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June 6th, 2012.

A great night at Capital City Cheesecake in Takoma Park, MD with Grammy-award winning Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer as my featured artists…

  • I even had the Lovely Audrey Engdahl pop in! It was her first time at my open mic and it was an incredible night for her to be a part of. She was my first ilyAIMY partner, and the light of my Life through most of college!
  • Chloe Bennett.
  • My last open mic in town for a while wasn’t just notable for my impending absence – there were a couple of heavy hitters in the room – like the above Jeff Aug, someone I’ve been a fan of for years!
  • And of course, my fantabulous featured artists Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer!
  • What IS it with ukulele players?!?!
  • Peggy Brennan.
  • Paul Loether
  • Matt Holsen
The last thing I did before departing on the current tour was to part with my toadlets. There was no way I was going to ask my housemates to check on them with every rainstorm, catch them ants every morning, play with them every evening… and so off into the garden they go!

It’s Tuesday night (okay, actually Wednesday morning), and the last open mic before I am leaving town was a LOT of fun.  I had a very full list, with 23 total performers, at least 9 of which were newcomers – and my featured artists were none other than internationally infamous, Grammy-award-winning, multi-instrumentalists Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer.  They were nothing short of jaw dropping with their performance, and that was AFTER the surprise drop in of Jeff Aug from Germany who recently set the world record for playing the most countries in 24 hours… and who is a pretty jaw-dropping performer in and of his own right. Tuesday was then Brewer’s Alley in their newly redesigned space, returning me to this Love of the physical places we’re been performing in. 

Tommy and Abby Anton performing at the Cambridge Inn in Spotswood, NJ. I was really impressed with their new material and enjoyed the honesty with which they delivered their tunes.

They ripped out all the brew tanks and have opened up the room.  It’s dramatically changed the feel of the room, made it easier physically to perform, and given performers a little bit more mastery over the space.  We had a great time and had some dancers and fans both old and new made us feel uber-welcome.  And one blonde who yanked my hair and told me “I Loooove your poooony.” Sigh. Kristen had ALREADY been judging her for drinking Miller Lite at a place that brewed their own beer – this did NOT help her case.

I got hit on a fair amount that night. Now THAT’S a rarity. Usually it’s Heather that garners the affection. I don’t lead anyone on, my girlfriend’s back there with the cello after all… but it’s very nice to have the attention. I MUST’VE been doing SOMETHING right!

Tomorrow we head north to a good number of venues that we’ve never played before. I’m excited and trepedatious!

After leaving the Cambridge Inn we stumbled across this wonderfully strange pavilion. I couldn’t get a good picture of it, so of course I’ll subject you to a bad one of it – basically the yard was filled with strange, dancing figures and in the centre of it all was this little tea scene with a couple of white rabbits serving one another tea – all lit by white Christmas lights! SO surreal – and sort of a harbringer for the beauties to come…
robilyaimy

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