Tom Bianchi is crazy, and Danielle Miraglia Loves him for it. He’s singing “I’m in the Mood For Love (Simply Because You’re Near Me) at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA, and I had to break the news that I had a recording of him singing that to another woman… luckily Heather spoke up in his defense and truthfully mentioned that he WAS trying to sell a CD at the time.
We’ve pulled into Mike and Ari’s in Danielson, CT after an interesting evening.
Tagged, labelled, tracked and guilty… and grinning.
There are these moments when I visualize things so powerfully that they make me shudder. In college, I had issues distinguishing my dreams from reality, and nowadays there are moments where my daydreams can challenge my waking moments for tangibility.
Molly! The Whitney rodent has three in-house sisters now. Heather slept in the mouse room and I think she’s been twitchier ever since.
“Daydream” isn’t the right word… more… a visualization of a possibility in which I work down the logical path and sort of check out what happens in that little alternate universe for a bit before recovering and remembering where I am. I’ve blurted out inappropriate words or responded to unspoken questions, though usually it gets covered up, there have been occasional awkward moments.
Uhm… I don’t know that these photos GET any explanation…
As we pulled off 395 and up to the first light in Danielson, paused at the red on a dark and slushy night, my brain is reeling off possibiliies. We pull away from the light and I imagine what it would be like to have some driver come speeding from our left, running his red, plowing into the driver’s side door. I meant it to be simply a “what if” but I was surprised by the wave of emotion as I looked to my left to see Heather mangled and a blinking, dazed driver struggling with his airbag in the offending vehicle…. I’m surprised because I’m almost in tears as Heather continues down the road, completely unaware that her doppleganger in my head has met with such a probematic and violent fate… I’m pulling the driver out of the other car and furious and stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and stabbing. As that’s running through my head, we miss our turn, and I guess it’s a good thing I don’t wander like that often. My muscles are tense as we reroute through the neighbourhood and Keren must simply think we’re crazy as we’ve CLEARLY just driven around the block.
Lance came down to the Space on Tuesday night to read some poetry and see if Heather’s finished his necklace. It was good to see him, and to hear some of his words. Plus I think it’s a nice change of pace there.
Last night we played with Sonny Roelle and his duo, the Sentimental Favorites at Tazza in Providence, Rhode Island. It was good to see them, even if THEY didn’t feel it was a very good show. I feel that the odds were stacked against them. It was a more traditional audience than they’re probably used to, and they ended up on stage a bit earlier than they were supposed to. I thought the performance was pretty good, though I could tell they weren’t as enthusiastic about it as the last time we’d played together. I’m not sure if it’s more of a favour to ask someone to play, or if that favour is completely undermined and then negated if the gig doesn’t go so well. I hope not.
Frank of That Tastes Delicious (I think) after performing a song about vitamins that included about 20 jumping jacks out of his keyboard player and Aaron the Wondrous Soundguy at the Space in Hamden, CT.
In any case, Heather and I played really well to GREAT response – we got some really god compliments. Some were financial (a guy tells me to keep the change from the bill he hands me for a CD, it turns out to be a hundred) and some just really touching (another man, who’d gotten our CD at Ryan Fitzsimmons singer/songwriter showcase on Sunday told us that he’d been listening to our CD slowly, piece by piece, because he wanted to savour it – he’d also brough three friends to the show, so we knew he wasn’t guffing…).
Ugh – on the way to Tazza we got a flat tire. 21 degrees or so and windy, it was absolutely awful. All the mic stands, guitar stands, the tire iron, the spare – everything burned with the cold. We went and found coffee afterwards, but of course couldn’t partake for TOO long because our instruments were in the car in sub-freezing weather. We stayed long enough to down our beverages and for me to look up tire places. Then we were off into the howling night to look for PARKING at Tazza. A whole other nightmare.
I guess that’s the best compliment of all. Not just coming back, but bringing a couple of your friends, who are trusting you and your taste… and that returning fan is trusting US to be as good as he remembers…
The Sentimental Favorites (Geoff and CW Roelle) joining us as co-features at the Tazza Cafe in Providence, Rhode Island. This turned into a really wonderful night, despite the trials and tribulations earlier in the day. A lot of people came out to see us, we played well, we did well… and no weird people came and slammed themselves on the glass behind us, though a trio of teenagers DID walk by with a street sign. Slightly distracting. We of course had gotten there insanely early (which was fortunate from a parking point of view), and kept eating more soup. the delicious cream of tomato and basil bisque… or whatever it was, was nothing short of amazing, but no matter how much we had, we could never quite be warm. As the temperature dropped outside, all the heat in the room was simply sucked out of those huge, beautiful windows and off into the cruel New England night.
Keren Lee at the Tazza Cafe open mic in Providence, RI.
It’s strange to have a tag-a-long. Keren Lee is up from California, PA to audition for a band up in New Hampshire, and has dropped in to play a couple of shows with us on along the way. As usual, we don’t give him directions ahead of time, we lead and he follows and we hope for the best. This generally works out pretty well, but it makes us VERY self-conscious of missing turns or being in the wrong lane – and it makes it VERY tricky to cross five lanes of traffic in a short span of time. Keren probably thinks we’re insane, but I GUESS that’s okay.
Mark has been someone we’ve known for the past two plus years, and every performance is a spectacular treat. He came out to see us play Tazza, and then managed to snag the very last slot of the open mic portion of the evening. Meant we had to stay all the way to the end, but it was very, very worth it.
I’m at Mike and Ari’s in Danielson, CT listening to White Rose Confession through the floor. Mike has come a long way in a very short time on bass guitar and I’m really excited to hear them finally – they’re music sounds SO good, so tight… judging from what I hear through the floor, I should probably be intimidated as HELL.
Sonny’s turtle, Yurtle, has been with him for about 20 years. He greets us as he always has – with hopes for food.
Mike’s getting ready, Heather’s “making herself pretty”, and Ari’s getting herself “foxified”. I feel like a total slacker. I changed my strings, but other than that am totally bored.
After replacing the tire (it has a rip in the wall and couldn’t be patched) at Sonny’s next door repair shop, and then coming back and putting the tire on – it took Sonny and Heather and Pam to get the spare back in the trunk. All those fiddly bits… and THEN we discovered the instructional diagram. Sigh. My father would NOT have been proud.
