11 AM, Sun. Feb 7
TRANSATLANTIC WEB CAM JAM SESSION
Live Music
The first Sun of each month The Raconteur hosts a transatlantic jam session. The shop's session is concurrent with a very similar session occurring in Reading, England at a pub called The Retreat. Participants alternate, collaborate, and symphonize via a Google web cam. Web Cam Jam is more about the performers than the performance, but that doesn't mean you can't come and watch. Raconteur musicians drink coffee and play in the rear of the shop. Retreat musicians quaff pints (morning here, Happy Hour there) and are projected onto a movie screen behind local performers. All instruments welcome. Expect a jaw harp, two kazoos, a beer bottle organ, and something called a fluba, which appears to be a tuba-sized fluegel horn. NOTE: If you watched the Oscars last year, you heard Best Actress winner Kate Winslet mention this very same pub and the pickling contest her mother recently won there. Indeed, last April's Web Cam Jam, Kate's mom, Sally Winslet (now known as the Queen of Shallots), was in the foreground eating bangers and in January's Mr. Winslet sang the old broadside “Darlin’ Old Stick.”
MUSICIANS WANTED! FREE! Comp cornbread (fresh from the oven)!
The only bookstore with a house band (the Roadside Graves), The Rac has hosted such music luminaries as Fugazi front man Ian MacKaye, Bouncing Souls front man Greg Attonito, poet/new wave punk Jim Caroll, 80s college radio darlings The Cucumbers, former High Times editor/GG Allin collaborator Mike Edison and his punk blues band Edison Rocket Train (featuring Boss Hog drummer Hollis Queens), and folk noir gangster John Wesley Harding, the first opening act for Bruce Springsteen in twenty years. Plus a slew of local bands: Like Trains and Taxis, Risk Relay, Glad Hearts, etc. YOU TOO CAN PLAY THE RAC! Your participation in the Web Cam Jam is your audition.
