Lulu’s Fate practicing at the house…Snow at Firestone’s for our first Thursday gig…Band practice at the ARK House. Unfortunately, the A of the house will be moving out soon. Not sure what we’ll call it then. Sigh. Good band practice though.
I think I’m kind of afraid of what I’d see if I searched the Journal for the word “sleep” – specifically looking for instances where I’m complaining about the lack thereof, or the inability of attaining it… and it makes me not want to write late at night for fear of eternally repeating myself. It leaves me much more willing to just lie awake and stare than to get up and be productive. I spend far too much time like that. Unproductive. Buzzing. Restless.
Recently it’s been genuine stress. Pointless stress. Well, if not pointless, than at least genuinely pretty self-induced. Things like “cicada” and the mastering and completion thereof. Things like the Takoma Park Folk Festival. Touring. The open mic. Letting people down. My brain squirrels in on itself just fearing. The wedding. The weather. The band. Life. The Universe. Anything. I know I’m simply not able to keep up. And so I’m up.
he prickling feeling of sweat as my brain ticks over realizing that I’ve let one thing or another go. Feeling left behind and left out is nothing compared to the feeling of falling behind and falling out. The dryer’s broken and I can’t fix it. The cable bill is too high and there’s no way to lower it. Have I been hoodwinked? Lied to? Tonight I’m the subject of a Brian Gundersdorf song, sinking into self-pitying paranoia in which my own fears completely get the best of me and it is my own timidity that is my undoing.
A couple of weeks ago I was asked to help put together a showcase program for Folk Alliance here in Baltimore City. It’s been a stressful run-up, but now we’re finally day-of and it’s time to light the lights and start the music. Well… mostly the latter of course. I ain’t bringing lights tonight! Mosno is fancy. I’m practical. We’re both excited! To the right, of course Heather’s on the FANCY side!
Brian Gundersdorf of We’re About 9, Karter Jaymes (of Karter Jaymes!) and Scott Smith of Naked Blue at the Hilton in the Harbor for a Folk Alliance showcase on March 25th, 2017. This was a really interesting event. I’d been tasked with creating a lineup that “made the Folk Alliance VIPs feel comfortable”. e.g. I was asked to put together a program that seemed like it could happen at a regular Folk Alliance venue, with the idea that we could show that big Folk Alliance events would TOTALLY feel at home here in Charm City. I took it upon myself to add two other components to this : 1) to reflect Charm City in the lineup, because if you want something to come to Baltimore, I think you’ve got to express what’s GREAT about Baltimore and 2) sort of coupled with “1”, Baltimore and its scene is FAR more diverse than the usual folk or Folk Alliance lineups. It was really important to me to cross a couple of aisles and maybe NOT create a lineup of white people. Case in point above – Karter is an excellent local writer who has toured the US and the UK and specifically made a point of thanking me for the invitation because “these are the people that I always feel like put me in a corner”.
Friends and enemies and half-imagined nemeses that I have run from because it was easier to do that than to fight. Fights I’ve picked with weaker people because at heart maybe I’m a craven bully. Ants are in the kitchen. Spiders outweigh us. The printer is contrary and the printshop is out-of-bounds. I’ve got to admit, I kind of really want to run away, but only so someone will come looking for me.
I’ve hit the wall of exhaustion a couple too many times recently, and with that comes the crazed emotions that go with it. Memory gets shimmering and strange, emotions run high and low and amok to boot. It feels like the heady days of college with dramatic, violent mood swings throwing my brain back and forth between inspiration and suicidal mania and the scratch scratch scratching of the belief that capturing the feeling on paper somehow makes it art and not madness.
Of course, I’ve always had my theories on that.
Kipyn Martin, Heather Lloyd and Victoria Vox closing out the last round at the Hilton in Baltimore, MD as we try to convince Folk Alliance that they’d Love to run some events here in 2020. We put on one Hell of a show, capping off a weekend of wining and dining Folk Alliance International VIPs, Baltimore officials and Maryland leadership… meet and greets, cocktail hours and even a magical a capella moment at Poe’s Grave were perpetrated. One of the finest moments of the night is above as Heather, Victoria and Kipyn join forces again for a couple of songs. Kipyn is my second-favourite female voice anywhere, and Victoria writes some wonderful, slightly off-kilter things… and Heather’s the reason that Kipyn doesn’t rank higher, so it was a spectacular close that left me with chills down the spine and goosebumps on my supple manflesh.
At the Folk Alliance showcase on Saturday, March 25th at the Hilton in the Harbor in Baltimore, MD there was a beautifully awkward moment when I realized my guitar was singing back to the performers on stage. I was all like “hush baby” and shut it down with a pile of napkins… but I thought it was cute.
It’d be great if they allowed it. A month? A week’s not long enough. Maybe a year would be too long. Perhaps a season. Madness season. Was that a Star Trek episode? A personal purge of just letting it all go and allowing yourself a do-over. Maybe it would be combined with bankruptcy. Something that wipes the slate clean. An “incomplete”. Something that lets you off the hook. Something that doesn’t stain.
So on Saturday night things were running late. I was getting TENSE. I had to leave at 9 the next morning for a marathon mastering session in Alexandria, VA and I was freaking out about that – so I was actually pretty pissed when cohorts announced additional speeches and one last performer. I got over it pretty quick when it turned out the performer was none other than Tom Prasado-Rao, and really got over it when, out of a room full of guitars (literally a dozen) he picked MINE!
Beyond my own Life, this whole damned house could use a lick of paint. Wouldn’t it be marvelous? Throw it all out. Cover it all up. Suck down the fumes some while you’re at it and spend Life just a little dizzier! Maybe I should indulge a little. Try to understand intoxication. All the cool kids did it and they all seem to be in a better place than me right now. Or dead. And you could draw your own conclusions whether or not that should read “and / or” instead.
Sunday morning at 10am I arrived at L-W Studios in Alexandria, VA…
