Old John Smokey

Old John Smokey is a blues musician from Elmira, New York who is best known for playing the spoons. He briefly appeared during the "Slower and Creepier" episode of NSFW where he was to be the musical guest for the episode, but was ultimately bumped due to time. After sitting through most of the episode waiting to make his Internet debut, he ended up throwing his spoons on the ground in frustration and walked off camera. However, he did have a single spoon moving to the beat during the ending theme.

After being told he could not play on the show, he tweeted, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!"

Music

Old John Smokey's upcoming album, which he apparently has or plans to use a Kickstarter to get funded, is named "Train Time Blues". Not many other details are known, but John had tweeted on July 6th that he would be able to post a free song soon. He has previously promised video or audio recordings, but none have surfaced to date. It would seem that John has to rely on friends or family to record and post these for him. He has expressed interest in getting his songs on iTunes.

From what he has said on Twitter, he apparently likes to play around town including his local Denny's, some sort of event with a stage (possibly a hotel), and his town square on July 4th. For his 4th of July performance, he raised $32.43 and said he would donate it to local veterans. On one occasion, a waitress asked him to stop.

Twitter

Old John Smokey joined Twitter shortly before the Slower and Creepier episode at the request of Justin and Brian. According to John's first tweet, "I'm very excited to be on the Nsfw Show tonight on Twit. The guys told me they would plug my tweeter. Here it tis!"

John is clearly new to Twitter. His first replies to people had their names without a preceding @ until Drewshipper corrected him. His capitalization and punctuation comes and goes and he routinely attempts to type more than Twitter's 140 character limit.

Mistaken Identity

Old John Smokey was only seen on screen briefly. Since he was wearing a hat and had a beard, people have assumed that it was Tom Merritt in disguise (because Tom likes hats and is apparently the only person in the world with a beard.) After the show, a number of people sent tweets to Tom and he tuned in later to find out what was going on. Tom said he had been out by the pool and hadn't seen the show.

In the weeks since, Old John Smokey has continued to tweet. Some have noticed that he has sent tweets while Tom has been in the middle of Tech News Today or Frame Rate or when he has been visible on screen and could not have typed them. According to Twitter, Old John Smokey has posted using either the Twitter web site or Echofon. Tom has also been known to tweet using the Twitter web site, but uses different Twitter clients on his iPhone and iPad.

Links

• Twitter
• Bandcamp
• Kickstarter (link does not work)