Is it good to be home? It is good to be back IN my home. Maryland? Well, I could shove my home in a bunch of different places and be a very happy camper. At the moment, I’m pretty non-plussed by the high-80s forecast. Somewhere we drove all the way through spring and found ourselves in summer, which is excruciatingly unfair after only getting a weekend’s worth of some of the most delicious weather EVER.
It’s strange how instantly I become acclimated to new things now. Traveling? Second day of touring and it felt like we’d never left the road. I even got used to having Kristen along relatively quickly, even though it was a different way of packing, a different way of traveling, a different set up and a different eating schedule.
And being back in Maryland? The routines seem suddenly alien, but I know I’ll adjust quickly. The cats don’t act terribly appalled that we’ve been away.
Yesterday it became increasingly obvious while we were somewhere in the midst of small towns of Pennsylvania that spring had sprung and the world was in bloom. Even my colourblind eyes can see the frenzy and blaze of beautiful colour exploding everywhere. New England was still a tangle of bare limbs and brown branches…. Maryland’s foliage is aggressively attacking its environment.
This weekend gave us some of our best nights in recent memory. Some of the best shows
To begin with, the Vanilla Bean was actually kind of disappointing audience-wise, and the featured artist was sick and couldn’t make it – but one of the hosts of the night was none other than Eric Paradine who had hosted the open mic back at the Centre Coffee Bar – one of the first places we’d ever played in Connecticut. We’d met a lot of great people there, and became frightened by our very first coffee zealot, and enjoyed the dog that slept outside. Alas, that converted firehouse and its delicious pizzas are long gone, and the artists, musicians and other wonderful people that we’d met there have sort of scattered. It was VERY good to reconnect with Eric and watch his charisma and charm unfold around us again.
Though there wasn’t much of an audience, the other performers at the Vanilla Bean more than made up for it and I met my third ever Fender VI – so that was worth the trip for me.
Connecting and reconnecting with other artists quickly became the theme for the weekend. I really enjoy that aspect of my job. There’s something inherently beautiful about meeting other musicians and sharing your sounds with them. I especially enjoy meeting players that are older than myself. I feel that in a LOT of professions the previous generations become outdated and are viewed with a great deal of contempt, but with music, the connection to older players is very important. There are traditions and skills there that I’d Love to mine. It’s ever-evolving, and we CAN’T exist in a vacuum. I Loved sitting crouched at the Bean, watching other players whip old finger-picking rolls at one another on 50 year-old Gibsons, knowing that these people have had their guitars since they were teenagers… and sadly acknowledging that I’ll never be able to age one of my instruments into a fine vintage axe… because I’m just too cruel.
Coming home to House of Musical Traditions is always… interesting….
Saturday found us making our way to our “big show” at Victoria Station Café, one of our deep pockets of intense support in Connecticut. We were supposed to play the show with Adam Day, but he’d been called in to work and couldn’t get out of it. In his place, he’d suggested a friend from New York City named Dan Mills. Great voice, good guitarist – very similar in a lot of ways to Adam, definitely out of the same school (literally, I think they’re friends from college). I think we met some really friendly people from the New York City scene that could serve us well in the future. We’ve never gotten a foothold in the Big Apple, but perhaps this trip has given us the right friends…
The next night in Boston also gave me that feeling of finally having accomplished something. A LOT of people came out to the Burren and by the time we were done with them, we’d gotten a lot of people on the mailing list and the respect of the rest. It felt great to own a room like that. It was an amazing gathering: Tom Bianchi was running sound – I think he was the first person to book us in Boston. Danielle Miraglia was who booked us this time, girlfriend of Tom and introduced to us by him. Dan Blakeslee was our opening act – he was my RA from college and certainly one of my earliest inspirations. Joe Kowan was one of our first friends from Boston, and he popped out. Brian and Katie of We’re About 9, Hugh McGowan was bartending in the back of the room, Dani and Josh are old friends by now, a guy named Craig that I’d actually met at Will Schaff’s house years ago (and who’d just gotten a Will piece tattooed on his arm the night before!) – it was this fantastic congruence of people and coincidence. Eric Schwarz popped in – I hadn’t seen him since he bit me in the ass at Kerrville…. All in all, just madness…
Monday was just a long drive home. Heather’s flown West to Indiana, Kristen and I just hightailed it south, stopping wherever cheap gas sang its siren song. We made it home, tired and grimy, ready to be hugged by Amy and licked clean by the cats. I relaxed into the dark coolness of my lair, put my toothbrush back into the clutches of my Toothbrush Sentinel, watched some James Bond and went to bed. The world felt good.
