Journal #4

SLOKUM ROCKED WITH MICHELLE SHOCKED!
Michelle just played the Bluebird as she and her
excellent band tour the mid-west
in support of Dub Natural their **** album
I will add a page to the Journal soon!

HE DATE WAS May 18, 1996. That morning, I'd bought a new strap for my guitar. It was a fine spring day - sunny, and warm. I decided to stroll the streets playing whatever THE MUSIC gave my fingers to play. I'm quite myopic without my bifocals, but when I play guitar I will often replace my glasses with colored SHADES - it helps compensate for the everything-is-fuzzy lack of focus, and lets me concentrate on my musical meandering. Besides, I know the streets of Bloomingulch - Bloomington, Indiana's student quarter, well enough I don't need to be able to read street signs...Looking for a more novel sound, I re-tuned the Gibson to "D" Chord, and then to DADGAD. What a hoot! ICHELLE SHOCKED happened to be scheduled to play a club that night. I knew the fellow that booked the club, so I thought I'd take the "box" to keep myself amused on what turned out to be quite a long line for tickets. I figured if there was any problem with me having my guitar strapped over my back, that my friend would let me stash it in his office. I'd seen Shocked play her "Anchorage" song on David Letterman, heard of the legendary Campfire tape, and was eager to hear more. She was travelling with the guitarist from the Hot House Flowers, Fiachna O'Braonain. As it turned out, I had no problem arise with me showing up with my trusty Gibson. As a matter of fact... Here's a hint of things to come in this story: The full image is 18k "BEANY BOB" The club was packed to capacity. Michelle and Fiachna were travelling with support people who made them sound fantastic, like a folk-symphony orchestra. At one point they performed a mandolin - penny-whistle duet. It was HAPP'NIN' BAY-BEE!I quickly found a safe place to stash my git-fiddle for a bit. Then I realized the leather hook-on thingee for the nub on the bottom end of the guitar was strong enough for me to hang the Gibson cradled over my shoulder, so I could dance with it on...Plus I had an Interstellar Propeller Beany Cap, that Stacey Samuels, the maker of the Beanies gave me when I was the "gardener" at the place they are put together in South Berkeley - 1600 Woolsey. Michelle and Fiachna got a lively dance tune going, then asked, "Does anyone here know how to do the funky chicken?" I lept into a space she had asked the audience to clear, just as two women I knew from around the club scenes in years bygone also got down to shakin'theybootie, too...the audience needed no further demonstration - the show was both EARTHY and STRATOSPHERIC after that!!! EFORE LONG, Michelle and Fiachna intoduced her song from the Grammy winning soundtrack for the DEAD MAN WALKING movie. I do not get to see many movie when they come out, or even in video format, so the song struck me with a thunderous revelation. By the second repeat of the Refrain, which is the title - "...and the quality of MERCY is not strained," I found myself transfixed by the intensity in Michelle's voice, and was singing along whole-heartedly, with full throat. Then, to go on to experience elation, by the last few verses, I discovered myself singing the words to a song I'd never heard! It IS possible, like Len Chandler wrote and sang back in the fifties, just gotta take "the beans out of your ears!!!" I love making eye contact with people when I sing with them, so it was greatly satisfying when the two performers looked down from the not-too-high stage and maintained their eye contact with me as WE sang together...Talk about being in LA-LA LAND!!!! Perhaps another song or two went by my ears. I had been standing fairly close to the front of the stage most of the show. Much to my complete surprise, Michelle then leaned over the edge of the stage and looked me square in the eye, and said, "Beany BOB, get up here, bring your Guitar!" I presume she called me that because BOB alliterates with the BEANY CAP I was sporting for this festive occasion. She wanted to include me in her STRAWBERRY JAM, song, it turned out...Was I in Tune? I would be shortly... I quickly lept up on the stage with my trusty old mahagony wood Gibson, Shocked asked me what my name was and introduced me to the audience as Jesse. Then as Fiachna helped me to get set up, Michelle asked if there was anyone else in the audience who was really confident about their guitar playing. (I was told this after the show by a friend - I was too busy with Fiachna to grasp all of this other bit of staging business.) A fellow came to the edge of the stage, he got up and she handed him her mandolin, and said the song we're gonna do has three chords - D, A, and E. She showed him how to finger them on the mandolin... With me, Fiachna first helped me tune the Gibson, and then made a lightning fast decision, since Michelle was already strumming and talking to the crowd over the microphone. Realizing the sound crew would have stop "the action" to mike my guitar, and 'EQ' it with the rest of the sound mix, he said, "Use my guitar, it's tuned and EQed into the sound board." So, I set my Gibson down and picked up his jumbo size deluxe hollow body acoustic. The shoulder strap was too loose! There wouldn't be time to tighten it up...so I balanced the box of the guitar on my right hip, where I could play it, AND keep it under control. Fiachna had been quite slack up until this point, but then with a slight look of anxiety on his face he took a few steps toward me and said, in a stage whisper - off mike - "Do you actually KNOW this song?" I didn't, but I'd heard Michelle recite the progression to the other fellow, and I figured I'd have no trouble intently watching them play the chords I knew by heart, so I replied, "No, but I can 'FAKE it'" (musical talk for "wing it") The relaxed look came back to Fiachna's visage, with that grin you see when somebody knows they're blowing your mind...and...we were off! It wasn't too hard to catch the swing rhythm the tune danced on, and I kept it simple. At one point Fiachna called me to his vocal mike and told me to repeat each phrase with him after he sang it first - we "put on a harmony" (in the words of Joni Mitchell, from her Playing Real Good, for Free song). All I remember, after that night, is Straw-ber-rey JA-AM! Then, Michelle, noticing the way I was bunched over that huge guitar of Fiachna's, came over. leaned against my left shoulder and sort of did a tango mime of what she saw me doing...sweet reader, this is the stuff dreams are made of!!! If I never get to do anything quite so daringly off-the-cuff again, at least Michelle and Fiachna have shown me and five hundred people what improv is all about. (I'm told that the fellow playing her mandolin even succesfully took a solo - I was so focused on what was required of me, that I didn't notice...) Soon, the tune was done, and people went nuts!!!! Michelle and Fiachna got the other fellow and I between them, and we four took a deep bow in acknowledgement of the crowd's delight. The rest of the show was "hog heaven", to be sure. A fan of Shocked later told me that Michelle had a custom of finding people to do Strawberry Jam with her where-ever she plays. (here's Graffiti Limbo You can find lyrics, and some chord charts...like for Strawberry JAM...performance history and future dates here too...please note - sometimes I get a can't find server message for this site...) It's all about making home "brew" music, jam, LOVE - accept NO SUBSTITUTES ~ BEANY BOB ~