Bob Arsenault, Tom Barbarie, Gregory Gross, and Les Armstrong – Bob recruited his own band out of the audience.  They played “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” in memory of Earl Scruggs, who has just passed; then they did “Blue Ridge Mountain Home”; Woody Guthrie’s “Train 45”; Joe Maphis’ “Dim Lights”; and “Home Sweet Home”.

7:45 – Chuck Fitzgerald – Chuck wields a banjo, on which he played Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”; next he did a song he wrote about a mandolin player (Larry Rose) then converted it to a banjo tune, “The Banjo Fan”; and “Average People”, another of his own.

8:00 – Alton Simpson, Ray Poe & Les Armstrong – The guys (Alton singing lead) gave us Dwight Yoakam’s  “Close Up the Honky Tonks”; (Les singing lead) Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville”;  (Ray, lead) Ricky Skaggs’ “Honey (Open That Door)”; and (Alton, again leading) Jack Greene’s “There Goes My Everything”;

8:15 – Tim Woods – I played some tunes that I enjoyed playing on campouts with my family when the kids were little.  Three Peter, Paul, and Mary tunes, “Puff the Magic Dragon”; “The Cruel War”; “Polly Von”; and, from the movie Billy Jack , “One Tin Soldier”.

8:30 – John Cheney– Came back with his keyboard to play his second ever open mic with the Kingston Trio’s “Roddy McCorley”; and one of his own he calls “Rain”.  He made it a short set and gave his extra time to those following him.

8:45 – John Movius – John M. did a solo set with Sonny James’ “Young Love”; The Cyrkle’s “Red Rubber Ball”; Elvis’ “Fools Rush In”; Van Morrison’s “Here Comes the Night”; and Duane Eddy’s “Forty Miles of Bad Road”.

9:00 – Tom Barbarie with John Movius – Tom’s set consisted of Jim Reeves’ “Missing Angel”; Johnny Cash’s “I Got Stripes”; Flatt & Scruggs’ “Some Old Day”; plus three more Johnny Cash tunes, “Big River”; “Home of the Blues”; and “Give My Love to Rose”.  John Movius has been having a ball playing lead on all those Cash tunes.

9:15 – Greg Gross – Our esteemed host for the evening played the final set to close out the night. He chose Jimmy Buffet’s “Come Monday” (he does such a good job on that, it’s my favorite); The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “What a Day for a Daydream”; and Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee”.   I joined him for the finale, Dale Evans’ “Happy Trails”.

It was another great night—if you were there, I’m sure you enjoyed it—if not, I wish you had been there; you would have loved it.  God bless, be of good cheer, and we’ll see you soon.

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