[Harp-L] Brief report from Stockholm

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I was in Stockholm last Friday night, and looked up the local blues 
society web page.  I found to my delight that the Mercury Blues Band 
featuring Joakim Barcheus on harmonica was playing within a 15 minute 
walk of my hotel.

I dropped by the bar and introduced myself.  Joakim asked me to sit in. 
 I listened to the band's first set of solid Chicago-style blues. 
Joakim uses his own customized Marines Bands mostly, played into an 
apparently  ancient brown-and-tan Premier amp (the amp section is in a 
box that sits on the floor in front of the speaker -- you don't see a 
lot of that anymore, if you ever did before) through an Astatic JT-30 -- 
in other words, a very traditional Chicago blues setup.  His sound was 
strong, and the crowd had a great time, me included.  The crowd was a 
lot more mixed than one usually finds in a nightclub in the USA -- 
people ranging from their teens to the sixties -- and everyone seemed 
relaxed and into the music.

I started off the second set with the band, and played two instrumentals 
-- "Comin Home Baby" on an A Natural Minor Lee Oskar in 2nd position, 
followed by Walter Horton's "Have Mercy" on a CX12 chromatic.  It was a 
lot of fun, and the big tube amp combined with the Astatic produced a 
VERY large sound with the chromatic harp.  There's a reason why people 
use those rigs...

Anyway, the blues has an audience in Sweden, and it's fun to hang out 
with them. The Mercury Blues Band seems to play regularly -- if you're 
in Sweden, check out their web page at 
http://web.comhem.se/~u83406314/index2.htm.

thanks and regards, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com