Open Mic Night

with Haynt Blue

Photo by Matthew Jungling on Unsplash

Welcome to Open Mic Night with Haynt Blue
Tonight, we have our first guest performer in the second episode of the series. We hope for many more appearances by SemperFi and others.

So give us a good round of applause in the comments, and now…

S&UP brings you live recording from SemperFi in “Slide on a Backpack”

Did a recording with some slide, thought I’d do something out of my comfort zone. No effects, unplugged using an Ibanez backpack guitar with Red Devil strings 09-42. Recorded direct over iPhone using a voice recorder app. SemperFi

Things could get interesting as we improve recording quality and raise the bar with some friendly competition (we all want to get better); and who knows, there might even be some jam sessions!

We might get something started here - subversive, underground music that puts a finger up at commercialized, overproduced, contrived musical “product”.

Music for the everyday folk.

Have you ever fallen in love with a song the first time you heard it? If you’re like most folks a new song takes some getting used to; that’s why the recording industry exposes us to play after play in hopes of gaining popularity. If nobody knows who you are then your music will probably only be heard once - if ever.

That’s where open mic comes in, where we can repeat performance in front of the same audience (for the most part) or at least an audience there for the open mic. The open mic audience celebrates the imperfection of poor sound reinforcement and sketchy playing. It’s live after all - and free.

Speaking of free, a proper musician understands the value of expression and the right thereof.

1979 Guild dreadnaught recorded into Sonim XP10, emailed then embedded here. Imperfect time and errant notes are included for your enjoyment, you’ll just have to listen more than once to get a roll with it.

Oh, and this is Dead Strings Productions (De Facto) brought to you by S&UP. Big thanks goes to Semper Fi, Haynt Blue, Substack.com and most of all you, the audience.

S&UP brings you a longtime personal hero of mine…

Neil Young is an audiophile of the highest degree, always pushing the limits of his sound, living at the edge of feedback. The legendary Lionel Train whistle sound is his invention along with other sound reproducing developments. The instruments played at live performances are the same instruments used in his recordings, many of them vintage by now. Neil Young’s music and sound are much imitated but never duplicated.

Because of fierce rivalries between the big three guitar manufacturers (Gibson, Fender and Martin) logos are forbidden in televised form; note how they are obscured whenever in camera. The aficionado must learn to identify instruments by their subtleties. In this well produced performance with a smaller audience and prominent venue, Mr. Young could bring his arsenal of hardware and deliver his music with a pure response and demonstrate his agreement with the great musical geniuses…

Music is about the spaces between the notes.

And although the silent masses of lonely musicians play on, dreaming of their time on stage with their friends and audience; we will never know the pains of stardom; we will complain bitterly about the substandard recording practices right along with Neil Young; we will celebrate the ability to freeze these moments in time.

What a pleasure it is to share even this virtual stage with friends and heroes alike. With luck, others will join in gathering the courage to share what we keep so personally to ourselves.