The Wood ‘n’ Lips Open Mic Newsletter

Howdy all,

Now that we’re online with the Santee Patch e-newspaper, I’ll say hi to our new readers. If you’ve heard of the , that’s us, ten years and still going strong—we’re the Energizer Bunny of —with several venues under our belts, the in Santee is one of the nicest. Come on by and say hi.

At ten after six we only had a few performers; after more than four weeks of full slates this was a bit of a change. Most times we get late arrivals after the festivities start, other times we repeat performers—there is usually a good audience and this one grew as the evening progressed. This week a couple of people played together in addition to personal slots. At drawing time we had three time spots left.

6:30 Greg Gross:  My Co-host was em-ceeing this week; he started us out with the traditional classic, “The Wabash Cannonball”; Fred Kohler’s “God’s Gift to Women”; to counteract the crassness of the previous song he played David Gates’ more sensitive “If”; Jim Stafford’s “Spiders and Snakes” lighten it up again;

6:45 Tim Woods (me) stepped into the second spot; I reprised The Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried”; The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”; Sonny James’ “Young Love”; and “The Ballad of Thunder Road” which was originally sung by Robert Mitchum in his movie of the same name.

7:00 Amanda Creiglow was a first timer to our open mic but not to performing—she found us on-line.  Claiming to be too lazy to learn other peoples’ songs, she does mostly originals; her first was “Gone Too Long”; which she followed with an exception to her rule, Fountains of Wayne’s “These Days”; her own “A Drive Down a Coast Line”; she ended with a song she had written the bridge for only two hours earlier, called “I Did the Writing”.

7:15 Bob Cool & Bob Arsenault had The Candy Man (Jerry) high stepping to their fiddle and guitar with “Bile Them Cabbage Down”; followed by Carl Smith’s “That Was Before I Met You”; Louise Certain’s “My Blue Ridge Mountain Home”; Greg Gross joined them with the bass for Bob Cool’s “San Diego Breakdown” and Hank Williams “Kaw-liga”.

7:30 Bob Arsenault--The boys stuck around to help Bob A. on his set; he was trying some new material, they did George Jones’ “Once More” and Bill Monroe’s “Columbus Stockade Blues”; along numbers from their regular repertoire, Robert Johnson’s “Up Jumped the Devil” and another Bill Monroe tune, “Blue Moon of Kentucky”.

7:45 Ian Douglas received top billing, with his photo in last week’s Patch; he returned this week with his band, Good Night Caulfield’s, numbers, “All You’ve Got”; Panic at the Disco’s “The Ballad of Mona Lisa”, (he claimed he hadn’t played it before—you could have fooled me); and his own “Smile”.

8:00 Big Al, everybody’s pal, was still six-stringing it; he brought us Creedence Clearwater’s often overlooked “Some Day Never Comes”; Kenny Rogers “Lady”; Bob Dylan’s “The Weight”; and The Grateful Dead’s “Candy Man”.

8:15   Bob Cool  returned for a solo set, he did: Louie Armstrong’s “The Sunny Sideof the Street”; Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle”; “Misty” (recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, and Nat King Cole, among others); Glen Campbell’s “Gentle on my Mind”; Bing Crosby’s “Pennies From Heaven”; “Has Anybody Seen My Gal”; a couple of parody tunes, Sheb Wooly’s “I Don’t Want to Go Home”; and “Ring of Smoke”, (about smoking cigarettes).

8:45  Pete Erlandsen channeled Bob Dylan for  “Tomorrow is a Long Time”; his original, a Christmas tune for Easter, “In the Twilight”; another of his own “Falling Angels” about neglected children; and “A Sunny Day”;

9:00  Rebeccah, a late arrival, did a very nice a’ cappella set of: “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”; “Amazing Grace”; and “It is Well With My Soul”.—she has a very nice, strong voice and didn’t need an accompanist.

9:00  Greg Gross returned with Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon”, his own original “Trolley Car” tune, with a nice fingerpicked  backing; John McCutcheon’s “Calling all the Children Home”; and Dale Evan’s “Happy Trails”.

 It was a pleasant evening at the Friendly Grounds. Be sure to put us on your entertainment calendar, drop by occasionally and see your friends.  It’s can raise your spirits and give you the energy to take on the weekend. 

God Bless and have a good week.

-Tim Woods, Greg Gross, and the Wood ‘n’ Lips Open Mic Crew

Thursday nights sign-ups start at 5:30, drawing for time slots at 6:15, music from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Photos by Greg Gross and Tim Woods