XXI Annual Bob Dylan Imitators Contest

The spoils of victory.

I happened to stumble upon a website for place in Buffalo called Nietzsche's one fine day while fulfilling the tasks and duties of my high-stress-level executive-type position, and I was delighted to find that Nietzsche's hosts an annual event called the Bob Dylan Imitators Contest. Well, that sounded like just the thing to get involved with, and having never heard of the place, I went down the hall to consult with Linda, the sole Buffalo native at work. Linda's description, plus the fact that hanging out in a bar all night on Thursday would require that I take Friday off convinced me. Hey honey, we're going to Buffalo!

The 27th finally rolled around and into the car we went and lit out for Buffalo. Now we usually go up there with a carload of dogs to see Dr. Stanz at Animal Eye Care, so it was nice just the two of us for a change.

We got to Nietzsche's about 6:30, found a parking spot and after camoflaging the guitars, harmonicas, audio and video equipment with a blanket, we stepped out onto Allen St. to do a little exploring. As I leaned into the freezing rain that blasted us I cursed myself for ignoring Nancy's advice to "Bring a coat, you idiot. You'll freeze". We ducked into a little bookstore/antique place after a block or so of exploring became too cold to continue, and after looking around half-heartedly, decided to just go to the place where the contest was and hang out, get something to eat, have a beer and wait for the sign up to begin. So into Nietzsche's we went.

Talking with some of the judges.

Well, it was lucky for us we went in when we did, for news of the Dylan Contest had swelled the ranks of patrons to exactly five, including me, Nancy, and the bartender. Hmmm... nobody in the place. Well, we were a bit early I guess, so we sat down to have a beer and regroup. "A pale ale and Bass" I replied to the barmaids query. The pale ale tap blew foam and sputtered off after a quarter of a glass. No pale ale. Oh, and no Bass either. And changing the keg was out of the question because Bass "Has a weird triangle hole and it's hard to change". Okay, fine. Ultra and Blue Moon it is.

We had a few pulls out of the bottle and took a look around. Turns out that the sign-up time for the contest was at 8:oo, not 7:oo as I had been told when I called Nietzsche's earlier in the week to verify the starting time. That's cool, it's all good when you don't have to work Friday.

We started up a conversation with the bartender and a kid sitting at the bar, and we were struck by what we always think when we visit Buffalo, folks there are very friendly and real.

Mike Meldrum- He runs the contest and was

Ani DiFrancos mentor. Nice guy.

Pretty soon in came a couple, and the fella was carrying a guitar. They turned out to be Ralph and Cindy, two of the nicest people we met that night. Ralph is another member of a group I know quite a few of; college professors who can sing and play the heck out of the guitar. He did a real nice Don't Think Twice which I have on video, and I'll add some stills of him to this post when I figure out how to grab them.

Nancy and I got a bunch of new cameras and camcorders and this was the first try out for some of the stuff, plus I was trying to record audio as well on a Zoom H4, which my brother-in-law Dave did a nice job of manning.

I disremember this lady's name. I do remember

that she did a nice Masters of War.

Next thing you know, people were showing up and the contest got rolling and the fun began. Lots of good tunes and everybody was having fun singing, playing and listening. When it was all said and done, I had a great time, met some good people,got to play some tunes I haven't done in years, was lucky to be judged "Best in Show", won a lot of good prizes and got to drive home in one last snowstorm.