The Shanti – far from being the difficult show I was expecting, was absolutely fantastic. More fun than Columbus, actually. There’s nothing like coming into a bar you know and having it filled with people you didn’t expect to see. Susan (ilyARCHangel of the Midwest) and Jeff Wheeler (of KOPN) and Firedancer all the way from Columbia, MO and her man all the way from California… (CALIFORNIA CA not California PA)… and Dave from Skeleton Crew Tattoos (the guy who did Heather’s tattoo) brought a CONTINGENT all the way from Columbus, IN – following our four and a half hour drive to come see us again… we got to play loud and clear through our own trust Behringer rig and rattled the Shanti till they kicked us out.
ilyAIMY at Cafe Hon in Baltimore, MD. The Lovely curly-headed Karyn Oliver performing at Bar Hon in Baltimore, MD. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen her perform. Before the two of us got invited up, Heather got hijacked by Ashraf Dawod to perform at Bar Hon (Cafe Hon’s more alcohol-oriented wing).
Okay – don’t judge me. Still at Bar Hon, the table we were sitting at was an old manual sewing table with still-working sewing pedal. Other people clapped their hands or stamped their feet… I couldn’t resist squeaking along to the rhythm with the old cast-iron pedal.All these years calling my self a Baltimore-based musician and I’d never even set FOOT in Cafe Hon – SHAME!!! In any case, though we’d gone to watch friends play, we eventually got invited up on stage and had a grand old time – even though it enforced my hatred for Ibanez acoustic guitars. Above – the Lovely sahffi and her sister.
Despite a couple of technical issues (I lost a string, my Planet Waves cable is about to meet with it’s warranty card AND then I stepped on my backup cable, unplugging myself at the culmination of rearview and blueballing myself and the audience) I still think this is going to count in my memory as one of my favourite shows ever. It’s just SO good to be friends and to play well and to say “Fuck yeah, THIS is what I do – and I do it very, very, very well”.
I’ve just upgraded my strings to mediums (for those of you who care about this stuff, I’ve been playing with light Martin SP+s and just switched to medium D’Addario EXPs) so my fingers feel a little like hamburger – though not tired like I was expecting.
Unfortunately, though I really like the tone of these strings, my A popped in the first song tonight – giving the D’Addario coated, top-of-the-line strings a rob-Life of about 4 hours of music compared to the Martin SP+’s 30 or so hours. Later in the week methinks I’ll try some medium SP+s and see if they split the difference.
Listening to Slipknot and raging on into St Louis again. Off to the Venice Cafe in all its glory to see what will become of us. I hear there are bellydancers tonight.
It’s interesting what human archetypes we encounter in our travesl – the theatrical roles that these people fill (or attempt to fill): whether it’s the wise old sage full of advice or the wizard full of arcane knowledges about our chosen field or the young apprentice seeking knowledge, the villain, the hero… knights both black and white haunt us. We have jesters and fools and romantics and cynics. I Love seeing the variety of our personas repeated beautifully from person to person to person.
Tonight I ran across the wise man who knew everything about where we were and the wise guy who merely claimed to and Marilyn Monroe’s twin and Danielle Miraglia’s curly-headed almost-sister. The Earth is filled with ALMOST repetition.
