ilyĀIMY.com

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Allergy. It’s here to abuse me. It’s here as a tag word for stalkers and as a request and above all as something that’s making my head and jaw ache, my throat burn and my brain slow.

Yesterday morning I woke up with a horribly sore throat, and though congestion seems manageable, my throat just itches – there’s a slight desire to start swallowing sand paper in the hopes that that’ll scratch out the irritant horror.

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And speaking of which, I think I GRABBED my Allegra, and promptly left it next to the door. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

In any case, hot and muggy – Heather and Kristen and I are performing in Frederick today – slowly making our way west and north for an in-the-middle-of-rush-hour load-in. We’re sitting in traffic and soon I will be grateful for HOV lanes.

And then I just sort of petered out because I was hurting and my throat was so unhappy and breathing was an effort.

Well – now it’s three days later and the world’s struggling towards normalcy, but my body really has been simply brutalized. The pollen in the air is making it brutally hard to breathe, and I’m coughing up so much GUNK – well, I think we’re leaving multiple venues the impression that I must be on death’s door. If you see a rumour that rob’s dying of Black Lung or something and that you better catch us NOW because I’m on my way out…. Well… don’t freak out. I’m going to be okay. You should still come see us (the more people around me, the more the pollen gets filtrated through everyone’s respiratory systems, right?) and my voice is excitingly raspy, but … yeah…. Don’t freak out!

\The Wednesday show in Frederick was a lot of fun. We were very surprised by the sheer SIZE of the stage that had been set up for us. The thing was massive, and frankly the sound system we’d brought was more appropriate to using the stage as a theatre moreso than playing from it. And our audience though passionate and not TINY, was still small enough that we could’ve all gone and grabbed chairs and comfortably hung out on the stage, which was built to cover the entire fountain centre piece to the outdoor mall where we were performing.

It of course turned out that the stage, though where we were playing, wasn’t where we’d NORMALLY have been playing – it’d been left up from a BIG performance : The Reagan Years!  Some sort of celebration of Ronnie’s time as president which I haven’t taken any time to research because it just seemed too weird.

In any case, we had a great time, poured out hearts out to the masses and captured the biggest crowd they’ve had for almost any of the “acoustic” Westview Promenade shows – and got out right before the skies in turn poured upon US. We went out and had a great dinner with our friend John – who is by day a rep for the Music and Arts Center for the House of Musical Traditions – but who by night is one of the best-spoken, interesting – FASCINATING conversationalists I know. We talked sci-fi and left the ladies looking at us weirdly as we waxed poetic over John Steakly and Larry Niven. Well… as I nodded and smiled sometimes frankly – not cause I couldn’t keep up but because I was somewhat gasping for air.

Ugh.

We want back to a friend’s BEAUTIFUL house in Frederick and crashed on her marvelous couch and I had weird dreams about friends.

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And so Thursday came. It dawned upon us and I realized I’d slept better on that couch than I have anywhere else in quite some time, but still got up wheezing and hacking. The congestion had now settled lower into my chest – and though walking around Frederick for a bit was absolutely beautiful, perfect weather, perfect temperature – Lovely shops and Lovely dogs – I continued to feel just viciously oxygen deprived.

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Thursday has been slated for quite some time as the day that Heather and I were going to sit down and work out touring details (or at least, the ROUGH details) for our big west-coast wandering this fall – and so I think with a mix of joy and trepidation we’d put out some feelers over the course of the week, and Thursday morning we checked the traps…

They were FULL! Not with actual bookings yet, but with a LOT of people sending us information, advice, hints, ideas and support! Man – the difference betwixt today and a couple of years ago where we just STRUGGLED getting any research done at all – our network is just SO wide and beautiful now – I was kind of blown away by how much STUFF we had – not to SIFT through, but how much where I just have to make contact. I mean – I’m not going to count the gig chickens before they hatch, but it’s SO different from the last time we were touring more substantially in places we didn’t know, where our first task was to find anyone who even paid attention to music in an area, then make contact, then ask advice, then sift that advice to see if they knew what they were talking about…

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I forget just how MANY people we know everywhichwhere now – it makes Europe seem much more doable – as I bet we’d get just as much assistance getting over there…

Shh. Don’t get distracted!

Anywho – by the time it was time to load in at Firestone’s we’d hashed out a rough approach to the west, gotten together a rough plan of attack and course of action – and were pleasantly sleepy just in time to kick off a three-hour bar gig. Unfortunately, my cough and lung nastiness still hadn’t let up and we went into the gig knowing that it was going to be rough on me.  Still, Firestone’s goes by like it’s nothing and we have a great time. We have a new uberfan that came out Wednesday night and came out tonight and I spend some time chatting with him… interesting work, interesting background… happy to have him in our fold…

Friday dawns bright and clear – and the whole “play in Frederick till 1am” is a WHOLE lot more palatable with just a 5 minute drive to a comfortable couch rather than an hour + drive back to my bed – and Friday’s sunshine is all the sunnier for it. Not a cloud in the sky, just a distant daytime moon – and we go back to our coffeehouse haunt and settle back into work. Unfortunately, my productivity is somewhat marred by connectivity issues and I waste about half an hour chasing computer gremlins rather than bookings –

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Still, over the course of the day I’ve sent about three dozen booking emails, nailed down a couple more corners on the calendar, updated some things… all in all pretty damn productive before hitting a couple more antique shops and blowing town. One place in particular : Paul’s Antiques (?) had a spectacular look to it, old warehouse / barn mystique with silent shafts of sunshine and piles of old watering cans, railroad trolleys, collections of old bark and piles of moss, pussywillow fronds and glass fragments. You could believe that the wizened man hidden behind the dusty counter might just be willing to help you find a crystal shard…

From there it was down to Brunswick, MD for a gig at Beans in the Belfry, which is a magnificent old church which has been upgraded tastefully into a gorgeous coffeehouse. This is what Alice’s Restaurant WISHED it could’ve been: beautiful, community-minded – and apparently profitable! Good audience, fun room, beautiful stained glass and another visit from our new fan AND Ronn McFarlane of Ayreheart. Fortunately, I didn’t have my NORMAL reaction to having someone I really admire in the room…

Over the past couple of months I’ve spotted a disturbing tendency – if someone I really admire ends up in our audience at a show, I’ve been getting kind of psyched out. Wanting to impress them I’ve gotten sloppy or forgetful – but Ronn (a consummate musician and stunning composer, I tag him as “the man who brought bad-ass back to lute… cause that’s a thing!”), perhaps because, though I spotted him the moment he walked in, I’d simply refused to believe it was him – managed to get treated to a pretty damned decent performance. I didn’t stumble anymore than I normally do (+/- this fucking cough – at this point I’m totally hoarse and controlling my voice from physical memory more than sound – because I don’t sound normal at ALL – a different rob voice is emerging…) It was just really beyond flattering to have him in the audience. He’s not EXACTLY local to the area, just a fan of the room, and decided it’d be a fun place to see us!

Afterwards we slowly breakdown, enjoying one of the bro-ista’s playlists and some chocolate cake, and then make our way back home.

Chase the cats, eat some more cake, squeeze my weasel, take some Nyquil and go to bed. Not to sleep of course – normal robsomnia keeps me up till around 4am – pretty unfortunate since today we’ve got a gig down in Saint Mary’s which means leaving the house by 9.30am…. and sure enough, my brain is fuzzy…. We’re making our way south with a swiftness battling the GPS’ protestations that 295 would be a good plan (it wouldn’t) and making up time lost to slow lines at Starbucks.

I’m an exhausted rob and am unfortunately already looking forward to getting back HOME and going to BED. Not a great way to start the day….

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An interesting day. And though it’s not over yet, I have some level of faith that the interesting part of it is over.

About a year ago we were contacted about performing at an event in Saint Mary’s County. At the time I don’t remember it necessarily having a name or anything, it was just some sort of festival. They met my negotiated price and we had the date clear, and so I put it on the calendar and didn’t worry about it further. Eventually we got additional details and even a check (paid half in advance), parking details, sound references – my stage plot was received and acknowledged, the set time (noon to 6pm in rotating intervals with other acts with an actual show time not to exceed 90 minutes) was odd and kind of inconvenient, but the money made it worth the oddity and inconvenience… I was nervous about the day because the contract made a big deal out of us bringing our full band, and as the date slowly loomed, I got a number of emails asking “and you’re bringing the full band, right?!”

At first I was nervous because what with Rowan’s new obligations to the Chocolate Drops and Keola opening the Board and Brew – I really wasn’t sure WHO was able to make it – but we were eventually able to truly lock in at least four of us – which is full-enough band for just about any setting.

The set time was changed a couple of weeks ago to JUST be a 90 minute set with a break to start at 12.30 and to end by 2.30. Nice. Now our time was a lot less odd and a lot less inconvenient – and relaxed to boot!

Alas, that’s about the last time things seemed well organized. A couple of days before the show I get a message from the sound guy asking me to call him. I get on the phone with him and it turns out that he hasn’t accounted for running “full bands” on two separate stages, and didn’t have enough DIs or boom stands to accommodate us. We hash out what I need to bring and make it so – make our arrangements and figure we’re good to go. Last night I rearranged things and made sure we had extra gear, and this morning we get up bright and early to deal with about a two hour drive and an 11.30pm check-in and noon o’clock load-in.

At 11.40 or so we’ve rolled in. Because we’re running a touch late, I’ve organized us into strike teams. Rowan had arrived a bit ahead of us and was already loading in, Kristen went to check-in and Heather and I loaded all of OUR gear up and headed to the stage. When we arrive at our stage, everything kind of goes to Hell. We manage to set up our stage plot backwards – the numbering was correct at least – so this was surmountable – but my wireless cuts out, the soundguy doesn’t have enough XLRs (no problem, I brought extras of those too), he keeps asking “oh, you need phantom power for that one too?!” – yes, phantom for ALL the mics – we needed to bring out own mics, we discussed the mics, we have mics – they’re ALL condensers….

And then there were just moments when… nothing was happening.

And as this goes on, while trying to check-in (the

check-in / reception area had been moved and she had to track it to its new location) Kristen’s cornered by someone at the hotel (where we were told to park) and told to move the car…. Rowan’s told that where HE was told to park was suddenly not the right place and HE needed to move HIS car. The NEXT act shows up and starts talking to me thinking I’M the sound guy and introduces himself as my two o’clock (alarm bells!!!) – I correct him and at one point I ask “so… when do YOU go on?” He thinks he’s supposed to kick off at 2.15 so we agree that artist talking to artist seemed to be working better and that ilyAIMY will be getting off stage around then…. More parking arguments. Water’s supposed to be at the stage. Now someone’s BRINGING water. Wait – someone CAME with water, you can stop calling for water… I get a phone call saying “so, it’s show time an d we’re worried because you’re not here” to which I have to admit “well, we’re ON STAGE and about to play….”

Kerfuffle?  The only thing that didn’t make it a clusterfuck is that things were actually pretty chill and everyone worked together to make it a good time. Well – by “everyone” I mean “sound guy, emcee and performers” – and the only reason that worked as beautifully as it did was because the administrators and organizers finally did what we needed them to do : back off and let us do our jobs!

Well, we played to a small audience. Everyone played to small audiences. Apparently they had about 1 tenth of their projected attendance, which is a shame – it seemed like a nice event, people were friendly, we sold CDs, good times were had. Once the sound was running it actually sounded pretty nice (none of that “folkification” of my guitar which seems to happen so often at festivals) and the guy who performed after us (songs and stories of the War of 1812) was fun to chat with. We had a good time during the hand-over, playing off of one another…. But I have NO idea why they were bugging me about bringing the full band. The stage wouldn’t have been happy with the addition of another member – and the stage we were playing was billed as “traditional music” and the guy after us played unamplified, banjo, mandolin and an old guitar – I have NO idea what they were thinking… meh.

Show was played. Sound guy was consulted as to what food trucks to hit (they always know which ones are awesome). Food was consumed. Apparently a “Saint Mary’s Stuffed Ham Sandwich” involves spicy peppered-kale and is dangerously delicious. I learned that a crab pretzel is just about the most amazing thing ever.

But I’m hoarse, I’m exhausted. I’m hot and I’m tired and I spent all my CD cash buying decongestants, allergy medicine and throat lozenges. My throat HURTS and fingers hurt and my back hurts and my feet hurt.

I can’t WAIT to get back home. We’ve got some tour planning to do before I can crash – but I need a nap. I desperately need a NAP.