Another Excellent Night of Open Mic

Last night was Thursday night. As such it was Open Mic at the Brick Church (I blogged about it last week) and Jenny and my date night. Last week was awesome, but this week was at least twice as good.

Jenny and I came in and got settled as the first act played, a drum soloist with a lot of energy. After our friend got off the drums a guy with shoulder length wavy brown Jesus hair (like in every picture of Jesus, and also like in that picture of the guy in question up there) and a trimmed mustache/goatee deal. Jenny pointed out that he looked a little like Johnny Depp, and I pointed out that I wanted to look just like both of them. After taking a couple minutes to set up this guy was introduced as Brian, the first to ever bring a didgeridoo to Open Mic. He started out on a beat-up guitar and moved on to awesomeness. It was great.

You should begin playing this video now.




As the bio on Brian Ernst's music page says "Brian steps on stage and owns it. He's got 20 instruments, and a looping pedal. And that's all he needs." After two songs of Brian's looping pedal and scrambling for the next instrument I was hooked. This guy was awesome. Assuming I did that video right you should be listening to Travelin' Man, probably my favorite song of his CD. See, Brian isn't from Bangor. Actually, he's doing a tour of the country with his fiance. He held up a tatted roadmap with his tour route marked on it. It was very cool. Not only that, but he's not selling his CDs, he just accepts donations. I think this CD was one of the best $10 I've ever spent. Also, not only is his music great and he's super cool for touring the country (I know, it can get better?) this guy founded Journey4YOUth, whose mission statement is:

Journey4YOUth aims to empower people from all walks of life to do what they can in their own community and the larger world at wide to make an impact; focusing on alleviating poverty and promoting sustainability.

And is more specifically doing work in Kenya fighting poverty and raising money to build a school for children who otherwise wouldn't get an education. Guess what? 10% of CD sales go to Journey4YOUth, so I gave a buck. I only wish I could have given more. Also cool. He's a Christian. Nice! Not in-your-face or obnoxious about it, he just expressed it through his lyrics and through his website and CD. Seriously, check out Brian's website here and Journey4YOUth's website here. He has some of his music to listen to on his music page. I suggest listening to Warrior King, a song about how epic God is. I don't know how he ended up in Bangor of all places at our little off-beat open mic, but I'm sure glad he did.

Also, when he handed me the CD he said "Thanks a lot, man. Burn it for all your friends!" so I assume he won't mind that I put up one of his songs here. If you're interested in hearing his music he said he's on Itunes, or you could just ask me if you're hanging out with me.

So, that was probably the best part of the night. A little later there was a band called 1+1=2 which was...kind of funny. It was a 40 something guy on drums with an upper 20s guy on guitar that had a Love>Fear bumper sticker on it. At first I was willing to take them seriously-until the drummer walked up to the mic, that is. "One plus one equals two, one plus one has always equaled two, and one plus one will always equal two" he said in a monotone before walking back to the drums. "You sure?" the sound guy yelled. They begann a very fast-paced 2.5 chords punk deal and seemed way more serious than I expected because they looked and sounded pretty funny. After two songs of guitar flailing speed rock the drummer got back up to the mic and repeated his monotone statement, this time ending it with "and if you don't know that then turn off your x-box, turn off your TV, and read a book!"

The last person Jenny and I listened to before we left was a guy named Kain with a bald head, handlebar mustache, and a brown bomber jacket complete with a scarf. On the sign up paper he had listed himself as doing poetry. "If you remember that week when I discussed the doomsday cult and also channeled dead poets, well, I was thinking I might do one of those again." I was really excited and curious to see what he might by "channel dead poets" because the reason Jenny and I had stayed this long was because he had written he was doing poetry. "I think I'll talk about the doomsday thing." He then went on to talk about everything. Global warming. The apocalypse. EVERYTHING. It was crazy. And funny. It was just interesting. My favorite part was when he said "and global warming and stuff is all our doing. God isn't even angry yet!"

All in all it was the best night I've had in a while and it was a great time with Jenny. Afterwards we again went for a walk by the waterfront and just enjoyed a nice night together. I can't wait to go again.