The Middle of Nowhere Maryland!

Yesterday we hit up an open mike night in the middle of nowhere vaguely outside Baltimore hosted by the Baltimore Guitarist Group. It was a pretty damn good day. We picked up one last Phillie Cheese Steak on our way out of Phillie, and headed to Maryland. Once we arrived in the boonies, a Rock and Roll afternoon of frisbee, the driving range, a picnic, and beautiful weather prepared us for a Rock and Roll evening of Rock and Roll Karaoke at this bar Steve found online.

This is the first time we actually put the Rock and Roll Karaoke idea to the test, and it was everything I could have hoped for in rocking out. Lots of people in the bar got into it and did a great job. Our new best bud Marty joined us on bass too. He declined to join the tour as he's a little tall to sleep comfortably in the van (not that I'm so short that it counts as comfortable). There's a moral here, which is that Rock and Roll Karaoke is pretty much the most fun thing ever.

The other bands were quite good. This is a common theme at open mike nights. This country is stuffed with talented people who go through an awful lot of effort to play for 15 minutes in front of 10 people. We're smack dab in the middle of that Venn Diagram.

Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.
- Banksy

Here are some of my favorite lines from other bands' songs, accuracy not guaranteed.

• I got drunk and stumbled away, but I didn't get that far, because I fell right back in your arms.
  - The guy whose songs had a decidedly autobiographical vibe to them.
• She took the pussy, I got the cat.
  - Duquense Incline, writing about a girlfriend the drummer had who left him with the cat just before she took off. R&R Karaoke-wise, Jimmy did 500 Miles, and Jay did... I forget.
  
• Fish swim. Birds fly. Daddies yell. Mamas cry. Old men sit and think. I drink.
  - Some guy who covered a Mary Gauthier song. He also did a great job of a I Walk the Line Rock and Roll Karaoke style.