What a gorgeous day. It makes me slightly growly. Friday we were playing on top of the Bel Air Tower, which is an alright show, but we’re covered and a little light rain can be survived. And today we had no gig at all and the air is crisp and the sun is strong… but yesterday the rains were unending, moving our house boat concert to its backup location in a basement. A very NICE basement, I must admit. Great food, gorgeous wine cellar of a subterranean lair – but by no means was this a dream of open-air oceanic freedom rocking on the Bay. I even wore my squid shirt.
An old friend from Reisterstown, now away at college – Josh has been wandering up and down the East Coast doing interviews of “edge-of-famous” musicians. I was glad Ash went first, it gave us an opportunity to think about answers for questions such as “what was your favourite moment on stage” and “do you have advice for other musicians?” Above, Josh is trying to eliminate a dark spot in the background… Ash quipped “Dark spot? That’s ME!” 
Thursday’s open mic was Lovely. Unfortunately our featured artist had car trouble and couldn’t make it, but fortunately we had a pretty full night and we were able to get through a full list of great people so – lose a little, win a lot. I’m constantly amazed by the talent we get out to a little coffeehouse in Reisterstown. A lot of NEW people have been showing up recently too, so good words must be filtering out and about. It makes me really proud and I wish more people could share in it. (who wants to donate a LOT of money to Java Mammas so they can build a new wing?!)
In any case – after the open mic we often end up hanging outside for a while. Heather mentioned that she’s surprised we haven’t been harassed by the police yet – and when I think about it, I guess I am too – but maybe that’s the difference between being an adult (hanging out) and being a teenager (loitering)? Who knows. I got my acoustic bass back from Sharif recently and I got to spend some time brushing up on my bass chops. I also helped Rick with his “Tears in my Pancakes” song for the next New Song night. I have NOTHING for my own tune, but at least I can point to that!
Friday found us up on the Tower again, a self-conscious show where half of the audience is model-quality women and half of the staff is too. They make me feel short and pudgy like a poorly set aspect-ratio. (he says snacking on club crackers) The beautiful people were out in force, and the weather favoured them in their tiny skirts and I was also horribly aware how our breaks seemed to always fall right when the owner came up to check on us. At the time it made me fear he was going to think we were just NEVER playing – but now it worries me that he just aimed to come upstairs while we were quiet. After we were done we peeked in on the cover band in the bar downstairs. They were solid enough, but their guitarist really sparkled, throwing some pretty unconventional scales into his otherwise-bluesy scales.
Saturday, of course, I’d been SO excited over – specifically because of the Big Boat Adventure – and of course it got rained out. However, Gary (the guy who runs the Cellar Series House Concert) had a backup plan, which puts him ahead of most festivals and other outdoor events that we’ve played, and I get the impression we lost very few people in the process of moving things indoors to his wine cellar (where he usually runs his house concerts). He had a truly gorgeous home and it meant that we got to invite Kristen to play cello with us and meet a Lovely husky, but it HAS been a very long time since I’ve been on a boat… le sigh.
I’m having trouble with the swing of things – going from a weekend of playing gigs into a week of work – but sometimes my work ethic fails to fail me, and tonight I managed to pump some posters out and get some practice in. Bulldozer with cello? Freakin’ hot.
