Happy Monday. It’s been a rough one. There’s been an emotional pall over the entire day mostly brought to me courtesy of bad news about our cat Orion. He’s quite old, so we’ve known this has been coming, but today a trip to the vet involved the sad news that he might not make it through the rest of the week. I’ve known Orion for… close to twenty years… so… there’s that.
And then there was the open mic night. Teavolve was a rough one. Emotionally, physically, and technically – things just kept seeming to go wrong. For all that the night was filled with friends – we had a great audience and a great list – there was this difficult energy throughout the night. People were attentive, but there wasn’t that edge of excitement. Applause was polite – even for rare and amazing acts like Matt Nakoa. Not in a bad way, just in a … church way. It was like we were at church. Someone mentioned it. There was a hush.
When I arrived at Teavolve I thought things were coming up roses. The drive in was easy, I got a parking spot right up front and Carrie (the lead waitress) was smiling. But sweating. It turned out that the air conditioning had given up the ghost again. They were working on it…. It’s been a constant problem for the past week or so. They got it up and running shortly after the night actually got up and running but… Ugh…
The night went something like this : first, the pen I put out with the list didn’t work. So I put out another one. Then that one didn’t work so I put out another one. Then the wireless wasn’t working so I couldn’t start the webstream. Then the pen by the list stopped working. Then there was this crazy popping noise which didn’t seem to be the mic, the cables or the board. After some experimenting (and some research) it turned out that the new speakers that Teavolve had bought were overheating. (thank you air conditioning fail).
This is the difficult part about adding a drummer to the mix. Even when broken down, they take up ALL the space. Other changes in lineup – making my acoustic sound somewhat less acoustic. The meat of my new tone is coming through Brennan Kuhns’ recommendations… wait till you hear this. Seriously.
Things eventually got moving well enough that the night rolled, but at that point there was that weird, awkward energy to the night. As the evening progressed, Acacia Sears’ guitar fought her and refused to stay in tune, Anthony Nastasi broke a string and then MY guitar fought him and Colin James broke a flip flop on the way to the stage. I was so happy to reach the end of what seemed like a cursed night I was just filled with relief as we got on the road… and then we got stuck in horrible traffic caused by construction + an Orioles game + a car accident involving two teenaged blondes in skirts that were more belts than skirts so the rubber-necking was EXTRA special. I’d say it was just one of THOSE nights – except – the music was SO good and the talent was SO good and my chicken and waffles were SO good…. and Amy made brownies because she rocks.
But I came home to a sick cat breathing shallowly, lying on the couch. Sigh.
