Open mic night in Falls Village

FALLS VILLAGE — The open mic talent show at the David M. Hunt Library Friday, Aug. 8, featured a guest singer from Sweden and the world premiere of a new musical instrument.

The show started promptly at 6 p.m. on the library lawn.

First up was violinist Rachel Gall with a welcoming song, and singing and playing the instrument, which is not easy.

Master of Ceremonies Adam Sher emphasized the “open” part of open mic.

“I am going to give each one of you the opportunity to tell a story or a joke.”

The first surprise of the evening came from Ruben Ohman, age 11, visiting the area with his mother, Jenny Ohman.

Young Ruben stepped up to the microphone and sang a quick piece solo. He later said the song meant, roughly, “Bring Us Peace.”

He also danced enthusiastically while Gall and Brook Martinez played what sounded like an Irish reel, with Martinez sitting on and playing a Peruvian percussion instrument called (in Spanish) a cajon. It is essentially a modified wooden box but in the right hands it sounds like someone playing a set of drums and cymbals.

The Berkshire Resilience Brass Band, in this case consisting of Dathalinn O’Dea on alto sax, trumpeters Lev and Shamu Sadeh, and Martinez on the cajon, played a couple of their patented group groove improvisations.

Martinez and his son Leo, performing as The Mystery Twins, with dad on acoustic guitar and son on electric guitar, did a version of Nirvana’s “About a Girl.”

The most intriguing part of the show was the world’s first look at the “guitire,” a portmanteau of “guitar” and “tire.”

This rolling instrument was created by Lev Sadeh and Eli Sher. It has four piano strings strung across one side of an ordinary automobile tire, and a drum skin across the other side.

Constructed from piano parts, it can thus be plucked or thumped.

And being round, it is eminently portable.