Virtual Open Mic : Sunday 5-12-13

May 13, 2013 Virtual Open Mic

Every Sunday we will be featuring a Virtual Open Mic here on Broken Jukebox. We will post an article with anywhere between 5-10 videos on it. We hope to get enough video submissions, but we will fill in some of our favorites if need be. If you would like to have your video featured on an open mic, please send a link or the video to adam@brokenjukebox.com. Please spread the word, share the link and share your music. All videos will be considered, but we would love to have videos made specifically for the open mic (if you do make a new video please name drop us). Thanks everyone, enjoy:

First up is Kiernan McMullan doing his song “Kicking Rocks” live in Ireland:

Next up is this past week’s podcast guest, Mike June with “Miss Lavelle White Blues”:

Here’s bluesman, Damian Knapp doing “I Be Troubled” at a show in my hometown some years ago:

Here’s Chicago Farmer doing “I’m Working On It” :

This week’s last video is Eric Nassau playing “Movin’ Time” :

 

Tags: chicago farmer, damian knapp, eric nassau, kiernan Mcmullan, mike june, Virtual Open Mic

Album Review: Eric Nassau : What’s Left of Empty Spaces

Apr 19, 2010 Album Reviews

Eric Nassau is based out of Columbus, Ohio which is not far from my home town. Which means I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this guy live many times since I met him 5 or 6 years ago. In that time, I have been awaiting this album eagerly. Eric has released multiple albums before this one all of which are definitely worth tracking down, but I have been hearing him play the songs on this one for a long time and have been needing to hear them realized in a studio setting.

While most people would rightly classify Eric as a folky, this guy knows how to rock, which I recently witnessed for the first time with a full band and the songs on this album lend themselves to that kind of show much more than his previous recordings. The folk influence is still present here, but on certain songs you can feel the energy wanting to burst out through your speakers. Eric enlisted many of Columbus’s best musicians on this record, including Jim Volk and Megan Palmer and his songwriting is better than ever. Also ever present on anything you hear Eric on is his incredibly melodic voice. This guy’s voice just makes you feel calm and makes every word he sings seem soothing.

As for the highlights of the album, I must start out with a song that every time I’ve seen hm since I heard it first I have annoyingly called out from the crowd, “Hey, Peoria!”. This song just hit me for some reason. The basics of the song is that the narrator is trying to make St. Louis for a friend’s upcoming nuptials and is sidetracked in Peoria, IL because of a detour. He eventually makes the wedding on time but not before seeing all Peoria has to offer, but not by his choice. I just love the fact that Nassau is singing to the city itself and for some reason it makes me smile. Another great track on the record is “Ukulele Lady and The Mandolin Man”, a story of two wayward musicians that hook up because of the similarity in size of their chosen instruments. Further on in the record comes an ode to some rot gut whiskey, “Jeremiah Weed”. This stuff is foul if you ask me, but if you were to ask the characters in the song or the singer himself, it may contain the secret of life. A couple of songs that show that Nassau can rock are, “Turn” , the album’s opening track which laments a missing dog, as well as ” Big Water” .

An album that was worth the wait, Nassau delivers another quality disc. If you are ever in the central Ohio area then look up Eric’s schedule and catch a show, or wait until he makes his way towards you. You can find him on line at his myspace page.

Tags: album review, eric nassau