I walked into the bar on Tuesday night with a guitar case and a small piece of luggage brimming with pedals. Fully expecting to sound un-rehearsed, noisy and unimpressive, this was the follow-through on a vow I’d made to start working on a more than acoustic set involving loops and whatever else I could manage. There was a band on stage laying down some good ol’ rootsy rock & roll as I clumsily crashed through the doors. Not surprisingly, while the place was far from empty no one was really paying attention. This went double on this particular evening as everyone not on stage was glued to the coverage of the US election.

The band finished their set just as John McCain was working into his speech. He seemed dejected, but poised in defeat, though I heard more than a few whispers from people who just wanted the entertainment of hearing what celebrity-of-the-week, Sarah Palin, might have to say. Noticing a friend at the bar I made my way over to say hi. He, like most of the patrons, was in a perpetual trance of Obama-fueled disbelief and good-will.

The bar was loud, so the small television had subtitles on to help us make out the speeches. I squinted and watched the typed words carefully, trying to catch them in a screw up. Next to me a boisterously drunk blonde made eye-contact and screamed something along the lines of “Obama, man!” I couldn’t help but agree. Ah ha! There it was, McCain stuttered for a moment and the subtitles couldn’t make it out, inserting a random “id” into the sentence by accident. Victorious, I retreated to the entrance and stood next to my guitar case for fear that the previous band might mistake mine for one of theirs as they loaded up. Beside me the hostess of the open mic was busy informing a guy slumped over in his stool that he was too drunk to play, after which she assured me that I was on next. I didn’t recall her being so short.

Springing the latches of the little brown piece of luggage, I unloaded my mini-pedalboard and was set-up in seconds flat (it’s already pretentious enough of me to bring pedals to an open mic, I’d hate to take a long time getting ready too). I introduced myself with a loud “Howdy, folks,” to which the drunks in the crowd hooted back. I followed it up with some lame crack about how I brought some toys to play with and that it was about to get noisy.

Throughout my short set the middle-aged eyes of the previous band carefully studied the mysterious stomp-boxes at my feet. When I really started sloppily layering things with my loop pedal one of the guys exclaimed how he was witnessing “experiments in electronic music.” I didn’t know that was possible with an acoustic guitar and a couple pedals, but it was flattering enough that someone was paying attention to my noisy mess. After the third song I introduced myself again, thanked everyone for listening and unplugged.

The hostess admitted that they were taking another break because people wanted to hear Obama’s speech, which had begun just as I was winding down. Asking for feedback on the cacophony I’d just birthed, she told me to keep bringing the pedals, as it’ll sound better when I’m more practiced. She added that at one point, as Obama was getting started and I was going on about hot air balloons and submarines over a mess of loops, things took on a very cinematic and surreal tone, like I was playing the soundtrack to a political documentary. Hmm, I’ll take that.

As for Barrack Obama’s big moment, people in the small bar were overwhelmed and began to clap as his acceptance speech came to a close. I made a misstep by likening the prevalent “Yes, we can” mantra to televangelism, which was met with disdain from one of my compatriots. I didn’t realize we had all suddenly become such devout born-again Americans. Of course, my black friend at the bar was suitibly rapt with positive emotion at the election’s outcome. I think we all were to some extent. That said, my shit-disturbing Israeli friend quickly went into a rant about how it shouldn’t matter that Obama is Black as long as he’s the right man for the job. I saw his point, but pitied the fact that the empowering idea of positive change that had anesthetized the rest of us seemed lost on him.

I’m under the impression that the open mic resumed at some point, but for a little while we were all too taken by a solidarity and optimism to bother ruining it with vanity. On my way out the door one of the older guys from the previous band stopped me to compliment my set. He said he appreciated what I was doing. Surprised and distracted, I thanked him and left.

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Seeing as he’s much better at it than I am and was among those who inspired me to buy a loop pedal in the first place, here’s another clip of Culture Reject, this time performing “Beach” live for Zunior.tv:

Culture Reject - Fireflies Are Fading