Ok – so SUSAN didn’t kick us out, it was her birds. They hate my new boots. They fear them. Think they’ll get et. Fortunately, there was amusement to be had and we played with KOPN radio personality Jeff Wheeler and singer/songwriter Roscoe Beano. I do likato jam. I just get to do so so very rarely that I feel very very very not-very confident. Mew.
Finally, there is sunshine! Which means Susan kicks us out of the house and onto the porch for some we-know-it’s-good-for-us jam time…..
It’s a beautiful day somewhere in Indiana. Moments ago it was a beautiful day in Illinois and shortly I expect it to continue being a beautiful day in Kentucky. There’s something about the bright sunshine and the perfect air that’s got us in good spirits and we’re pretty perky as we listen to Queen biting the dust.
Our luck is holding as we’ve arrived on the scene as the waters recede and just BEFORE a college softball team herds into the Subway where we’ve stopped for lunch. It’s all the scenery, none of the submergence. All of the eye-candy and none of the wait.
Last night we played one last show in the St Louis area at the Stagger Inn… Again in Edwardsville, IL. The gigs there – four hours long to a bar crowd, getting out generally at around 3am – have a history of being pretty brutal and especially after playing such wonderful shows at Rocheport and at the Saint Charles Coffeehouse, we were slightly apprehensive about the night. We’d steeled ourselves as best we could, Susan made us a Lovely meal of tequila-lime chicken. We’d fortified ourselves with protein and liquids – but I feared for the worst as the gig kicked off. Within seconds I’d treated the room (perhaps the block) to a mind-killing burst of feed back. Bats all the way back to Austin were sent squealing and confused, falling from the sky and smacking dully to the earth. Somewhere I was avenging myself on parrots and early-morning two-year-olds….
But generally there wasn’t anything good about what I’d done. It was pretty deafening and damned embarrassing. Then Heather spilled a drink, I forgot some words… it was a rough start to what I feared was going to be a rough gig….
But we had an AWESOME time. The best Stagger audience we’d ever had (thanks in no small part to Susan dragging lots of friends to see us – thanks to Tipper for helping with sound and Firedancer for bringing her luscious self and her kanoodlin’ partner and Roscoe Beano for mid-performance crisis-management) and played hard. We had people dancing (thanks in no small part to Jeff Wheeler of KOPN playing djembe and dumbek with us) and held people well past their intended bed-times. It was a perfect way to end our time in the midwest.
My only regret? I should’ve worn my Darnielle and Vanderslice t-shirt because we ran across the ONLY other person in the world who knows them. One of the kids working at the bar had actually recorded in John Vanderslice’s studio and I would’ve had much of the indie cred. Alas, it’s not destined to be. I got no cred but geek cred.
At Stagger Inn… Again. Having Jeff playing with us made this night a WHOLE lot of fun. We had people dancing and there’s a real synergy that occurs when you add someone new to the mix. There’s another level of communication that has to happen and you can’t just relax into the groove – you have to pay attention to what the other musician is telling you, you have to watch where the music goes!
Meep.
