outdoor show – J Molin

December 2014 Singalong at Little Stacy Park

It was an overcast day, but enough people came out that we ran out of songbooks (for the first time); people shared. Here’s a new song we tried, Donovan’s There Is A Mountain:

Waller Creek Peace Concert

Ralph and I work together at UT. I’m a web guy, he’s an IT guy. We both love music and play guitar. So we teamed up last week to put on a little peace concert in a sweet corner of campus as part of the Hearts of Texas Charitable Campaign. This was a fun gig for me because I had Ralph backing me up, and because it was the first time I used my new portable, battery powered pedalboard and vocal amp.

Now I can sing my softer, sweeter songs and still be heard outside. Now I can layer loops and delays. And I can do it in the most scenic, remote locations, because it can all be battery powered.

Here are three tunes from the beautiful concert on Waller Creek last Friday. Thanks to everyone who came out and for the perfect weather.

This first video is of Ralph playing over a loop I laid down before the concert while Earl took pictures and I finished setting up. This is one of the things I’ve been wanting to do, be able create this rich soupy ambient background music outside, for sweet spaces like this one. I love how the loop and Ralph’s improv get mixed with talk, trucks, beeps, birds and other background noises.

The first song we played was an old one of mine that I love but rarely play, The Train Into The City. Again, this fingerpicked song is too quiet to be easily heard outside without the amp.

Here is one of the covers we played, Van Dieman’s Land, the only U2 song I know of by The Edge.

Tunes for Turtles

Ralph and I played a set at the turtle pond this afternoon. It was a gorgeous, sunny, 85-degree day and all the turtles came out, along with a bunch of friends from around the UT-Austin campus. Carlo snapped a great set of reflections in the water, presented here, upside down.

We opened with one of my songs, I Can See You. Check out all the background noises: birds, planes, bells, trucks… the hum of the buildings and the buzz of the Friday afternoon exodus was our backdrop.