Well, all I can say is “that’s some SHIT”. Today I’d sort of meant to sleep till noon. I felt like I’d deserved it. I felt like I needed it.
sahffi performing at Joe’s Squared in Baltimore City, MD. I’d never seen her with a full band before and to see her singing harmony with her sister was awesome. She’s a powerful presence. Thanks to Rich of Meet 4 Fun for taking the pictures AND for dragging so many of his friends out for us too. 
ilyAIMY performing at Joe’s Squared. It was a good performance but a horrible show. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the guys who brought us in for the night, but I was also really impressed by Melbourne Moon who invited us to play with them.
Friday night had been a lot of fun. I met up with my friend Belle and she and Heather and I went to the SAW open mic in Olney, MD. The Caribou Coffee there was loud and full of high school kids who I thought really, really weren’t into the music at first – but shortly after we started playing they were at least really, really into us. We sold a lot of CDs and had a good time. It was mostly (once the students cleared out shortly after our set) older folkies which, as always, is like a good salad in the midst of my generally high-fat musical diet. Michelle Murray popped in and sang some tunes accompanied gorgeously by a couple the hosts singing harmony and a guy named Scooter on guitar – who I probably could learn a LOT from. Smooth playing, interesting licks, I admire the players who really know their stuff.
From there, Belle took me to go see her friend’s band at the Brass Monkey in Baltimore, MD. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve gone to see an electric show of any sort, so though I wasn’t originally excited about going to a bar in Baltimore and smelling like smoke forevermore, it was really, really awesome. I now highly recommend Playground Etiquette and you haven’t LIVED till you’ve seen a pixie of a singer performing Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name of” with every ounce of angst and energy that Zack de la Rocha ever could muster. Hell, she even did some of the same little moves. (though she didn’t fall over her monitor)
And damn – I mean the kind of headbanging that makes me fall over.
Of course, the whole “we’re gonna do a cover from the 90’s – the only guy here who remembers the 90’s is the bass player cause he’s OLD” thing kind of made me want to explain that I was probably the only guy in the room old enough to have seen “Killing in the Name of” Live on Rage’s first tours with Cypress Hill. I shake my head, we make our way back to the car with our ears ringing and it’s on to the next day.
Saturday got to be a slow, lazy day. I didn’t have to be up in Baltimore for our gig at Joe’s Squared until 8ish or so – I was really excited because we hadn’t all played together for a long time and I’d heard such great things about the food. On top of that, I was excited to see Melbourne Moon and sahffi – I’d never seen the former and hadn’t seen the latter in forever.
So, after hours of watching James Bond, I arrive at Joe’s Squared to find that this venue who’d asked Melbourne to bring in another band (us) because they were worried about draw and then booked ANOTHER band (the fact that we knew sahffi was sheer coincidence) because they were STILL worried about draw – this venue barely had space for all the gear, almost didn’t have space for the band members to sit down, much less the fans that came with. Timing was rearranged, the food (when we FINALY got it) was mediocre… I hate the way bands and any fans that come with them are generally treated pretty poorly by the wait staff of restaraunts. The people who come in WITH us are as much customers as anyone else… to be ignored, well, I could go on for quite a long, long time.
Well, despite the act that a LOT of our friends had to leave simply because we were no longer going on at around 10 or 11 but rather at midnight – and THEN things ran so late that we didn’t get on stage till closer to 12.40 or 1am… technical problems galore, Heather broke a string, I sweated one of my Alaskas off, Rowan tripped over a cable unplugging the back row of monitors… and then at the end of the night the venue refused to pay us, insisting that they ALWAYS pay the bands the day AFTER. It’s not what it said in any of our booking emails… we were being paid a percentage of the register for the night I’m used to professional venues that show you the Y of the register, write it down for you and then show you the Z at the end of the night. Maybe you have to wait another 15 minutes after close for them to figure it out, but having to come back the next day is absolute bullshit.
And Heather’s car was broken into during the show. A complete loss. It was fun to play but when we went back the next day for our cash we’d spend 6 hours at the venue to play 45 minutes for $80, all of which will go to not-at-all cover Heather’s fucking window.
Sigh. Yesterday I spent the day working at HMT which was great, excepting that I’d been expecting to get home from Baltimore the previous night by 1 or 2am at the latest. What with everything I didn’t get in till closer to 4am and so the day at HMT was ONLY survived by working with my favourite people and drinking LOTS of coffee and listening to LOTS of Fugazi in my car.
Last night I got together with Rick and Audrey and Rob of Sense of Wonder. I’m sitting in tonight with them on bass at an Institute of Musical Traditions show. It’s a lot of fun to play with them, though I feel kind of amateurish, not at all still comfortable with my “native” instrument. I’m praying that it goes okay. Still, at least one of the songs is one from one Audrey was the other half of ilyAIMY and it’s kind of fun to play it again. Rob and I have a LOT of fun playing together – but it’s so strange to play with a trap kit drummer – it’s pretty distracting. I’m glad it’s a short set, but I’m really looking forward to it even though I’m skeered.
