Music, at the Tin Star

Wild. Woolly. Fun. Another packed house last night, with bucket-loads of musicians, and a house full of people giving a very good impression of having a fun time.

Click any picture to enlarge, click the play button to listen to a music link.

Check out the opening jam. And Linda explaining how badly it hurts.

Now check out who was there (and what they were doing!)

Don't do anything at the Tin Star on Wednesday night that you don't want broadcast to the internet.

Can he play that thing?

Rockin' Ray Dera

The Johnny Moondust Trio got up and did a bit for us.


A few random shots

Nobody noticed her leaving

Nobody

Hope to see you come out next week!

--Doug

Last Night's Jam

The post for last night's jam will be up later today.

--Doug

Last Night's Acoustic Jam

Let's just start off with something quiet.

Sure, the rowdy Wednesday night jam is fun. It's crowded. It's loud. But it really is nice to be able to hear the person sitting across the table from you when the music is playing.

Looking for another reason to come to the Monday night acoustic jam? We have body art!


There's an added bonus for you Linux fans out there. Can you find it?


The musicians who played last night, in no particular order:
Ron, with Heather and Lance

Mike Montiel, behind his brother Dan

Gary and Nat

From right to left, Lance, Ray, Walter

Edie!


Johnny obviously didn't approve of what Gary and Ray were doing.

The rest of us thought it was just fine, though. We'll close out with Mike doing Memphis Town. Hope to see you next week!



--Doug

First Full Ben Lucero Jam of 2009

What a nice way to kick off the new year: we had a packed house last night for the first Tin Star Wednesday night jam of the new year.

Click any picture to enlarge, click the play button to listen to a music link.

Warning: this is going to be a long, photograph-rich post, because so many people showed up last night. There was, not coincidentally, lots of good music. It is a real challenge to cherry-pick from 3 hours and 45 minutes of recordings to select just the few sound bites that capture the evening. I suspect that I usually don't do sufficient justice to the musicians each week in my attempts to grab a few bits and pieces that capture what the jam was like. Expect no less from this post, but down at the bottom of this post you will find some of what I was able to extract from the recordings from last night.


We had a whole bunch of musicians come out. Here are some of them:

I guess everybody wanted to make up for not having had a jam over the holidays. Happily, the music was pretty good all evening. We were helped by folks like ex-Soul Deacon Estephan on sax and flute:

Wild Man Craig Small

The Avila bunch with their band members


Ric Lloyd

Tony Buford (hey, Tony, I know you didn't sing last night because there so many other musicians waiting for their turn, but you add presence just by showing up)
Kenny Skywolf


Not to mention all of the other fine musicians who came out last night to help celebrate music. Here's one:

During the course of a jam, things happen. Microphones tip over. Artistic differences of opinion occur. Guitar pics vanish into the 7th dimension. Saxophone reeds wear out.
Strings break.
But the jam proceeds on.

Last night the bar folks were grooving:

Naturally, when we're up there on stage playing and we look out on a group of folks having a smooth good time, we feel pretty good too.

Can't ignore the bartenders: Parker! Welcome to the Tin Star!

Some of my favorite things:

Obligatory artsy photo:

The unknown bassist (there's probably a good reason)

The unknown saxophonists (ditto)


And so,

Here's what passed for music last night. Opening stuff. Closing Stuff. Stuff in between: some Johnny Be Good. Some Frank Zappa.

Hope to see you next week.


--Doug

Last Night's Jam

The post for last night's jam will be up later today.

--Dou

The First Tin Star Acoustic Jam

I have to tell you: this was my second favorite of all of Mike Montiel's jams that I've been to. The favorite one was over at the (now defunct) Willee's Blues Club a couple of years ago. We'd been playing for an hour or two there when a guy who maybe had had one too many Shirley Temples came up to the stage and told us how great we were. Then he dropped a $100 bill into the tip bucket and tottered off. That C-note disappeared into Mike's pocket faster than the speed of light, in case the guy sobered up & came back for it before we were finished. What $100 bill?

Last night was a nice start to what will hopefully be a long-running jam. It's kind of satisfying to get up and play, and then be able to walk away without your ears ringing. I suspect the audience enjoyed the lower volume of an acoustic sound as well. It was a smallish, comfortable group last night. Jonathan Hill and Mike started off the evening with this number. The cold weather played hell with the guitars -- you can hear them tuning again right at the beginning.


A bit later Ronald and Tone joined us for a bit of Moon Dance.

We played until about 11:00, which seems about right for a Monday night. Thanks to the folks who came out to hear us, and to the musicians who showed up to make Mike's first acoustic jam at the Tin Star a success!

--Doug

Monday's Acoustic Jam

The post for last night's acoustic jam will be up later today.

--Doug