Thursday, May 22, 2008

Wednesday's 5-21 Tin Star Jam

Tune first.


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



Then play.


Ray likes it that way.


That's how Tony C'de Baca prefers it as well.


Jim approves.


One of Tom's tunes.


Linda was tuned.

The bar seemed happy about this tune led by Ben.

More to come, stay tuned.

--Doug

Monday, May 19, 2008

Nora McMahon at the Tin Star This Thursday


Come on out to see Nora and Case this Thursday evening at 9:00 at the Tin Star. Also check out her new web page:

http://noramcmahon.com

--Doug

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Look Who's Reading the Tin Star Music Blog!

I just checked on where people who read this blog are coming from. Check it out.

--Doug

Click to enlarge

Wednesday's 5-14 Tin Star Jam

Well...

Things started off normally enough. By 9:30 there was a full house.

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


The music began fairly smoothly with a jazzy funk number.

Plenty of gorgeous women were in the audience.

Freddie "Suave" Lopez introduced himself to one of those gorgeous women to make sure she knew about his band's gig Saturday at Willee's Blues Club. In fact, you all should go see The Rue Barbs*, this Saturday evening at Willee's!


I seldom look at the men, but I'm sure there were plenty of gorgeous men there too.


We had trumpets!

Frank's old horn has a few miles on it.

As the evening wore on though, in spite of our best efforts and Laura's hostess skills


the music never came together. None of our drummers showed up, and that left a big hole. When you read this, you drummers, (I know, I know. But some drummers can read. Really. Don't listen to those vicious rumors about drummers. Most of them are just plain false.); you need to realize that you were missed. I hope you can make it next week. You know who you are...

Until next time (hopefully with a drummer or three),

--Doug

*The Rue Barbs: THE TROUBADOR, THE HUNK, THE GEEZER, THE ACTOR & THE ROAD MAN..

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Sunday Night's "Cowboy" Open Mic

We had cowboys.



We had cowgirls.


We had a guy with a guitar and a guy with a wind-midi. That's an instrument that you blow into, and a computer makes it sound like whatever you want: sax, clarinet, keyboard; whatever.


And we played some music together.

Here's one that we had some fun with: have a listen.

Until next time,

--Doug

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Steppen' Out Tonight!

Come on out to the Tin Star tonight to listen to Steppen' Out. See you there!

Friday, May 9, 2008

Rough Gems

The thing that I really enjoy about the Jams is the fact that every once in a while an experiment turns out to actually have sounded pretty good. You can't really tell how a number sounds when you are up on stage playing. I mean, you can tell when it really stinks, but you can't tell if it's any good.

The next day when I'm listening to the recordings from the previous evening I am occasionally surprised to find a number or two that hold together quite well. Realize that in a jam, you frequently have a group of people of various skill levels that have never played together, playing something for the first time.

Those rough gems are never as polished as what you would hear in a regular gig, but sometimes they are just good enough to let you hear the potential for a good piece of music.

That's what keeps me going back to the jams.

--Doug