Today was a sleep-in day. Much appreciated. Much needed. Last weekend was very full, and the week didn’t provide much respite as I ran two open mics and attended Heather’s, all while working day shifts at House of Musical Traditions – and THIS weekend is as full as LAST weekend with two festivals and a gig. Depending on the weather. The weather could knock out everything. We’ll see.
Open mics are such funny things. By the end of this month, collectively, Heather and I will be running four of them. That state of affairs might not be sustainable, but I’m enjoying all of them – they all have such different flavours.
This Tuesday I left Takoma Park a little after 4pm to race up to Catonsville to set up for Trax on Wax. I got there shortly before 6pm after an absolutely stupid drive, fighting traffic all the way on I95. Construction and stupidity seemed to have a personal grudge against me and my schedule and there are few things that frustrate me more. However, the perfect Zen of setting up the Zoom and the Thump and the wires between them, laying out the mics and cables piece by piece – I really enjoy the methodic calm of it.
It was a good night at Trax on Wax. I feel like it’s finally finding its feet with a nice mix of really young kids looking to make some noise, older blues guys, and lots of stuff in between. Because of seating and the general feel of the venue I have my doubts that this place can ever be as popular as the other venues we run, but I always leave the night with a really positive feeling. This week that positivity came primarily from jamming with Sharif, but there’s always the wonder that comes with meeting new artists for the first time. A couple of girls with intensely controlled voices and admirable harmonies…. A new guy originally from a small time in Ohio with a dusty Ibanez guitar tentatively took the stage, opened his mouth and turned out to have one of the nicest voices I’ve heard in a LONG time… Ed Kaitz is a local visual artist and also a solid harmonica player – he came out mostly to advertise his harmonica lessons but then got roped into supporting another artist’s set to great result. I Love those happy accidents, those little jams that you had no intention of getting into but that now that you’ve had them, will burn in your memory and keep you awake at night, twitching to the beat of those 5 minutes…
Wednesday night I left HMT at 7.15pm and made my way up to Heather’s open mic at Java Mammas, rolling in at around 8.30 or so… Moving the open mic night to Wednesday was a very gracious thing on Heather’s part, but it has been taking an absurd amount of time to get word out to the community. This week is the first one that’s felt really full. Pulling into the parking lot for the first time I had to squeeze my car in, for the first time cars were spilling down into the lower lot, for the first time I thought “well, maybe I SHOULDN’T sign up, because she might not get to me…”
Well, get to me she did, even when I was convinced that time just wasn’t going to allow for my presence. I don’t know that I would’ve cared either way – it was good to see a bunch of the regulars out and about and I’m kind of REALLY pleased to see Dylan Lee Brady taking up the mantle of mascot, complete with an anthem to end the night with. Having the whole coffeehouse join up in a rousing chorus or two at the end of the night is kind of awesome and I came away thinking that that’s what I should have at Six Mile… an anthem of some sort! But I have NO idea what it could possibly be…
And so on to Six Mile Coffee. Thursdays are my get-stuff-done days and, true to form, I had a couple of errands, tasks and meetings to do before I could get to Six Mile and engage in my set-up bliss. Last week the Catonsville Times had done a really nice article on both the ToW and 6Mile open mics. A woman came out and interviewed a lot of people and a photographer came out and photographed a lot of people and in general I had high hopes that this would begin to drive more traffic towards the event. One of the side effects of our heightened visibility is that a local studio and music development company called me up in the hopes that they could do a raffle through us, giving away an hour’s worth of studio time… I walked over to their place before the open mic and hung out with my newfound friends at Popmark Media and Unknown Studios.
The entry to their place is pretty wonderful, a hidden doorway actually right next to Trax on Wax and a curtain-draped passage leading up into light and curves – up above the record shop there’s a one-stop shop for musicians – a group that does artist-development, booking, web-design, videos, and a full-equipped studio to boot. Tuesday night at Trax on Wax, we kept getting overspill of a REALLY loud band playing nearby. I’d go out on to the streets and couldn’t figure out WHERE it was coming from, not realizing it was right upstairs! In any case, Stephen and I have reached an agreement where the winner of the monthly tribute contest will win an hour’s worth of studio time in his recording studio. That could work out really well – and he’s also offered to do mixes of the open mics, should people be interested in those!
Score!
I stopped in at Appalachian Bluegrass as well and talked shop for a while, mostly griping about some of the weird SHIT that some of our reps try to push upon us… specifically we’d had a Godin 11-string glistar walk through the door recently…. It was fun to just chat about stuff like that with someone outside of HMT for a sec. There was beautiful solidarity in the midst of our theoretical competition.
And then Six Mile. I sit, have coffee, have lunch, slowly moving furniture around and setting up the gear – as is my wont. I get into a conversation with two of the kids about gaming – they’re looking at starting up a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles campaign, which I’m kind of stunned to hear as it was my very FIRST gaming system. We chat about dice and creation systems, good GMs, bad players… Bad GMs and good players… about Rifts and Warhammer. Detail-oriented as we gamers are, I got a little miffed when they started talking about some race called the Hortas in one of their games – and about how they think it was based off an old Star Wars episode, because there was a monster called a silicone-based Life form called a Horta in one of them….
Well, for most of my readership I don’t have to point out what’s wrong with the above, but for any of you non-geeks out there – the Horta is a SILICON-based Life from Janus VI from an early episode of Star TREK!
Sheesh.
Fortunately, the rest of the night was a lot better. Again, just a great, broad spectrum of talents and ages. Our featured artist Ren Rick was great and brought a friend along – Trevor Specht on saxophone and flute (who also plays with Kristen in Fifty Man Machine) who later got hauled into playing with Kristen and Sharif and I at the end of the night. We had that same great singer/songwriter from Trax on Wax pop in (Michael Ravasio), we had one of my favourite young blues players (Evan Manuel) bring his dad, who played a couple of nice covers and revealed that his son often steals his
capos…. A good night. A very good night.
Man, I Love open mics.
