Pardon me a moment as I break kayfabe. While I would normally post a review of an album, I’m feeling a little self-indulgent and, in the spirit of turning the tables and getting away from the overly critical, here’s a fun little story from one my own performances the other night:

Every week I try to get off my ass and hit up an open-mic or two in Toronto’s east end. There are a couple of great spots on the Danforth that are very accommodating to newbies like me and I’ve been taking advantage, bludgeoning the unsuspecting patrons with 3-4 tracks on Monday nights.

This time around  I was looking forward to adding some accompaniment by way of my girlfriend, Laura, on shaker and backup vocals, and a friend of mine, Donnie, providing a bit of a spoken word break during my last song. Of course, best laid plans and all that good stuff…turns out Donnie was running late. In fact, I was on stage, plugged in and ready to go when he called, allowing the whole of Dora Keogh’s Irish pub to hear our conversation, as I was standing in front of the mic at the time.

Laughing as I gave Donnie directions and told him to hurry, I hung-up and started the set with a finger-pickin’ folk number called “Alligator Song” (yet to be recorded, but coming soon). Following up with “Seacaptain,” I invited Laura to accompany me with shaker and backups, but was also met with some excellent percussion courtesy of one of the open-mic’s regular patrons. It was at some point towards the middle of “Seacaptain” that I started giggling into the mic as I felt my phone vibrating against my hip (thankfully, my pocket muffled the Indiana Jones theme—my faithful ringtone). I knew it was Donnie calling to try to stall me. Little did he know that his part was approaching fast.

I started my third and penultimate song, “Raise Your Dead” (also not yet recorded, but coming soon) without Donnie in sight, but had already stalled too much to justify waiting. I’ve grown to love playing this song. Written years ago, I recently dusted it off and gave it new life by way of urging people to accompany me throughout with their best ghost noises and handclaps.

Starting out folky, there’s a break halfway through where it changes key. This is the spot where Donnie recently improvised a repetitive spoken word that I really enjoyed (something about flesh hanging off the heads of the dead…though not nearly as morbid as it you’d think when backed by ghost noises and handclaps). Thankfully for me, right on cue Donnie burst through the door of the pub. I was too far away to recognize anything but his bright red baseball cap as he paused in the doorway, striking a pose befitting of the end of the Street Fighter movie–fist held triumphantly in the air. He quickly recognized the song being played and set off towards the stage in a full-out sprint. In fact, he was so enthused (and intoxicated) that he actually knocked Laura’s mic over as he lept beside me just in time to deliver his lines.

I was laughing the entire time, as I couldn’t get over how perfectly the whole scenario had played out—I couldn’t have scripted it any better. In the end the song was sloppy and loose, but I think our enthusiasm carried it home, as the small crowd of regulars seemed to enjoy it.

I closed the set with an extended version of “Grandma” that included both djembe and shaker solos and consoled an excessively apologetic Donnie, who felt bad for causing such a scene. I just laughed and told him I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

How am I going to top that next week?

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I record under the name Dog Is Blue (Paul Watson was a bit too generic), so here are a few demos of songs mentioned above:

Dog Is Blue - Grandma Demo

Dog Is Blue - Seacaptain Demo

Hear more demos and such at my Myspace page.  I hope to do some proper recording at some point in the near future. In the meantime, forgive my self-indulgence, as I just felt like a brief change of pace.