Roy Smeck could play anything with strings. He demonstrates this by playing the second tune, Park in Paree, on four different instruments. Impressive.

The first tune, Farewell Blues, is one of the songs Tangleweed recorded on our most recent CD, Where You Been So Long?

Last night my drummer buddy Clay Kohl, (from my other band Magnetosphere) and I played 4 songs at an open mic night at Bernice’s Tavern on the South Side, in the Bridgeport neighborhood.

Our old buddy Joe Ryan hosts it once a month and has been urging us to come down and play, so we finally did it last night.

Clay played light drums and I played amplified acoustic guitar and sang.  We did “Don’t Think Twice” by Bob Dylan (with Joe’s girlfriend playing some mean accordion, whipped up on a moment’s notice - she was amazing), an old Magnetosphere original called “Birdies“, a new original of mine called “The Log Jam” (which Tangleweed is arranging for future performance), and Johnny Cash’s “Big River” (complete with a big string-breaking ending).  We got the bar pretty fired up and had a great time doing it.

It was a fine scene, with some really nice folks on hand, and lots of good players too.  If you’re ever down at 32nd and Halsted in Chicago, look for Bernice’s on the west side of the street, it’s a neighborhood institution going back decades.  They have some cool art and artifacts on the walls (including a righteous framed collection of antique bottle openers), and they had a Lithuanian beer I’d never heard of, called SVYTURYS. It was the EKSTRA variety, which we enjoyed immensely, phonetically and otherwise.  Steve the bar-tender played some killer harmonica throughout the night, and even bought us a round after our mini-set.  Thanks to Steve, Joe and Bernice’s for a great time, we’ll see ya again some day!