It’s COLD. I hear it’s snowing back home, but here in Jamaica Plain, MA it’s just windy, whirling, whistling and frigid.
The morning we aim for departure from Maryland, fog is heavy and THAT’S what I mean by Cthulu-esque. The lights across the street make me think of ET. (the Extra Terrestial, NOT Entertainment Tonight you socially backwards pop-culture creature!)
The last couple of nights we’ve been playing open mics to fill in our schedule. Sunday was Tazza in Providence, Monday Sully’s in Hartford, Tuesday the Greenwich Hotel in East Greenwich, RI and last night the All Asia Cafe in Cambridge. Every night load-in has gotten colder and colder, but it’s been really good just getting back into the groove of playing with Heather again.
After Friday’s Victoria Station high, Saturday’s show at the Blackstone Pub was something of a let down. It was such a beautiful bar and frankly, the night probably would’ve been pretty good if our expectations hadn’t been so high – but scheduling and other bands’ poor planning squeezed us off the main stage into a corner with the pool tables. On the one hand we were closer to the majority of the audience and their response was great, on the other hand we lost all the authority that comes with being on a big huge stage with lights and massive speakers… and we were close to very clumsy pool tables. Heather’s mic stand got kicked over once and then several times we narrowly avoided getting struck by cue balls whizzing off the table.
Returning back to Will Schaff’s place afterwards was just the kind of pick up we needed. Always filled with inspiration, Will has moved on to creating dioramas for his illustrations and album covers. We stay up till 4am drinking bourbon and toasting Heather’s 7th anniversary with the band.
Tazza Cafe is one of those places that is cooler than it’s scene lets on. It’s a frustrating venue whose open mic fails it. Red lit and beautiful with a great menu to match, cool movies always playing in the background (Jason and the Argonauts, I think?), the open mic is sadly under-populated. I get the impression that this is sadly at least partly because of the owner who, like so many other owners, see the open mic solely as an easy way to make money (present an open mic and tonnes of FREE musicians will be beating a path to your door, demanding to purchase martinis and high-priced entrees) – and has overlooked the fundamental “open” nature of it. It means some people are going to be crap, so the night got moved to a night where traffic was lower so the offending elements would offend fewer… eliminated features because that was costing money… et cetera. It’s a pretty common pattern.
rob playing at the Victoria Station Cafe, looking like… well… I don’t know what that expression means at ALL to be honest with you.
Our friend Bill poses with us. I think I probably was about to bite and Heather’s just being…. saucy. Can’t blame her. The man’s cute!
Well, the night perseveres and the host, Brian, did a good job with the good and the bad and the ugly. There were actually a good number of talented people and i think we made a couple of friends. Not a lucrative night by any means, but the system sounds good and the people were friendly and… frankly… I’ll go through all SORTS of shit to watch good old-fashioned stop-motion animation.
Monday found us at an East Greenwich bar in Rhode Island playing down the front of a gigantic mahogany horseshoe-shaped bar wrangling the attention of dour North Eastern men. Funnily enough we knew a couple of people there, one of which actually knew me solely through my openmike.org posts and was pretty excited to actually encounter us. That’s the first time that’s happened.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t stick around much past the feature (a fantastic vocalist, Bobby _________ was a singer/songwriter out of Colorado) and headed up north to Boston to stay with our friend Gwen.
And one of the most exciting parts about coming home? I finally got a case for my bass that matches my guitar case! It is a land of cheeeetah.
Upon coming home for the holidays, one of the first things that had to be perpetrated was to decorate the House of Musical Traditions for Christmas. Nothing too extreme, but it was nice to have all the lights tangled in the cheap venetian blinds.
It’s funny how we meet people, stay in touch, where the go and who they become. The Brownian social motion of our paths through this world constantly mystifies me and engenders a lot of hope. Practically, it’s interesting how a new friend moves into an area the moment an old friend moves out of it… in a broader sense, it’s really cool to see who people turn out to be – and it’s good to see strong-willed, knows-what-she-wants Gwen emerge out of my quiet friend from WDAV all those years ago.
Okay Pennsylvania, aren’t you just ASKING for trouble naming a town “Scotrum”? Sheesh.
And the other best thing of course is coming home to friends. We had a big zombie party shortly after we all came back from our different tours. It was so odd to be without Heather for so long, but after she was done Darring and I was done with the Midwest, we all reconvened at my home in Catonsville and watching zombie movies in a big old hamster pile. Life was good right up until Jackson nuzzled Heather and she screamed.
It’s interesting how Wii is no longer a mis-capitalized World War 2, but now a bizarre video game system. There’s Heather and I getting our Wii on. There’s another picture of my doing Wii hula. You don’t get that one.
