Tiny Circus Blues

This tiny project included my first published performance of the blues: 25 seconds of improv humming for an animated cartoon called The History of Blue (from 1:15 to 1:40 in the video below).



My son Shane helped with animating and sound effects, notably the wolf whistle.   We're in this photo watching as the video is shot frame by frame.

Creating video stills with Tiny Circus, July 3, 2010, at ICON in Fairfield.
Shane Welty is in foreground under a camouflage cap, operating editing software.
I'm standing at the back wall with long hair over right shoulder.
Torrey Witherspoon is seated in front of me.

The art gallery ICON hosted Tiny Circus and Fairfield participants in their activity room (pictured above).  After the topic "The History of Blue" was chosen, we needed a story line.   We tossed around lots of ideas and considered every notion of "blue" ~ the sky, pigments and paints, fabric dyes, the water cycle, the rainbow, cold weather, and others.   My mind gravitated to love and heartbreak since that's what I write about in my songs, so I suggested that as a storyline and they ran with it.

We made sound effects in ICON's basement.  Torrey Witherspoon played mandolin for the happy-dancing first part of the video and voiced the sighing transition.   I don't remember the name of the young man who strummed chords on Torrey's mandolin for the end where I hummed.   He said he had just begun learning blues and knew one chord progression.   Well, that's all we needed.

Tiny Circus wrote about the day on their blog.   If you know other details about this day (like the strummer's name), please tell me and I'll add to the story.

Our First Open Mic

We (Russ, Mike, me) did our first Open Mic last night:  "undrummed" was our theme for two songs.   Here's the audio file.



Things We Said Today is an early Beatles tune.   Mike played the intro twice because the mic was off when I was supposed to start singing.   I wrote Would You Catch Me in December and Mike and Russ made chords for it in February.   After our set, Keith DeBoer, the MC, introduced my son Shane for the next act.   Shane wrote the first tune, and the second is Stand By Me.



Topping off the night as the featured act was Global Cooling led by chanter Chandra Das, who filled in on a few hours' notice for Jonas Magram who'd had an accident and couldn't make the show (he's doing okay).   Global Cooling's bass player didn't make it, so Russ joined in to fill out the bottom end.

Update:   Jonas supplied the "news report" of his injury ~

Here we are! The band is OUT!

Photographer Tim Laughrin captured a moment early in the evening.
Pictured are Ark-Hal Karns on congas, David Haworth on keyboard, Christy Ann Welty on mic, 
Mike Scanlon on lead guitar, Tim Duffy on slide guitar, Russ England on bass guitar, Ken Ross on drums.
Watching over all of us is the beautiful Delphic Sybil of Cafe Paradiso.

The first Saturday night of February 2012 was our "coming-out" party to introduce ourselves as a band plus a chance for me to say "Thank You!" to the many folks who helped music become a fulfilling part of my life.   Special guests Ark-Hal Karns, Tim Duffy, and Will Gunn added their sonic flourishes throughout the evening.   Headliner Josy Ylene Welty (my daughter) sang ballads from her heart, and newcomer Shane P Welty (my son) warmed up the crowd playing his guitar with the boys in the band (Russ, Ken, Mike, and David).