Neil Not-So-Young

I'd signed on for open mike night at the local Brit club/pub called "The Wanderers". My set was sandwiched in between a number of British fellers--some solo, some in bands, all, who, like me, are growing thick around the middle and unlike me (though my time's a comin' for sure), are balding and/or have gone gray.

I chose to start off my set with a Richard Thompson number about a boy, his motorbike and a red-headed girl named Molly."Vincent Black Lightning 1952".


It's a real barn burner, and choosing this song--which I only started to learn three days ago-- might have been amateur night suicide in a Brit pub because Richard Thompson is veddy British and as far as guitar players go, allow me to paraphrase Steve Earle, he's one of the best songwriter/guitar players in the whole world, and I'll stand on Eric Clapton's coffee table in my Crocs and say that.



D'Rose snapped a few photos. I chose not to finger pick the song because I wanted to go straight acoustic (no effects), leaning my guitar into the mike, which was probably another amateur night death wish. So in order to be heard above the pub chatter, the song required a lot of double strumming with a pick, heavy on the attack (which is why my right hand is blurred; it was in constant flight).



Plus there was the stretching of the index and pinky fingers to unreasonable lengths in order to keep recalling the motif hoe-down riff. Oh, and there are also something like 100,000 words which I didn't have time to learn, so in addition to banging on the strings and having to maintain the bluegrassy mandoliny riff that drives the song, I had to constantly eyeball a cheat sheet on the music stand all the while imitating Richard Thompson's voice which is a register lower than my own nasaly caterwauling.

Anyway, I think I pulled it off. After I got off the stage, one of the organizers came up to me and said,"You know this room is filled with Richard Thompson fans. I have five different versions of that song at home. Nice job." Aw shucks.

Other songs in the set included Neil Young's "Pocahontas" which I learned from Steve in Kuwait, Warren Zevon's "Carmelita" which Kevin in Siem Reap taught me, and the ubiquitous "I Shall Be Released"/"Paint It Black" set enders. I had planned on doing Ryan Adams' cover of "Wonderwall" (an Oasis song), but some Irish bloke before me AND a band that came on after me both played the song.

I've added Richard Thompson from You Tube playing VBL 1952. Enjoy. The lad's got talent.