The Acousta Something Showcase at Checkers 6/15/17

Checkers Acoustic Jam 6/15/17
(Hosts: Julie Gordon/Ryan Matthew Paul (Dreams Of Arcadia)

Songs;

It's Been A While (Belinda James-Vocals)
Gold Dust Woman (Julie Gordon-Vocals)
Come Together (Belinda James-Vocals)
She's About A Mover
Listen To Her Heart
Ring Of Fire (Belinda James, Julie Gordon, Matthew Ryan Paul, Steve Black Wolf-Backing Vocals)
House Of The Rising Sun (Belinda James-Vocals)
Turn The Page (Steve Black Wolf-Vocals)
Knocking On Heaven's Door (Donna Jo Eisner and Steve Black Wolf-Vocals)
Last Kiss/Stand By Me (Steve Black Wolf-Vocals)

With:

Julie Gordon: Percussion, hand drums and backing vocals
Belinda James: Backing Vocals
Ryan Matthew Paul: Keyboards, Harmonica and hand drums
Steve Black Wolf: Guitar and vocals
Sofia Chesney: Backing vocals


Also: Parlor City Jam 6/14/17
Tom Giblin: Host

With:
Matt on Guitar
Mark Awad-Bass
Dan Johnson-Bass
Tom Giblin: Keyboards
A Harmonica Player
And the Legendary Tony Brown on Guitar and Vocals

2 songs including Cissy Strut

(Janis Jules Gordon)

It was a nice conclusion to a very busy week of jamming and playing music.  While the crowd at Checkers was very small, there were enough jammers to keep the pace going. Sadly, one of the jammers got upset and left during my portion of the jam.  I really don't know why, she's an older woman that usually strums along to certain songs but somehow a disagreement came out and she left early. So I basically postponed Ring Of Fire then chose to do Listen To Her Heart, one of the new cover songs that I debuted, the other was another run through of She's About A  Mover.

Again, I chose the  songs that would go over better than the songs from Logic And Lies, in fact I kind of shelved them altogether.  Of course, those who were there wanted to hear Gold Dust Woman with Julie so we did that.  Then I tapped Belinda to sing Come Together, and she did that.  And then people wanted to hear Ring Of Fire and they wanted to sing the chorus so I let them do that.   Which leaves She's About A Mover with that choppy E chord, and easy to remember lyrics.  Or seek out a song that starts in A and use the D and E chords, I Feel A Whole Lot Better is one song, Let's Work Together another and You Tell Me Why but I had to words to Listen To Her Heart.  Ryan Paul swears he's never heard of that Tom Petty song.  They don't usually play it too much but it is on his Greatest Hits CD.

(Ryan Matthew Paul, under the watchful eye of Dale Jr.)

Mark Randolph was sick, so it was Belinda James going solo and I helped her on It's Been A While and House Of The Rising Sun although my guitar was unplugged. I kept teasing her by playing the riff to Fever, Julie picked up on that, but I shook my head and said I need to polish it up more before attempted to play it live. For another long lunch I overextended it by a few more minutes by helping Steve play another version of Knocking On Heaven's Door and the Last Kiss/Stand By Me medley he's famous for before I really had to get back to work.  Sofia Chesney, did two versions of the Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah.   I believe Dreams Of Arcadia that the more Julie and Ryan work together, the better they sound.  Geez, me and  her only do three songs together and she makes me sound better than before.

Tuesday Night, I did a rare appearance at Parlor City and got to jam with Tony Brown on two songs and damned if they didn't put me on the spot with Cissy Strut.  It helps that I have done it before. The bass player was the same guy that helped play Stop Draggin My Heart Around and I think he's very good at playing funk blues type of bass.  He's very good, I just can't think of his name.  The first song I don't know the name but Tony Brown is a master of improvising on the spot and he did just that.  Both songs went about 10 minutes for the whole duration.  I must have done very well, everybody gave me some nice comments about my playing on Cissy Strut.  I'm proud of that too, but I think the highlight was jamming with Four Day Creep with Dreams I Never See Again.   BTW, Troy Mitchell made a rare Tuesday Night sighting and we chatted for a bit.   Always great to see him, I need to catch more of his bands when they play in the near future (Inch 75 is another band he's in)

P.S.  In the 1990s, Julie was part of a band called Lusus Greene and their music was more punk/new wave and gothic  but I have found some of their old videos posted on You Tube running from the likes of White Light White Heat to Jefferson Airplane's She Has Funny Cars and White Rabbit.   Half the time I can't remember their name.  But they do a killer version of Dominance And Submission.  It's kinda odd to see the woman who sings Gold Dust Woman with me go full tilt into Dominance And Submission back in the 1990s and in a different direction.