Gasoline Mousetrap Live at The Shop, 12/26/2004 drmellow, yarbiedoll, Rich (Special Guest Artist), and ccohoon

With the convergence of ccohoon, yarbiedoll and me in Tyrrell County, we had a Gasoline Mousetrap reunion. We spent about an hour on Saturday night before going to bed running over some Christmas music for a performance at my grandfather's house the next day. As it turned out, Sunday School ended about 20 minutes early the next day, so instead of performing at the house, we just got our instruments out of the car and played at the church for a captive audience of 15. It was lots of fun -- I played guitar and mandolin, ccohoon played guitar and banjo, and yarbiedoll kept the melody going strong on her flute. We played all the songs we knew, and then a few we didn't know as the folks started asking us to play their favorite hymns out of the hymnal.

We had a repeat performance later that evening, when we pulled the instruments out after enjoying steamed oysters at my aunt and uncle's house. We were honored to have guest artist Rich, my cousin-in-law (is that a word?), sit in on guitar. With Rich on guitar, ccohoon stuck to the banjo and I stuck to the mandolin. yarbiedoll was keeping it real with her Ian Anderson-inspired flute playing and wowed the audience when she retired her regular flute in favor of a bamboo flute for Joy To The World. The song eventually morphed into a reggae jam-fest and everyone was getting into it. Rich and ccohoon attempted a little Dueling Banjos while I chopped chords on the mandolin. Rich was joined in this epic musical battle against ccohoon by yarbiedoll's flute. A banjo-flute duel on Dueling Banjos is an amazing thing to behold, and I think that Gasoline Mousetrap will have to work-up an arrangement for future performances. When all was said and done, I think ccohoon won the duel, although yarbiedoll and Rich put up a valiant fight.

All in all, it was a great weekend for Gasoline Mousetrap!