I’m worried that Heather thinks every open mic we hit will be like the Point, or like … I don’t know. It’s been awesome, being able to scan the web, finding places that look like a lot of fun, and adjusting our schedule to match. Unfortunately, I certainly didn’t count on SO MANY web pages to be out of date – many no longer exist, and in some cases, the venue doesn’t even exist.
We DO have a budget – an estimate based on cost of Living, and insurance and car stuff and maybe even some food here and there – making $40 or so a night. And we know sometimes we’ll make less (especially at the beginning) and some nights (one so far, hopefully many more) we make more. Nights where there’s a bloody $4 minimum for each person take a cut out of that…
Tonight we’re at the Internet Cafe in Red Bank, New Jersey. The city itself is busily blowing my mind. It’s beautiful, has a great flavour to it. We arrived in the midst of a town fair of some sort. Music in the streets – and about forty billion different flavours of smoothie. I introduced Heather to the WONDER that is French crepes. Watching the guy flip the fresh batter, slicing bananas and slipping them slipping down the knife onto the … er… thingie.
We walked down by the docks, watching jailbait and more obvious children finding the beauty of jellyfish down in the water. A rainbow graced the sky as we wandered. Gorgeous sky. Nicest I’ve seen in a long time. Strangely enough, I actually miss the water – a holdover from my Love of Living near Annapolis, I suppose.
I’m eager to see if the rainbow photographed well. We stopped at toy shops and pet shops. Photographed puppies and the KING PRAWN!!!
Unfortunately, as I write this I left my camera cable in the car, and can’t upload the .jpgs – I’ll have to add them later.
Anywho – playing at the Internet Cafe. I think, perhaps, they don’t know what to make of us. Now, admittedly, I tend to always feel better after we’re done and some people come up to us and give us their Love and affection – we’ve at least made back the cover. But the place has the atmosphere of an after-school computer lab. Invariably, when we ask the audience “fast or slow?” they ALWAYS say fast. This audience definitely wanted slow, and I think I totally misjudged by pressing the issue till someone asked for “a song your normally play slow, but play it fast!”. BCM v 2.0 it was, which … didn’t go so hot.
But perhaps that was a little less frightening for what was, in all honesty, a much more amateur open mic than what we’ve been playing.
“When I die, let me fly over Alaska”
Random lines float through my head as I type. I really like that one.
ANYWHO – back to my point – absolutely petrified that Heather’s going to freak out eventually, and wonder what the HELL she’s doing out here. She’s already hating being dubbed “the organized one”. I picture the re-enactment, like JR and his wife, of my nodding and sidetracking and babbling, as Heather snatches up business cards and remembers names and (incidentally) the lines of my songs.
But tonight, perhaps there aren’t many things to file – it’s an attractive town, but not as attractive a venue as the press-wall might imply – and we weren’t as on as we usually are, and the audience didn’t respond as much as usual – I really don’t want her to view it as some sort of wasted night…
But I Love open mics – all sorts of them. I Love watching the joy of performance, the jitters, and the wonder of something new. Something like this takes me back to Den picking slowly over a half-remembered song at Cafe Florian – not because he’s hoping for a gig or a record deal or something like that, but because he Loves to sing (and incidentally, Loves to sing with his wife).
The interruption of a phone call — Kate! She’s back from the Rock Boat, and has passed out 20+ copies of “A Mere Demonstration” to musicians and reps on the boat. We even made a special disc for Angie Aparo.
He recognized HEATHER, at least. Sigh, but I think he thought I was a bit of an ass, so … no great loss his not remembering me, I suppose. He said he Loved the logo, and our little note, et cetera, and that that “was the way CDs OUGHT to be made”.
Kate managed to get a CD to Angie’s drummer as well (whoa – the waitress here at the Cafe just made a rob noise!!), so SOMEONE tangled in Angie will hear it!
Also, someone in the higher echelons of Awareness Records ended up with a brand new copy of AMD, as well as some Pat McGee guys, who urge us to call their booking agent (score!). Oh, and the lead singer from Tonic wants a copy. S’not bad.
Soo tired – don’t WANNA drive to New York City tonight. Scratch that. Don’t want to deal with having to find PARKING in New York City tonight.
sigh.