My own local open mic...

One of the greatest hardships I've faced in moving away from our last apartment is the loss of my harmonica playing spots. It's a traumatic ordeal, let me assure you. I miss playing on top of the parking garage and I miss our old neighborhood. I've spent a fair number of hours already walking around our new neighborhood looking for good places to play. The neighborhood, itself, is a very old-money rich kind of neighborhood, so it offers pleasant scenery and solitude. Yesterday, I came upon a school a couple streets over where I can hide under an awning between two buildings and get great acoustics. That was a great find. It's my new parking garage. But tonight took the cake. I decided to go try an open mic tonight that's at a place several blocks away. As I was riding over, I passed a different, smaller open mic being held at the coffee shop a couple blocks from my place so I stopped there instead. It was a small, friendly crowd just there to listen to amateur music. I got up and played with my eyes shut and had a blast... played a couple of really nice tunes. Then when I opened my eyes two songs later, there was a guy sitting on the couch in front of me with a whole bunch of harmonicas out on his lap. I invited him to play and when he put his lips to that harp, I swear some blues magic came out. His name is Carlos and he's been playing for 20 years, though you wouldn't know it from his modesty. He played old school blues so well at first that I couldn't even play with him. I had to listen for several moments before I could venture to join in. It was awesome. We played probably the coolest blues I've ever had a part in. We were both excited to find another harp player and we'll meet again next Wednesday at the Java Hut for a weekly jam! So awesome to find that so close to home.