Oh, Halloween. I actually don’t like you very much. You kinda freak me out. Especially as a performer, I feel like everyone’s expecting something schmancy from me and I never think about it enough to be anything but last-minute about it. Even dressing up as a clock with one last minute on it would be a LOT of effort, and with the exception of my sister-in-law’s three-toed sloth (beer belly, Simpson’s t-shirt, and the papier mache three-toed foot), there are very few procrastination-themed costumes that can actually be perpetrated effectively at the last minute.
The next day in Pittsburgh we wandered Squirrel Hill. There was a lot of stuff. We ate a lot of it and looked at the rest of it. Some things we merely sniffed. The alley above, for example, smelled of waffles. Absolutely delicious. Heather playing at Wood Street Bar in California, PA. T’was an interesting night to say the least. Ask Heather about the toast she learned. After Pittsburgh we headed to California, PA and rolled in just in time to meet one of my advance troops making sure the lawn was warm enough for us. Peter’s yard always brings welcome surprises.
Unfortunately, though we had a great time and what crowd there was seemed to enjoy themselves, our Firefly-themed Halloween show / Heather birthday party was very under-populated. Despite a lot of advertisement and the twin attractions of the holiday and the Heather day, there was simply too much competition. I had had high hopes that a lot of our out-of-town friends who’d said they were coming down for the Jon Stewart rally would then meander their way over to our show as well, but most of them didn’t even actually end up coming to the rally, and those that did were so exhausted by the hour-plus wait for Metro trains that they didn’t then make their way to us. Perhaps they were also fearful that ALL musicians were that off-key in-person – but truly, they should know better….
Gosh, I’m always just SO popular with the ladies. Unfortunately, I think that despite her looks, Lucy’s a bit old for me.
Climbing to the top. The view. Harper’s Ferry, WV is nothing short of visually stunning. The top. Ruins of an old church that I should’ve taken the time to learn more about. I think the only conversation that was had was “Can you make it to the top? There are some old church ruins up there!” “Hell yeah!” Frankly – I think I was just eager to show that I could still climb to the top of things….Bryn and Anna make me feel old!
It’s at moments like this that I miss College Perk. Despite our history with the venue, I don’t spend a lot of time getting nostalgic over it. I miss Sharif’s open mic, but I don’t miss the madness that swirled around it. I’d like to think we’ve all grown up a lot since then, but I wonder too, how much of it was the place. I miss the walls, I miss how different the Perk was in the daytime – full of bustle and the baristas iPods, the smell of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I miss the parking lot, though I don’t miss veering into it. The sleepy feeling of still being there at 3am when things have gone relatively quiet and it’s just you and the woman you’ve been hitting on playing board games in the corner…. A lot of almost-Love affairs started there, a lot of really empty, lonesome feelings tended to win out.
Heather on ukulele. Hee! Randomly, as we drove out of Harpers Ferry to our gig in Charles Town, WV, we spotted LEA walking down the street. We kidnapped her and her whole family and invited her to play the open mic event we were hosting at a local ice cream shop. In all the years I’ve known Lea, I don’t think we’ve EVER actually played together – and it was awesome to finally do so! Bryn playing at Skippers Dips and Deli in Charles Town, WV. Always tricky, keeping an event “family friendly”. Beyond just trying to keep kids from screaming “FUCK” randomly and at the top of their lungs, sometimes it’s about judging what the Hell “family friendly” MEANS! At my own open mic I wouldn’t take any issue with a slight drug reference like that made in the song “Wagonwheel”, but at the seemingly more conservative environment of Skippers Dips and Deli in Charles Town, WV – Heather was playing it safe. The player shrugged and took it all in stride. The Skippers Dippers came out and did some a capella pieces, including a rap writtenfor a Skippers Dips and Deli radio advertisement. They were awesome!
It was a nexus for us and our friends and I wonder if we can really have a successful holiday party-themed show if it’s not happening at our typical haunt. If we don’t have that centre, people are going to scatter to their individual parties and the half-million individual events around the area – there’s no way to gather them all to one of our events, it seems. We’re just not THAT much of a party… and people can see us NEXT week… or next month. It leaves me concerned about market-saturation and about having a wide-enough fan base. Getting one one-hundreth or even one one-thousandth of your advertising base to act on that advertisement is not uncommon (I’d estimate that within our home market it’s about 1/500 and out-of-state it’s closer to 1/50), but it doesn’t make me feel any better about it!
Demographics, targeted marketing, return of investment, blah blah blah. Too much business-think for a Halloween morning. Kristen and I work at her shop for the day and then return home to make a birthday dinner for Heather. Shrimp and grits? May I take this opportunity to introduce you to steamed broccoli, and then I’d like BOTH of you to meet crème bruilee. I’m sure you’ll all enjoy one another, so just settle in and we’ll get things under way whence we get back to the house. My feet are sore from the rockin’ yesterday. Interestingly, my face is sore from the shaving and my nipples are sore from the suspenders. They are unexpected casualties in a battle that has left my arms and fingers surprisingly fine.
Inara Serra was, of course, in rare form at our Halloween Party at the Old Bowie Town Grille. Her training always makes her the Life of every shindig. The owner of the Old Bowie Town Grille scared the Hell out of us by not only dressing up as the horrifying local legend Goatman – but also by singing Wild Thing with us. Verr fearsome. He also offered me some of his fuzz to keep my denuded face warm.
There’s a great video from last night posted by Brennan Kuhns of Petal Blight posted HERE. Click on that, share it, make it go viral. It won’t. It might’ve if he’d shot from Heather’s side and she was wearing something a little lower and little more pushy-uppy. We know how the world works. Sigh. We’re just not terribly good at pandering to it.
See? Dangerously cute. I think this is right before she called me something terrible. She Loves her captain. That’s the face of a man thinking “WHY did I give Sharif a microphone?!”
