Last night I went to the open mic at the Red Rock Coffee Company on Castro in Mountain View.
I had my worries about playing in public since I haven’t really been active musically and this was my first time playing in public in, I don’t know, a year. I wasn’t even quite sure what songs to play.
Anyway, I did it. My first song, “This Time of Year” by Better Than Ezra is permanently etched into my brain and so I couldn’t mess that one up, but then I launched into Glen Philips’ “Fred Meyers”, completely forgetting that it’s played with a capo, so the key change through me off and the beginning was, well, not pretty. Eventually, I worked it out and sang it in the lower key, but it just felt so…wrong. There’s really this nagging sense of discomfort from playing a song in a key that you’re not used to – weird how our brains work.
Some other highlight of the evening – we met our new friends Frank and Elysha there and Frank played as well. He has a Tacoma like me and he played three originals that were awesome. His voice kind of reminded me of Neil Finn from Crowded House.
There was also two teens named Mike and Pancho, who did a hilarious tribute to Tenacious D. Pancho even nailed Jack Black’s creepy facial expressions. I thanked God that I did not follow these guys as they were truly entertaining and would’ve been a hard act to follow.
Also great was Misty O’Dell. Misty is a professional who is touring around and selling her CDs. She told us how she blew out two engines during her road trip. Wow, that sucks. Anyway, she played a great set and I will probably buy the CD from her web site.
It was an interesting evening.