Open Mike Family Affair

I haven't stopped going to open mics at the Folk Center. I've just stopped reviewing them. But last night was a real event. The entire Canary Family (those that perform and are in town, anyway) performed.

The night was a pretty good one. Many talented performers. Uke Forever performed an evangelistical atheist tune he had written. Seriously, he could have had an altar call at the end to ask people who felt so moved to come up and publicly renounce the Lord. Very good song.

Bill ( a regular) followed this with a couple of Gospel tunes, both of which he played very fast as if to make sure he gave Jesus better than equal time. Bill is an odd fellow. He always starts with a joke. You know that he has opened with a joke because he always makes this face that looks like the kind of face a character might make early on in a cheap horror movie when he or she first discovers the horror that will propel the plot of said movie forward.

Soon UF's buddy Terrance got up and sang a song he wrote that had a more liberal spiritual point of view. He either followed or was followed by another guy named Terrance--an older guy with a few missing teeth and bald head with a curtain of long white hair around the sides. This Terrance is a multi-instrumentalist who brought a dobro on this night. He did a couple of very sang an anti-war folk song, "Mrs. McGrath," which you can find on Springsteen's Seeger Sessions CD and a medley of Jesse James tunes.

This one lady got up and sang a rousing gospel tune a capella and it just killed.

A great night for the first amendment.

As for the Canary line-up, I was first with my original tune "A Man without Arms"-- a song I am working on from the Peter Case workshop. I don't think it got the laughs that I had hoped, but did ok.

Billy C followed with his song about an old fictitious dog, based on an actual dog, but changed up enough so that it really is a fictitious dog. He got a great response. Princess Canary actually came with us and sang "I Will" by the Beatles as Dad Billy C accompanied her on uke and Do played bongos. I have played on this song also, but we realized too late that our ukes were tuned differently and there was no time to fix that. Just as well. While watching Princess Canary sing, I had one of those sentimental realizations that none of my nieces or nephews are children anymore. Princess is the youngest and will be a senior next year. Time passes.

Blowhard C got up and sang a tune. Most of us accompanied him. Do on conga, Billy C on huevos, me on stomping and clapping. It was a song that he had found on Myspace. We weren't sure when the song was over, so Billy C and I continued playing our instruments until Blowhard turned around and gave us "the look."

Do also played percussion for a couple of other folk. For someone who had not planned on playing at all, she was pretty busy.