April 28th, 2010.

Johnny Kush and his girlfriend Jen put together an Earth Day event for Saturday. Lots of good music and your’s truly providing sound. We fought the fear of rain all day and suffered the lack of attendance that goes with such travaille. I liked seeing Jen’s heart being put into something she believes in, but was disappointed that SHE was disappointed – but liked the fact that she didn’t say “what did I do wrong”, but rather “what can I do better NEXT year.” Above – Ashraf Dawod and sahffi performing on the Mulch Stage!

Part of the Earth Day event was a fun impromptu staging of Dr Seuss’ The Lorax. There’s Johnny Kush as the Lorax (a pretty clever way of presenting him, I thought) and James Bartlett of the Detroit Oilers listening to the tale.

It’s a windy, sunny day in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area. Construction zones have been watered earlier in the week and are sprouting like mushrooms all around the city. Allergies are kicking into play and guitars are acclimating to new varieties of humidities and temperatures. I need to restring my beasts and oil their fretboards, reglue their ailing seams and change batteries all around.

It’s spring and I’d like to be out and about with a small collection of tools and my guitars and perhaps a sweater. The last couple of nights we’ve been hitting up open mics and there will be NO nights off for a while… Monday night Kristen and I hit up Acacia’s open mic and were pleasantly surprised to meet up with Sharif and Rowan. Of course, they were there to play with Acacia (it’s true, I don’t actually OWN Sharif and Rowan… ) and I got a little bit jealous. I’m thinking about stalking them a little bit and writing things in red paint on their pets like “you’ll ALWAYS BE MINE!!!!”… but really, Sharif’s more convenient and his pet’s too adorable to paint, so I guess they’ll be off the hook.

Hell, frankly it’s wonderful to be able to sit back and WATCH them play every once in a while and Rowan’s voice blends really well with Acacia’s. After they played a set with Acacia, they joined forces with Kristen and I and we had a great 4/5 ilyAIMY set. Acacia’s open mic is something really special right now. It combines some of my favourite people from the DC area with some of my favourites from the Baltimore arena and though there’s NO built-in house crowd it’s like hanging out and playing with friends. If the venue has no problem with it not expanding too much, it might be nice for it to STAY this way for a while. I think I end up using open mics as such a business thing that I forget how nice it can be to just have a home where a couple of friends get together and play music. Acacia Sears, ilyAIMY, Jon Patton, Karter Jaymes, IO, Rowan did a solo set… (Rowan got kind of overworked, really, but I guess it’s good for him), Mandy of Radiation Puppy… a lot of great players.

*Speaking of too adorable. Here’s Acacia Sears being as aforementioned.*

However, at around 3am, vibrating in my bed – perhaps the tequila-infused coffee wasn’t the BEST plan.

Last night we went and hit up an open mic at Trax and Wax which Brennan Kuhns (Petal Blight) was hosting and caught up with my old friend Andrew Luttrell. Also a good crossing of paths – but alas, other than the fact that it was nice to hear and see him, I just don’t know what else to write right now. My attention span, already sort of tenuous, has sort of gone plib.

Plib.