Arabica and the Barking Spider

Had a really great open mic night last Wednesday, brought most of my toys: mixing board, snare drum, and bass guitar just in case there was to be any 'wild' jamming - so far the jamming hasn't been real crazy, but I never know what might happen so I try to be prepared.

Began setting things up when a really pretty young lady (who had been lounging around when I got there) approached to ask about getting signed up to play. I said hi and pointed out the sign up sheet and she introduced herself as Audra Kubat, in from Detroit to play at the Barking Spider and wanting to share a few songs at 9 before going over there. I played an early solo set for about 45 minutes while the room was really nice and quiet - only a few patrons, I just turned the PA waaaay down and crooned into that nice evening light, it was sweet, real sweet.

By the time Audra returned, several folks had dropped in, some who intended to play music including Jim Snively and another fellow by the name of Jimmy Logston. It was a really nice evening, Audra and Jimmy Logston both turned in great sets, Jim Snively sang really nice and mellow. After the Open Mic Jim Snively and I went to the Barking Spider to catch Audra's set - she is fantastic, I plan on catching her next show when she comes back to Cleveland - her next show is at the Mattress Factory in PA - from the website information, the place looks like its a really cool modern artsy type museum artist commune, hmmm, any possibility there is another Mattress Factory in Pitsburgh?

On a different note, my friend Liz Laguardia has been showing up at a few open mic nights here and there to read poetry and she has recently recorded a few poems, off-the-cuff, at my home studio. I plan on posting at least one of them to the site maybe after we have added some improvised guitar parts or some percussion - until then, here is one of her drawings from Arabica Open Mic a couple weeks ago:

New Exclusive Content Features!!

Interviews:

Hey, I know that some of my precious few visitors jump to this page from at least a few other pages that link directly to my blog, but remember -- there is other content within my spiffy site that you don't get here in the blog!! And in fact, I have only recently put the finishing touches on a couple of interview pieces, one piece from a couple of years ago put together from interviews with Scott Krauss and Diane Duncan of the 'Home & Garden' project and the other piece a very recent interview with the Cleveland King of Open Mic Xela!!

Home & Garden
Some of you, or many of you, might recognize the name Scott Krauss as long-time Pere Ubu drummer - yeah, THAT drummer -the drummer that played on the seminal 1978 recordings of 'The Modern Dance'. You may not hear too much from or about 'Home & Garden' but Scott and his associates are still hard at work on various projects and they have recorded works within the past couple of years that most of you have probably not heard.....so, included with the interview material is a single, precious, and complete MP3 song featuring talented performers who have worked with Diane and Scott in the studio to create some serious art!! So, gear up your ears with some phones, stream out the MP3 while you read through the interview and you will be blown away by what you hear because this is some amazing recorded music from a bunch of uber (no pun intended) talented artists making fantastic sounds - and featuring the unparalleled, raw, rare and wickedly naked voice talent of Diane Duncan - you can't get this exclusive content anywhere else except here at steve2.net!

Xela
The Open Mic contingency knows who Xela is - and so should YOU!! The one and only Luv Mutha, the current King of Cleveland Open Mic, the creator of mega dynamic works of art both visual and auditory, yes, Xela is the singularly original and notably unique Cleveland art force hard at work everyday makin' music and art that transcend ordinary reality and bend both time and space! During our interview Xela tells us a little bit about his family life, expresses lucid opinions regarding the use of natural resources and electricity, and he waxes poetic over music and the state of the ego on earth!! Read it up while you listen to the single jamming MP3 file 'Telle Cranial Creatures' !! Only right here at steve2.net!!!!

Grab the headphones and check out the brand new INTERVIEW ARCHIVE!!!

And to all those folks who come out to my Wednesday Night Open Mic at University Circle: BIG LOVE AND KEEP IT COMMING PLEASE!!!

Westlake's My Generation is closing it's doors!

I spoke with my friend Scott Krauss today - he has been the manager of My Generation in Westlake for a couple years after working for a very long time at Record Revolution up in Coventry - and he tells me that they are closing the doors and going out of business as of April 25th! I guess the CD resale business isn't what it used to be and is surely suffering the effects of the downturn in the general economy - or maybe its piracy and CD burning - anyones guess as to what the 'real' problem is, I always thought My Generation had a decent corner on the market out there in Westlake with literally tonnes of used CD's to browse through. My condolences to those hipsters who have been scratching out a living working out there, I guess you will all be moving onto the next gig. And what the heck happens to all that inventory??

Well, it's my guess that there are some pretty hot deals out there right now on DVD's, new and used CD's all that good stuff has got to be marked down as low as they can get it in an effort to get it out the door, probably worth a trip out there to or give em a call to see if they have what you are looking for:

My Generation
25947 Detroit Rd
Westlake, OH 44145-2426
(440) 871-5586

Open Mic Monday at McNamara's

By all appearances Jim Snively has - in a only a short period of time (about a month) - managed to create a respectable buzz around McNamara's Open Mic Monday Night - no small feat in this Northeast rust belt town full of hardened unemployed steel workers, hard weather, and harder nosed rock and rollers. And although McNamara's does host weekend live music, it's the Monday Night Open Mic event that pulls in the artistic bleeding-edge of plank spankers, finger pickers, singer songwriters, and poets from around the Cleveland metropolitan area that otherwise might never come out to the place - and these scensters are not your generic light weight Pepsi sipping peeps either, they constitute the caliber of clientele that bar owners love to see packin' a place: Guitar crazy beer lovin' singer songwriter types who like nothing more than to get together, talk shop, swap chops, and occasionally dance on the bar. If last nights attendance (a veritable who's who of Open Mic performers with Ryan Anderson, Kevin McCarthy, Tim Keo, Brad Kinney and John Bella to name a few ) is any indication of what's to come, then the continued success of this event is practically guaranteed.

Thank you and congratulations to both Jim and the bar owner (a local firefighter) on the effort required to put together a successful and happening Open Mic event!

Let's Keep up the good work!!


XELA to begin hosting Wilbert's Downtown Wednesday Night Open Mic

With Kevin McCarthy's imminent relocation to Sunny California (who can blame him - enough already of the harsh CLE winter salt), the reins to the Wilbert's Wednesday Night Open Mic at 812 Huron Rd E Cleveland, OH 44115-1123 (216) 902-4663 have been passed to the king of Open Mic night, Alex Alverez (aka: Xela)! As you probably already know, Alverez is well equipped to take this Wednesday night gig and turn it into a Jam Session Supreme-O to rival any in town - yeah, the lovely LuvMutha is getting plenty of practice at this kind of open mic revelry hosting no less than five nights a week of Open Mike Mayhem (see his website link for the complete schedule) at various locations around town.

Whew, Xela gonna be breaking out a big sweet sweat with all that singin' and sawin' goin' on!! I can already hear the crystal clear sounds of bronze acoustic strings snappin' and crackin' through that enormous PA !

Sunday Night in North Olmstead

Had a lil' Sunday Night get together with some friends last night, my first time out to visit Kris, Liz and baby Stella in North Olmstead. What a neat place Kris and Liz have, it's right there on a river with a bunch of trees and the view is really natural from the kitchen with the river and the trees and all. Kris made chilli and steak and we all ate some good food, drank some thick beer, and then setup for some jamming.

And jam we did (if only for a short while) with Kris playing drums, Tim Fry played his electric guit fiddle through a real vintage English made Marshall (a really tiny vintage Marshall - really cute with the smallest Celestian speaker I think I have ever seen - but it sounds real cool) Matt Gerovac played acoustic guitar and did some singing, I played the bass and it all felt good considering we hadn't played together under these circumstances before - we hit a couple of real good grooves - makes me wonder what we could do if we (brace yourself - here comes the dreaded word) practiced. Kris had company to entertain (Adam and Sarah, Miles and Evelynn from - uhm, somewhere West of Vermillion) and there were wee children on the scene (which is always cool because the young moms are so very nice and the kids Stella, Miles and Evelyn were sooooooo cute) so we didn't play for more than an hour nonetheless this little jam made me think that we might be doing this more frequently (not as practice per se but more for fun, dontcha know). And when the nice weather sets in Kris has a fire pit in the back yard out by the river - yeah!!

On a side note, I just got an email from Charlie Mosbrook this morning and he asked to have a link to his site added to my growing list - so, there it is over there on the right side of the page, although the links list is sorted alphabetically by the link and not the name. Looks like Charlie has a few gigs up on his schedule so I am gonna get out to one of em' in the near future. Stay in touch Charlie, good to hear from you!!

Arabica U Circle

Wednesday night was only the second or third (fourth?) time I have had the pleasure of playing and singing into this room - there is something really special about this room, it has a really big heart, and it is filled with a most interesting mix of people. In addition to it's most beautiful heart, this room has the peculiar effect of making me want to hit the road as a full time singer songwriter. This room makes me feel like I am going somewhere or that I have gone somewhere or that I must go somewhere - far away from my mostly milquetoast existence. If I could play rooms like this one every day (and I only suppose I could), I would do so. The question is: When do I start?

Last night the piano room was 'hoppin' - lot's of people comming and going - from in the piano room I can't even really see what is going on in the other rooms (or upstairs), can only hear the general hubbub all around. It seems to me that the first floor is the place to see and be seen, and of course that's where the live music happens, so those patrons who are sitting at those tables are a part of what is going on musically - they are musical participants or accomplices, you know what I mean? On this night, one of the large tables in the piano room hosted two consecutive parties of 6 (or more), the first party being a family of Korean folks, and when they cleared out, a group of distinguished 'over 50 types' sat down - they were just in time to hear Jim Snively play a set of his original tunes. I thought this to be entirely appropriate given that Jim is into his 50's as well!! Jim sounded really good, he mostly does, however consistently humble he is about his performance technique!

To summarize: I love this room! It is smoke free, geographically significant, and I feel rejuvenated when playing to a crowd there - it has a powerful magic to it when it is buzzing full of folks and I am hoping that the Wednesday Night Open Mic will once again become a powerful, popular, and entertaining event.

See you out there next Wednesday then, OK???

(I will have some copies of my demo CD with me)