Let’s kick off with photos from the first Teavolve of the year! January 8th in Baltimore, MD…
Vinnie Valerio Daniel Lee The first Teavolve open mic of 2013 was spiced up by a surprise visit from Daniel Lee of Baton Rouge, LA! We haven’t seen him in years and it was great to be reminded about just how GOOD his voice is. The first open mic of 2013 was also the first time I brought a featured artist to 2013 – in the form of the fabulous harp player Gillian Grassie. I was really worried that people were going to be non-plussed that I was changing the structure, or the longer slot – or especially that I was coming around with a tip jar – but everything went beautifully and Gillian stunned the room as a whole. Mosno Al-Moseeki Koye Berry Dougie Wells-Cochran The Great Outdoor Fight harif’s cousin Sarah came out and after some technical problems threw down with a couple of fiddle tunes. Gillian knew the second song and jumped in and took us home with a wonderful jig making the first Teavolve open mic of 2013 possibly my favourite EVER.
Last night we played a very, very cross-generational show in Germantown, MD. It was a benefit to raise money for survivors of Hurricane Sandy going through a charity called Go Home Sandy. 15 years younger was the marvelous Margot Macdonald and 15 years older were a bunch of the other performers… as usual no-one was quite our age but it was very cool mixing with about ten names that I’ve known for a long time, people who I rarely (if ever) share a stage with… but see posters for, have sold CDs for – for perhaps a decade.
Laura Baron. Sol Roots.
It’s especially marvelous to see the previous generation of players display that they’re not resting on their laurels, they really are still THAT GOOD.
T’was a Hell of a lineup: Laura Baron was apparently responsible for reminding me that there are about a billion chords out there that I don’t know. Will probably never know.
Patty Reese and Lisa Taylor. Btw – Corbett Canyon has NO RELATION to Rowan Corbett! Except he drank it. So now it’s got the relationship of it’s IN HIM. Ira Gitlin warming up.
She wrote a song specifically for the event and I followed along with a couple of other players, yelling chords at one another as me and Ira Gitlin and one or two other guitar slingers theorized as to what the HELL we were playing…
Sol Roots continues to just dazzle me at HIS guitar proficiency (actually, he’s about my age – holy CRAP he’s a great player) – Gina deSimone’s guitar playing was jazzy and dazzling, Pat Quinn’s bass lines driving and thunderous… Patty Reese is a MONSTER and served to remind us all that there are really people with voices like that, wailing into the night with a ferocity that’s unmatched by most local singers…
Lynn Hollyfield! She’d even featured at my open mic – and tonight she reminded me how lucky I was to have her with great, moody, darkly beautiful songs and exotic tunings… Dede Wyland’s voice was crystalline and pure, showing off sustain like I’ve rarely heard before (I called her a theremin in a skirt and thank GOODNESS she knew what I meant!)…
The last time I saw Margot MacDonald she was a talented, very pretty girl with a guitar.
Margot MacDonald performing at the BlackRock Arts Center. I only got to catch the first song because we were up next as the closing act! Meep! Michelle Murray and friends running through a last couple of songs before we were all ousted from the BlackRock Arts Center in Germantown, MD. They wanted to know why I was putting away my guitar – because REAL musicians never want to stop playing! But frankly – after the sheer length of the day (arriving at 4pm for soundcheck, ilyAIMY didn’t take the stage till shortly before 10pm) and especially after the previous night’s show (4 hour bar gig at Parallel Wine Bistro) we were just DONE. Which was unfortunate, because we still had an hour’s drive home.
She’s really grown into her own with looped vocals, a piano player and a bass player and one of the most polished performances of the night…
I’d write more about all of this but I’m exhausted, going through another period of sleeplessness. The above is no doubt kind of confoozled and fuzzy, but so is the morning. My brain matches the Cthonic grey outside – murky and soft-focus. I could’ve used another couple of hours snuggled in my bed and it’s going to be a long day followed by a rehearsal and then another long drive home.
Coffee, coffee, coffee.
