Archives for December 2010 | Samuel Ferris Harmon

Open Mic #46

Well, tonight was Mulligan’s Open Mic at Mulligan’s Pub in South Eugene.

Tonight I’ve been feeling really tired and I feel kind of bad because I just left without saying goodbye to anyone.

Mulligan’s is one of my favorite open mic’s in town, the host and I are really good friends and I always really enjoy watching all the other performers.

Tonight I played: “Freedom/Motherless Child” by Richie Havens, “Stand Alone” by Bunny Wailer, “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga, “Imagine” by John Lennon and “One More Cup Of Coffee by Bob Dylan.

Today I tuned up the website once again, I added a bar at the bottom with links and even an instant messaging program! For some reason all my titles on my blog are messed up now though and I can’t seem to figure out why.

This will probably be my last blog of 2010!

Happy New Year!

Thanks for listening.

Radio Experiment Vol III

Vol III is entitled: “Popular Music”

Live at Luckey’s Cigar Club

Last night I played Luckey’s Cigar Club in Downtown Eugene Oregon.

It was one of my best shows yet! It’s the first show that I put together at Luckey’s and the lineup was awesome!

My very good friend Jacob Young performed his show entitled “Forth Son Of The Emperor”. It was a short performace of what Jacob calls “Performance based fiction”.

I have to admit that in the past I have seen Jacob perform and I have been mystified as to what his show was all about, last night was an exception, not that I understood all of it but I feel like I understood more of it.

Next up was Scott Austin. Scott is one of the more poppy musician’s I know and seems to have very dedicated fan base of girls that follow him around from show to show.

Despite it being incredibly poppy, I enjoy Scott’s music quite a bit.

Next Robert Meade got up and did his thing, he did a cover of “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” that I thought was really good. I also really like Robert’s music, he plays with a lot of heart and passion and I don’t see that on a local level as much as I would like to.

For my set I thought that it might be good to start with one of my more heavy songs so that the rest of the set seemed lighter.

The set list was as follows: “Lost Words“, “Ice Cream“, “Imagine” by John Lennon, “Dying Song” by John Frusciante, “Mooncoin“, “Urge” by Daniel Johnston, “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga, “Trails Of Paranoia” and “One More Cup Of Coffee” by Bob Dylan.

My set changed quite a bit once I was on stage, I’m still experimenting with what works and what doesn’t.

There was a really good turnout! And I did a really good job talking to the audience which I sometimes struggle with, I even had a few hecklers that I dealt with accordingly.

Over all it was an huge success and I look forward to putting shows together there in the future.

Thank you so much for listening.

Night Owl Mixtape

So, I’m up kind of late.

I’ve been working on the site again.

I added a new Mixtape.

This project is over.

I was starting to feel kind of strange about giving away music that I didn’t make and it’s really starting to take up a lot of space on the server.

If you were in love with the mixtapes, I’m very sorry for your loss.

From now on I’ll just post songs in the blog every once and a while.

This site has been up since March 7th 2010!

I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing with it.

This blog is rad.

I recorded a song about Captain Beefheart, it’s called: “It’s Not Working”.

I’m going to sit on it for a while before I share with you.

I’m playing a show in less than 24 hours!

It’s way past my bedtime.

Winter Art

Sometimes you just stay home and watch Survivor instead of going to the open mic.

This is something that I made the other night while working on my upcoming mixtape, it’s made up of music from movie scores.

Thanks for listening.

Experimenting in a nightclub

Improvising music in front of people live is a really powerful experience, I really enjoy not really knowing what’s going to happen next but still being involved in what’s going on.

If you were to tell me six months ago that I would be experimenting with my synthesizer live in a nightclub, I would have thought you were talking crazy talk.

Really, if you had told me that I was going to be playing experimental music live at all, I would have been highly suspect.

Thank god that there’s a nightclub in Eugene that’s willing to give me the opportunity to do something that I would have thought was an impossible dream.

There is nothing quite like freaking out on your keyboard with crazy colorful dance lights everywhere and than all of a sudden some dude is walking in, standing right in front of the stage and saying: “nice song dude”.

I love playing downtown

Thanks for listening.

Sick

There’s something about being sick and sleeping all day that gives you the most intense dreams.

I always feel like being sick is kind of like being on mind altering drugs, in fact I’ve had many of the same experiences.

Anyways, I’m sick and I’ve been sleeping all day.

I’m feeling kind of wonky and for some reason I thought that it might be a good time to write a blog entry.

Thanks for listening.

Radio Experiment Vol II

Vol II is entitled “No Hope”

Open Mic #45

Tonight I played Mulligan’s Open Mic.

I played my Casiotone MT-500:

I played: “Mooncoin“, “Urge” and I improvised a lot.

I love this keyboard so much, I found it at a yard sale in Seattle Washington for $10 batteries included!

And now a flash from the not so distant past, we’re going to go all the way back to Open Mic #20.

This was right before the release of the Live At Mulligan’s Mic CD and it is a video of me playing a cover of “Stand Alone” by Bunny Wailer.

Samuel Ferris Harmon

Mulligans Open mic | Myspace Music Videos

One day I might get my own flip camera and start recording every open mic for the sake of this blog but until then you can just enjoy this blast from the past.

This was back in June when my hair was much shorter, watching this just after playing a way more experimental set is really interesting.

I’m so glad that I’ve kept this blog all along so that I have a clear record of the progress that I’ve been making not only as a musician but also as a person.

Tonight I was encouraged by one the hosts of Monroe St. Cafe Open Mic to come back, looking back now I see that the Monroe St. Cafe Open Mic was the subject of my very first Open Mic Blog.

I have logged away forty five open mics on this blog so far, that is so amazing to me and it’s also amazing to me that people are still reading it!

Thank you so much for coming with me on this amazing journey!

The Blazer Smith Show

So Blazer Smith has been quite a busy guy lately, not only did he start his own live internet TV show but he also had an album release today!
The album is part of the Radio Experiment ten album box set and this is the second installment entitled Vol II: “No Hope”.
You can check that out at: http://blazersmith.bandcamp.com/