MonaLisa's performance at "Sol Grill" Newport Beach, L.A.

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"Open Microphone" at Newport Beach

Wednesday, 25 July 2007

Well, it was already cool that we spent our holidays 2007 in America (Los Angeles). But we really never would have dreamt of performing publicly there! How we got around to doing that? It was very simple:

On 4 July, Independence Day, we drove down to Newport Beach (south of L.A.). In one of those Cafés we got known to a very good guitar player: jOHn Parschauer (that's no typo - he's writing himself that way). During our 4 week stay he has given us some guitar lessons and also the advice to play in "Open Mikes". These are venues where any musician can perform one or two songs without casting or paying for it. The premise's visitors would then be his audience.

Of course we did not miss the chance of a public performance in America! The "Sol Grill" was located at Newport Beach, about 1 hour drive south from Los Angeles.

Dusty was the host of Open Mike Sol Grill

Host Dusty took care for us very movingly.

We sang I will (Beatles) and Wild World (Cat Stevens) in two voices and played with two guitars which we borrowed from other musicians there.

The audience was that enthusiastic about our performance that we had to encore with Love is all around (The Troggs). Even the other musicians who performed first listened attentively and heated the audience up with words like "Hey guys, you first saw them at Newport Beach!"

Dusty was the host of the Open Mike at "Sol Grill". On the picture you can see him helping us with the amplification of our guitars. He himself is a folk- and blues-singer and he also performed some songs there. One of it was the German folk song "Muss i denn (zum Städtele hinaus)". He knew the lyrics better than we did - embarrassing ...

Per Marshall showing us some funk chords

Per had lent us his guitar for our performance and provided us with some valuable advice.

We had lots of fun with all the musicians there. In California it's really easy to get into a conversation with somebody. Among others we got known to the dancer Maurice Christian who really had a beautiful voice. In his wake he had the producer David Warrick Jones who meant that we should do some recordings by all means. He would not be surprised if we would become known already by the age of 16. Our Dad talked shop with him a little and told him what we had done musicwise so far.

On the photo to the right you see Per Marshall in white. He had lent us his guitar for our performance and also showed us a new fingering (a funk chord) that should always remind us of him. He said: "With this chord I have built up my whole music business!"

Our first self-earned 10 Dollar bill has got a place of honor.

The icing on the cake was that we received our first self-earned money from a guest. A lady aged about 40 years gave us 10 Dollars because she liked our singing so much. She was adamant that we take her present. And this is the original bill: The 10 Dollars are now hanging in Mona's room as a memory :)