A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine mentioned that he’d be kicking a new open mic off in Canton – a particularly dense-packed neighbourhood in Baltimore – and because I’m a good rob I told him I’d certainly help get the word out and of course attend it to boot.
And so I said. And so I did. And thusly it came to pass that me and Heather and Nelson Cade III and Brandon and his posse and Robustiano and Ana and that one guy I didn’t know all descended upon Canton and looked for parking last night. Now, to those in the know, Boston Ave. goes from NO PARKING to FREE PARKING at 7pm, and suddenly within two blocks of Fionn McCool’s your parking oyster blossoms with parking oysters, but until you remember (or rediscover) that fact, searching through thecrowded, bizarrely cattycorner, mis-angled and randomly one-wayed, narrow streets of Canton is one of the more frustrating acts one can commit in a car. After about 20 minutes of meandering the neighbourhood and the neighbouring neighbourhoods we stumbled across the beauty of Boston, sort of said “oh yeah”, texted our friends, and walked up the hill only to be reminded that…
I’ve been here before.
Yawp – Fionn McCool’s is the remodeled and reimagined Red House Tavern, where a couple of open mics were attended in the past, a couple of shows were perpetrated, and many, many battles over sound were waged. Anywho, the place went under a couple of years ago, was bought by a guy who wanted to have an Irish bar but didn’t apparently have the wherewithal to keep THAT above water, and so the place has been vacant till the current owner purchased it, remodeled it, and opened it under its current name about 8 weeks ago.
The host, Tony Roulhac, wandered in, had a burger, got to talking and started hosting an open mic there as of last night. They’ve got spirit, they’ve got a great menu, they’ve got great drinks – and Tony makes for a fun, charismatic and talented host… I’m hoping that soon he’ll upgrade his board though. With mostly solo artists all night most people were okay, but two vocals and two DIs were beyond the system’s ability. A hip hop artist was also sadly disappointed by the fact that the system wasn’t happy getting an mp3 player shoved into it, but Nelson grabbed his guitar and I grabbed a mic and we jammed out behind him pretty effectively. Whether or not he had as good a time as Nelson and I did is unknown, but he seemed to rise to the occasion.
Anywho, the music was good, the host was good, my Clan Bascna was good, my braised lamb was EXCELLENT – but something that was absolutely wonderful was this little circle of community. I don’t often get to just be out with my music friends in Baltimore. The air outside was Lovely and cool, the moon rising was big and yellow, and my phone’s “friends near you” feature was lighting up with a dozen friends who weren’t RIGHT here, but who were all checking in at their gigs in Canton and Fells Point. Even though they weren’t where I was, we were all loading in and “going to work” at the same time. I really Loved that.
We met a new performer, Dylan Galvin, who was particularly stunning and in general Fionn McCool’s open mic kicked off beautifully. The host was happy, the players were happy, I hope the owners were happy. Glad to have the place join the local community of places with Live music.
