Saturday, April 19, 2008

The Paying Gig... What A Blast!

Our group, "Keota" had our first gig last night and it was an utter and complete success... we had more fun than you could shake a stick at and pulled the whole schmazz off to a full house. Sally had the video camera running and I put together a few youtubes today.

We've tried to hit a unique sound, no drums, one central (most impressive) microphone, all acoustic instruments and trying not to sound too bluegrassy or folksy, and from the smiles and laughter and applause... I think we may have pulled it off. So here we go...

First one is a little different version of Del Shannon's "Runaway". We moved it to the key of C and slowed it down a tad. Our bass player, Mary Beth and the younger gal, Martina are mother and daughter. Mary Beth was trained in classical opera, Martina... well, it looks like she's heading places.





Next is a great song done by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils back in 'bout '73. A nice little ditty 'bout gardening and seeds and stuff... :-) Watchin' our animated harp player, Louis (Louie) is entertainment all by itself. lol





You know who did his damnedest to tear it up on Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road" A loverly little song 'bout illegal whiskey, fast cars, momma, the law, viet nam, growing dope and becoming a complete success at life. This is our "we need a laugh" song. If you can play a D and a G chord... you're in the band!







I did another by Don Williams... little rough to pull this one off for personal reasons. Sally changed the words a tad for me, my daughter is Amanda. I think it made my mom cry so... I had that going for me. :-)






And the last song of the night, our girl Martina W. absolutely kicked the slats outta the bed with Martina McBride's "Broken Wing". I swear I get weepy playin while she sings this one. I'm an old softy. lol


It'll take your breath away...






I'll dribble a few more in tomorrow hopefully if ya wanna hear 'em.

5 comments:

debijeanm said...

Wonderful! Fantastic! You have a great sound and a fun chemistry going! Congratulations!

Mar said...

thanks for the clips, wish I could say it's almost as good as being there, but somehow I don't think so. You are all awesome and in the "groove"!

Anonymous said...

Oh man! That was soooooo cool! I can't get over what your big hands do with that little bitty mandolin. :) I really enjoyed the music and the performances, Jace. My hat's off to the entire band, and a huge round of applause to Martina!!

Thanks, Sally, for gettin' these all wrapped up and ready for posting.

Anonymous said...

Great Stuff!

Keota Rules!


(just a wee suggestion - can you put that big ole bass on the back line instead of the front? I was worried about it the whole time I was watchin/lisn'in/watchin/lisn'n

Anonymous said...

Whoa!!! You guys sound awesome and given your strings and strong vocals, I think adding any drums or percussion would just muck it up. Nice job on belting out Copperhead Road, Jace...LOL! You ain't kidding about Martina... goosebumps on that one.

Heck of a job...paying gigs here you come! Thanks for the vids, enjoyed very much.

Brent