September 24th, 2016.

*Hee! Playing our first Thursday gig at Firestone’s in Frederick, MD – a woman walked into the bar (I know, she should’ve ducked) with the cutest dog in her backpack… sweet beest!!!*

I absolutely THINK I slept last night. I’m pretty convinced of the fact. But I’m definitely FEELING like I could probably climb back into bed for another couple of hours. For better or for worse, we’ve got a schedule to maintain : breakfast to be had, miles to cover, and tomorrow we have to get up early, so I don’t want to sleep in TOO late today so I don’t stay up TOO late tonight so I’m not heinously unconscious tomorrow. Heather’s still burrowed away. She sort of hordes sleep like a precious commodity, and can bank it till it’s needed. I tend to be more a creature of pattern, and whether I’ve gotten 8 hours or 2, my body wants to wake up around the same time it woke up the day before… and the day before that… and the day before that. I’ve got a lot of momentum.

This is the Safeway that used to be near Parallel Wine Bistro. I’d gone for a walk during our break and saw it was all lit up – was curious as to what they’d replaced it with. It blows my mind that with this place having been closed for over a month, it’s still less expensive for them to leave the lights on, even unoccupied and empty.

Last night we played starlite in Southbridge, MA – an art bar we were introduced to on our last run up north here – and we pushed hard. It’s a great place, and the audience, though variable, is awesome. Variable meaning I feel like they ALL wander off at particular points, and over the course of a four hour show there are moments when you look up into a silent room and you realize that you’ve got a bar full of people watching and listening as attentively as any house concert, and then there are moments when you look up into a silent room and you realize most of them have vanished.

In any case, the audience is uniformly enthusiastic and I Love the overall feel of starlite. I’m always nervous returning some place with a slightly diminished format (last time we were here it was with Rowan) but we very quickly demonstrated that fewer in manpower didn’t mean lesser in ilyPower. However, it was a 9pm to 1am bar gig, and somehow our breaks kind of shifted around so that we played from 11.30 or so straight till 1, rather than our usual 45 minutes on 15 minutes off pattern. By the end of the night I was definitely feeling the toll on my body – I’ve found that the gigs which are tight on stage are far more physically taxing. The ones where I can pace and wander give me a little more of an outlet, the ones where I’m cramped into a corner leave tight and compressed, back aching.

The open mic at West Madison has been… going… unfortunately that’s about as much as can be said for it. This is September 4th, 2016 at the West Madison open mic, with Jonny G. warming up outside – the space is nice, the staff is great, the food is phenomenal, we just don’t seem to be picking up. On the upside this means we generally get to sort of jam back and forth and feels like playing in a friends’ Living room, but on the downside, financially it’s probably going to become unfeasible.

Afterwards we drove through the enveloping darkness of backwoods Massachusetts, across the state line into Connecticut and, evading a tiny soaked mouse on the road, fought the cold misty rains of New England, tumbling into our beds in Putnam, CT at around 2am. It’s the first night in FOREVER I’ve felt cold and though at first I relished it, quickly I realized it was time to wrap blankets around me and snuggle close to my fair cellist.

Today we’re playing our second canceled festival of the year. A couple of weeks ago we played Takoma FOLK, which was a placeholder festival for the Takoma Park Folk Festival. The Takoma Park Folk Festival has been running for 38 years, created initially as a social justice music festival by Sam Abbott (before he was mayor of TP), the TPFF was one of the first festivals to give ilyAIMY a major break by awarding us the top prize in their songwriting contest about ten years ago. Since then we’ve gotten to play a number of times there, first on the Seventh Heaven Stage and later on the Field Stage – eventually I was also brought on as one of the Program Committee and have had the opportunity to be part of the planning of this incredible event. Unfortunately, due to a number of problems above my paygrade, the Takoma Park Folk Festival had to be canceled this year – but thanks to the efforts of Dave Eisner, Main Street Takoma and the Folklore Society of Greater Washington, Takoma FOLK was put together on a shoestring budget and the day of music still happened (though with 1/6 the music). It really helped draw attention to what DIDN’T happen, and has really created about the best advertisement for getting people involved to make sure 2017’s festival actually happens.

Now – today we played the Be Happy Music Festival, but we were booked for the Stargaze Music festival. At around the same time the TPFF was canceled (I think it was within 24 hours, even) I got a phone call from a very apologetic concert organizer reporting that the person who is integral in bankrolling Stargaze had determined they just couldn’t do it this year, and invited us to perform at Be Happy under the same deal. Well, slightly better deal actually because we got a longer set! In any case, as opposed to being an LGBT-oriented festival (no pun intended) Be Happy is based around providing musical opportunities for disabled individuals.

ilyAIMY getting ready at the absurdly uncomfortable Gettysburg Wine Festival. Though actually performing was fun, getting into the festival was somewhat derailed by unfriendly people with walkie-talkies.

Well – at this point we’ve just gotten off stage at Be Happy and are racing back west to play at our beloved Victoria Station. Be Good went well, it was an absolutely beautiful day, the other musicians were really cool and we met some good people – and we met some really good dogs. And did I take pictures of the dogs? No, I didn’t take pictures of the dogs. Because I’m dumb. Sigh. And because I wanted my hands free for the dogs. So actually blame Heather for not taking pictures of the dogs.