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Arts & Entertainment

The Wood 'n' Lips Open Mic Newsletter

Once a week local musicians of all ages meet at Friendly Grounds Coffeehouse to play music and enjoy the night.

Howdy Y’all,

If you were creating a formula for the ideal , this evening would be a great recipe to follow.  We had a foundation of loyal attendees, several willing to team up with each other, a sprinkling of new performers, (including a novice getting used to dealing with a microphone in her personal space), a pair of professionals trying out new material, and a couple of prior performers rekindling musical friendships.  Top that off with an enthusiastic and rowdy full-house audience, and you have an exciting evening of musical entertainment.

6:30 Greg Gross: Started us off with an open mic classic, John Denver’s “Country Roads” (several audience members joined in); Eric Bogel’s “The Silly Slang Song”, done a’ cappella; his own “Trolley Car Song”; and Jim Croce’s “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”.

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6:45 Larry & Friends:  (The friends being his songs) Larry has one of those Gypsy Jazz, Django Reinhart style guitars that he plays all types of music on; his first was Ramblin’ Jack Elliot’s “Railroad Bill”; The Kingston Trio’s “When My Love was Here”; “Times are Getting Hard”; “A Closer Walk With Me”; and “I am a Pilgrim”.

7:00 Peter & Marquita: Kicked up the pace with the Coasters’ “Yackity-Yack”; Marquita’s original “Reach Out and Touch Someone”; Judd Strunk’s “A Daisy a Day”; and The Everly Brothers’ “Bird Dog”.  I can tell they’ll have a fun set for our music festival on the 16th.

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7:15 Bob Setzer: Writes a lot of tunes when he’s inspired by events, such as his wedding the previous weekend.  Though inspired, after a long absence from the open mic, he chose to go with established covers, which included Neil Young’s “Rust Never Sleeps”; for his new bride he did Charley Pride’s “Kiss an Angel Good Morning”; and Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”.

7:30: Gregory Martin Campbell: Showed us some adept finger-picking with the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun”; Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers”; the Eagles “The Hollywood Waltz”; The Monkees’ “Papa Gene’s Blues”; and Arlo Guthrie’s “City of New Orleans”.

7:45 Bob Cool, Bob Arsenault, John Movius, Tom Barbary and Greg Gross: (The Bob & Bob Bluegrass Band is how they’ll be billed for the Music Fest): performed a set of: “John Henry”; “Don’t Say Goodbye”; “Bluegrass Stomp”; and Bob Cool’s Bluegrass composition, “San Diego Breakdown”.

8:00:  Jordan Z: Was back after a long absence, using his I-Pod with ear buds, for a personal sound track.  He did a’ cappella versions of: The Backstreet Boys’ “Drowning”; N Sync’s “Every Little Thing I Do”; and Nick Carter’s “I Need You Tonight”.

8:15 Johnny Love: A first time performer at our open mic, plays songs from the 1930’s. With a melodious voice, enthusiasm, and a touch of theatrics, he did: “You Can’t Have Everything” from a 1937 Don Ameche movie; “Ah the Moon is Here” Irving Kahal & Sammy Fain’s; Jerome Kern & Dorothy Fields “Pick Yourself Up”; and he finished with Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh’s “On The Sunny Side of the Street”.

8:30 Jesus Rodrigues: Last played at our open mic way back when we were at Borders Bookstore in El Cajon, so I let him have my time slot.  He did Aaron Lewis’s “The Story Never Ends” and “75 Chords”; Jeffrey Steel’s “What Hurts the Most” (made famous by Rascal Flatts); and Aaron Lewis’s “Country Boy”.  I’ll have to check out Aaron Lewis, he seems to have some pretty good material.

8:45 Rose Scibelli  Put a toe in our open mic water last week, liked it, and this week returned to play a set.  She did: Goebel Reeves’ “Hobo’s Lullaby” (Woody Guthrie covered it); Loretta Lynn / Emmylou Harris “Blue Kentucky Girl”; and Jessi Colter’s “Storms Never Last”.

9:00 Scot Ryder: Back for a second time, is an accomplished instrumentalist who adds some percussion and harmonics to his tunes (ala Preston Reed and Michael Hedges).  He was breaking in a new Taylor 514, and I think it’s well on its way. For his first number, did “El Mosh”, a song about a mouse that he bought to feed his pet snake, it successfully managed to avoid the snake until he gave it a reprieve and it became a household pet.  I like that story. Next was “Walk Under the Stars”; and “Every Breath You Take”.

9:00 Lady Ivy: Ivy Li, and Scot perform together in a Renaissance group, Enchanted Realms, and are breaking out in a new direction.  Their first song was one of her originals called “Serenity”; “Reflection”, which Scott could only think to describe as “A really good tune” (true); the more renaissance sounding, “Mirrors of Time”; they finished with “Dance for Me, Gypsy Queen”.

The best way to describe this evening was…Wow!  Great stuff!  Open mics don’t have a reputation for attracting the quality of performers we’ve been getting; it’s been nothing short of astounding.  We are blessed.

Be sure to mark your calendars for the July 16th, For Love of Mic Music Festival at the Trolley Square Shopping Center’s Amphitheater in Santee.  Celebrating ten years of the Wood ‘n’ Lips Open Mic, it will be from 10:00 in the morning until 6:00 pm with some of our best performers.

God Bless and have a good week.

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

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