Silver Spring, MD
Kristen and I just played the Songwriters Association of Washington open mic at El Napolitos in Silver Spring, MD tonight. I’m full of mussels. The food was delicious and the night was filled with traditional folk writers with rare exception. Really GOOD
traditional folk writers. A couple of tunes really hit me pretty hard in a way that a lot of my fellow singer/songwriter types never quite strike.
Heather has that edge of good folk writing – a true clarity of expression that I can only dream of and a purity of story that ACTUALLY gets the point across. I imply and dance around the point while my fingers say things like “don’t pay attention to the story, look over HERE!”, but I truly admire the craft of a well-told tale.
Tomorrow is my last Java Mammas open mic and it will be a dramatically different creature from what I was immersed in tonight. My own open mics would never survive such an environment as El Napolitos – the food tab is too high for the younger crowd that I tend to court, and though this was an excellent audience that was so THERE for the music that you barely had to fight for them, I Love the battle of the coffeehouse. Struggling to pry people from their friends for long enough to win them, guaging the moment when blended drinks and espresso machines are going to force an artificial passion and volume upon you… it makes me work really, really hard. And there’s a lot of satisfaction when you win – and perhaps there’s something to be said for having an excuse for when you lose.
We did well. I missed Heather’s half of my voice. I was glad to get a night in last night out in Frederick at Brewers Alley with Heather. This last trip of hers has seemed particularly long and I felt it in my fingers and in my brain as I sometimes had to struggle to keep up with her. Not a good place for me to be since one of the “trademarks” of ilyAIMY is how tight we are. I didn’t feel loose. I felt sloppy.
Gotta fix THAT before we hit NACA next week.
NEXT WEEK!!?!??!?
