schmedidiah wrote::lol: how's Florida treating you? Take in any karaoke shows in Ocala? 
FL was great. we've been back home for a cpl of wks now.
after a cpl of days there, i played a gig w John Whiteleather at Siesta Key Oyster Bar. we'd met on c-list a cpl of wks previous and on the basis of seeing a few videos, he invited me to just walk in and play a pick-up gig on bass and mando w him and his band. he's a good guy w some real talent at songwriting, singing, and playing. also a very good leader/communicator on stage as he was able to give me a succinct nuts and bolts overview of the tunes as he was calling them off. no set list...and no backing tracks (thank gawd) and no.......they did not do "Lay Down Sally"!
some video of one of his tunes from that gig:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghvX3h_SZ7Uin other music news....i met up with an old musician buddy (gtr/keys/tenor sax) of mine who i used to play with back in the late '70's in NYC. after a long lunch catching up, we headed over to a rehearsal studio where he rented a few hrs time for us and the drummer from his african/soukous band. (GREAT drummer!) big fun jamming on their soukous tunes and we had a blast trying to remember some of the old tunes we used to play.
but you asked about karaoke so here's the "karaoke story"!
so, just down the beach from the house we were renting is The Sandbar. Nice place that has a jazz brunch on Sundays. we had enjoyed a pretty good little jazz quartet the previous yr when we were here. so the mrs and i decided to swing by.
I actually thought about bringing my bass or gtr to have in the car, and if things felt cool I might ask about sitting in. BTW....this is the same place our BM karaoke curmudgeon was asking about and claimed to have called to see if I was playing there.
anyway...the mrs talked me out of bringing an axe
"well, if their music is happening, you can always talk to them about sitting in next week". so we get there and I see a smaller duo set up... on "stage" there's a tenor/soprano/and flute in stands....and there's a gtr rig.
well, they finish their break (and the break music playing is great straight ahead jazz so I'm encouraged, right?)...then they get up and the gtrst fires up his laptop and voila, they're playing hokey jazz tunes along with full blown tracks!!!!
Satin Doll, In The Mood, Montego Bay...that kind of schmaltz. and the gtrst is a pretty good singer but he's mostly just holding his Parker Fly gtr, only occasionally hitting a lick or two....some even with "key correct" notes! Much of the time they were just standing there holding their instruments as the singer crooned....sometimes just standing there w NO singing. yikes.
the sax player was pretty good and seemed a little embarrassed when he figured out I was musician. he had come over to visit w us before they went back up. later we talked a little as the mrs. and i were leaving (just as soon as we finished our meal!) and they invited me to come back to play vibes next week! I was not too excited about the prospect but the wife thought I should do it because the sax player might have some "real" gigs. Couldn't do it. I never did make it back w my vibes.
this all just struck me as so funny and synchronous what with the whole go-round w our resident BM karaoke duo dude.
)
how's Florida treating you? Take in any karaoke shows in Ocala? 
