I’m a big fan of Jesse’s, I really enjoy his guitar playing especially.
For my set I played:
A “new untitled instrumental”, “The Days Have Turned” by John Frusciante, “It Ain’t Me Babe” by Bob Dylan, “Untitled”, “Song To The Siren” by Tim Buckley, “Lost Words”, “Ice Cream”, “Mooncoin”, “Urge” by Daniel Johnston, “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga and “One More Cup Of Coffee” by Bob Dylan.
Despite not feeling very good, I still had fun and the turnout was much better than last time I played there.
Lately I haven’t been feeling as confident about my creative endeavorers.
Through out my life I have struggled with feelings of depression and low self esteem, this is a challenge when I’m putting my self out there and sharing the things that I love doing.
Tonight I have a show at Cozmic Pizza and instead of being excited, I’m worried that no one is going to show up again. I know that probably won’t happen but it’s really hard for me to care so much about sharing my music and not feel like anyone would care if I wasn’t playing it. I just keep telling my self that I’m doing the best I can and everyone struggles sometimes.
I think that I might prefer open mics to having my own show, I like that I’m not expected to entertain at an open mic, when I have a show and especially if I charge people to see the show I feel a responsibility to entertain them and that’s not really why I play music, I don’t play it to entertain people, I play it because I feel like I have to.
I feel like the music needs me to play it, and I need to play it to feel complete in my being. I know that might sound kind of strange but that’s how I feel and I don’t always know what the music wants from me or how to satisfy it fully and when there are people there watching me it complicates the whole situation.
Often times I just feel like I’m looking for a home for my music and often times I’m scared that I’m never going to find it. Lately I feel like there are a lot of forces against me, I’ve noticed that many of the posters that I hung up have been taken down and the local papers listed the wrong time and said that the show is free instead of $3. I’ve never had a show on a full moon before and I’m kind of scared that because I feel like there are these energy’s that are trying to prevent me from succeeding that everything is going to be fucked up when I get there. There are always so many things that can go wrong at a show and I’m always kind of amazed that things work out at all let alone most of the time.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s hard to feel good about what you’re doing when you don’t feel good about your self and I don’t want to let you down.
The reaction to this performance was not at all what I expected.
I expected people to run out of the room making grumpy faces but in fact more people came in and just sat and listened!
In my blog that night I talked about not being one of these losers trying to get famous, I would just like to clear that up by saying that I am a loser trying to get famous.
But I would also like to say that I really dis-like the part of me that wants to be famous and I end up sabotaging my self over and over again in this area.
Why does it matter if someone you don’t know knows who you are?
I decided to release ten experimental albums because I thought that it would prevent me from ever becoming famous but also to explore what it means to be a musician.
Lately I have been much more interested in playing music for the sake of playing music, I think because I have spent so much time trying to prove to my ego and everyone else that I was a musician (who is worthy of being famous), I kind of forgot how be true to my self and just play music.
I’ve never really felt like I was that good at being a musician but because of the encouraging words of others around me I’ve continued playing, I’ve also always just done my best.
I guess I’m always just trying to figure out what it truly means to be a musician, is it when I’m playing my guitar and singing? Or is it when I’m just freaking out and experimenting? How can I combine the two? I strive to be the type of musician that can combine the two but I often find my self getting scared and not really letting go when I’m playing.
Blazer Smith and the Radio Experiment is an exploration into the illusions that the ego creates in order to fulfill the fame monster.
Tonight was the first Sunday open mic at Mulligan’s since July and there were all sorts of amazing musician’s there.
Mulligan’s is not really the type of place that you would expect to find good music, I can remember the first time I went there with my friend Brett Estep and thinking to my self that it was a very strange place. The “stage” is nothing more than a piece of carpet on the floor surrounded by some rope lighting and a pair of speakers, the “audience” is made up of bar regulars and other musician’s sitting in a little clump of chairs and tables situated right between the pool tables and the stage area. The room is no bigger than my living room, one wall is covered in lottery machines and the other is taken up by the bar, there is a little back “patio area” (actually a parking lot with some tables and a tent) where people sit and smoke and play music together.
The host Amblin, is amazing at making everyone sound good and encouraging everyone in what they are doing, he takes the time to get everyone set up and gives everyone the same amount of time and attention. Some open mics I’ve been to can be somewhat stressful or confusing because the host doesn’t follow the list or they shuffle it all around on you last minute, or it’s more about them playing than about giving other people a chance to play. Amblin takes the time to do it right and he is an amazing musician him self so you know that he understands.
Some of the musicians that I saw tonight were:
Bruce Henry has been at pretty much every open mic I’ve ever been to at Mulligan’s, he plays a guitar with bullet holes in it and he has been known to play Johnny Cash songs, I asked him tonight if he ever got nervous before he played and he said that he only got nervous when he was messing up.
Robert Meade is a local singer songwriter who plays frequently around the Eugene area, he has been known to play songs by the Beatles. He is the lead singer/guitar player of the band Cambio, he plays Pizza Research Institute every Sunday evening. He’ll also be playing a show with Scott Austin and I live at Luckey’s in Eugene on Wednesday the 22 of December.
Anthony Clark is a local singer songwriter who plays beautifully strange music, I’m a big fan of his use of melody and the complexity of his songs, he plays the open mics quite often and I would highly recommended his music.
Timothy Shaw is a reader of this blog and also the singer/guitar player of the band God’s Machine Gun. He has an amazing voice and I look forward to hearing more of his music.
Tonight I played a lot of other people’s songs, I played: “The Days Have Turned” by John Frusciante, “I Taught My Self How To Grow” by Ryan Adams, “It Ain’t Me Babe” by Bob Dylan and to finish it off, I played an as of yet untitled song of my own.
The thing that I like about playing open mics most is that it’s a free show. I can sit and listen and learn from real people playing music not more than four feet from me. I love to watch other people play music, the faces they make, the sounds they make, the way they move their body, it’s all so amazing to me and I never get tired of it. Especially at an open mic where you can watch people that normally you would never have even known existed had you not gone to that open mic.
Have you ever been to an open mic? Leave me a comment and tell me about your experiences.
On Sunday November 21st, Samuel Ferris Harmon returns to Cozmic Pizza along with special guest Jesse Meade.
Jesse Meade just won an the Eugene Weekly’s Award for best Solo Performer.
He accompanies himself with his own finger-style, acoustic guitar playing while performing both original material and an array of cover songs. His influences include musicians like: Ray Charles, Hank Williams, Chuck Willis, Elizabeth Cotten, Otis Redding, Jimmie Rodgers, Aretha Franklin, Percy Mayfield, John Hurt, Sam Cooke, Patsy Cline, Fats Domino, and Dinah Washington. Currently he is performing all over the Northwest while also writing and recording new music.
So for those of you who were following, you may have noticed that I posted some crazy stuff about releasing ten experimental albums & than backed out of releasing them at the last min.
It’s not because I don’t want you to hear them, it’s because I had to re-think the way in which I was going to release them. After some thought, I have decided to release the whole set on Bandcamp.com
All ten albums will be available for free download on the artist page Blazer Smith.
