Cape Cod is cold. Alas our show back in Plainfield, CT seems to be the last bit of sun we’ll be seeing for quite some time – and even that gig (at Hank’s Dairy Bar) was marred by intermittent rain and low-scudding clouds. We were playing outside as patches of dark grey raced in and unleashed upon us, and then just as we’d managed to cover the instruments and cluster under cover the blue skies would show and sunbeams would lance down, warming us right back up again.
But that uncertainty is all over now. It’s been grey and cold ever since Sunday afternoon and the Cape has Lived up to the way New England’s portrayed by Lovecraft – moody and windy with the whispers of brown, dry seagrass rising to howls as the weather rises up, mixing with the almost-human cries of gulls and screams of cormorants. We haven’t seen the sun once and mists come off the water, bleaching everything back to blacks and browns and greys – spring-sprung patches of forsythia are the exception and look outlandishly and garishly out of place amongst all the pines and not-yet-decided deciduous flora…
Sonny came to see us at Hank’s Dairy Bar – it’s been a while since he got to get out in the world since the surprise arrival of TWINS in his Life! (pictured, just one twin, but the nice thing about twins is you really don’t have to take pics of BOTH of them…) Though it rained and rained and then gave us a break and then rained again – we got a pretty good couple of sets in at Hank’s Dairy Bar in Plainfield, CT – thanks to Russ Mineau for putting this show together for us!
We’re sitting in the parking lot of Four Seas Ice Cream, a place of pleasant summer-time memories for Kristen. It’s in-season popularity is hinted at by the vast expanse of overflow parking the covers most of the surrounding hilltop, but today it’s empty but for us and one other patron to the point that my asking for a root beer causes a scurry of activity because they haven’t needed any cups yet today.
Kristen gets some hand-scooped home-made peach ice cream and delightedly scarfs it down as we listen to Super Bob and contemplate a future that involves rain, rain and more rain.
Sunday’s show at Hank’s Dairy Bar was Lovely despite the weather. A lot of old friends, delicious seafood, a fun little stage and the uncertainty of the weather just made for a fun afternoon. After the gig we made our way back to Boston and sent Heather back home via Logan Airport.
It’s weird driving up without her – we played three shows with her – and now it’s back to the weirdness of playing the next 4 appearances without her. The first of them was Monday night at Trespass Music Mondays at the Cotuit Center for the Arts. I was especially missing her as the “opening” act (it’s a co-bill, but there’s always perceived hierarchy), The Nameless Trio, proceeded to be total, spectacular bad-asses. Three performers interweaving really spectacular musical mastery and some complexity of rhythms and sound that you don’t normally hear out of an animal that advertises themselves as mostly-bluegrass.
Hank’s Dairy Bar. Russ Mineau and Poppa Joe.
We took the stage not only with the awareness of missing one third of our sound, but also having discovered that maybe a half-dozen members of Kristen’s extended family have come out of the woodwork to see us. These are all people who probably last saw Kristen when she was about ten years old and I’d HATE for them to be chatting after the show and have someone say “oh, how’d you hear about the show?” “oh, we’re related to one of the musicians!” “oh, they were WONDERFUL, I’ve never heard such a powerful trio!” “no, she’s with the other one”.
Yeah – that’d suck. But we held our own, sold a bunch of discs to people who WEREN’T relatives and generally had a great time – plus or minus the alarms that went off in the middle of the very first song – but other than THAT, everything was marvelous.
Yesterday we spent the day wandering around, visiting random things Kristen remembered from childhood visits and visiting one of my favourite tour staples : used book stores! Good times were had, and we wrapped the night out with going to see Captain America 2 – which was awesome, but probably would’ve been MORE awesome if I hadn’t read so many reviews telling me how awesome it was.
Tonight we hook up with Jess Razzi in Providence and gear up for a couple of nights of gay clubs and drag shows. Our Lives are NEVER boring!
The Nameless Trio performing at the Cotuit Center for the Arts – they were pretty spectacular – prolific on their instruments and not confining themselves at ALL to their purported bluegrass roots, roaming heavily into cool jazz and rock stuff. Great band. Kristen and I performing at the Cotuit Center for the Arts in Cotuit, MA. We had to push extra hard following the marvelous Nameless Trio, but I think we were up to the task – even though we really, really missed Heather. Yeah, what we SHOULD’VE taken a picture of (we didn’t realize it till we were driving by later) was that this was not just a “joke and costume” shop…. but also “adult toys and erotica” shop. Kiiiind of put that rabit in a different perspective. That’s me – wandering off in the distance of the Atlantic Ocean in Cape Cod, MA.
