September 12th, 2021. Gettysburg Music and Wine Festival.

Friday night Heather and I ran out to Bengie’s in Middle River, MD to see Free Man and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. It was one HELL of a double feature, probably even smarter than the theatre had realized. Great night. Great chicken fingers. Great weather. Great night OFF.

I’m up, I’m up.

I haven’t been making particularly solid, wise choices regarding my sleep schedule for the past several days and so this morning, getting up at 8am for a festival in Gettysburg IS a bit of a struggle. Unfortunately, my body’s rebelling in a number of ways as the lancing light of early Baltimore sunrise comes spearing into my brain… first off, about light coming directly into my brain, my eyes seem to be on strike. They want to have nothing to do with this morning and they are somehow allowing direct sunlight right onto the wrinkly flesh of of my mind and it burns us.

Holy crap, fresh apple cider donuts at Bengie’s!

Oh yes, it burns us Precious.

Or at least that’s what it feels like.

And my black, black coffee is not black enough. And my stomach’s disorganized. And my left arm is decidedly unhappy (something that actually really needs to be addressed as I’m feeling it from my shoulder to my fingertips and that’s NOT a good sign… make sure the rob stretches. All in all I probably won’t hang out at the Gettysburg Music and Arts Festival too far beyond our actual performance. The temperatures outside, so recently heavenly and crisp and excitingly autumnal have betrayed us again, and though they shan’t make the climb into triple digits today, they’ll come close. (actually, looking at the weather in Gettysburg rather than down here in Baltimore, it looks like it might not hit 90 degrees till after we’re off stage!)

Thursday morning Kristen left for a weekender trip with her sister, romping round New England to celebrate sisterhood, and, according to popular myth, pants.

September 11th, 2021. We, as a nation, have certainly sort of spaced on it all, and as the twentieth anniversary comes and goes we’re now officially a generation past the single worst terrorist attack on American soil, but I still have flash backs of driving home with smoke in the sky, not being able to contact anyone, watching, wondering. I don’t romanticize it, and I certainly wouldn’t call any of the people who died on 9/11 heroes outside of the first responders and the people on Flight 93 who wrestled that plane to the ground, but it certainly focused our attention and hammered home that there is hate, so much hate, in the world – and it’s easy to attack us.

Thursday night I stayed up way too late rewatching old movies and scroffling the cat.

Friday night I was out way too late because Heather and I went to a drive in theatre.

Last night I was up way too late because I was all riled up from a show’s grumpy hate mail (might get into that) and the general roil of 9/11 emotions.

Saturday evening I ran a show for Focus Music with folk performer David Roth commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

As you can see, I’ve clearly been making good use of my wifeless weekend and after this festival that I plan on night hanging out at because I’m tired and grumpy I plan to continue to Live up my pseudo-bachelorhood by picking up some toothpaste and maybe a loaf of bread on the way home.

Oh, and mabye I’ll REALLY go nuts and run the dishwasher.

I guess I WAS cut out for married Life.


A good time had at the Gettysburg Wine and Music Festival.
Sharif rockin’ his kid while the act after us rocks Sharif. When they were getting on the stage the singer asked what vocal processor I’d been using and when I did my didge / throat-singing chorus to Spring “It’s bound to come around again AGAIN” the guy’s jaw dropped. When I saw them perform I understood a little better. Backing singers? On-tune singing? Alllll in the effects processor the guy was using. Great guitarist though…

Just got back from the Gettysburg Music and Wine Festival. In that order. I was pretty stressed out about the Gettysburg Music and Wine Festival and this morning absolutely was disinterested in playing the Gettysburg Music and Wine Festival – but damn I enjoyed playing the Gettysburg Music and Wine Festival.

I was nervous because neither Heather nor Kristen would be joining us. Yeah – ilyAIMY without the ladies. It’s a different animal. It’s the Lily Army. And we don’t do that much AND we don’t have any descriptors to indicate that’s who we’ll be so I had to be careful of what press blurbs to send, and as the date loomed, I got more and more in my head about the fact that no-one cares about us when we’re not co-fronted by Heather and Kristen.

But man, (no pun intended) the energy’s so very different.

We didn’t quite manage a band selfie… I had to do it piecemeal… and I never DID catch Rowan.
Still, an immensely satisfying show. Rocking hard, playing LOUD. We had great wine (spicy sangria for me) and great pit beef and, except for getting horseradish in my shoe, the day just couldn’t have been better!

We had a really good time, driving hard and playing with our more rock edges… more a product of my designing a festival set than because Lily Army can’t slow down.

We were epic.

We were mistaken for the Deftones, which might be my new favourite compliment (other than “turn up”).

HOWEVER – I’m remembering that my shoulder’s being really really inflamed by typing right now so I’m going to stop, make dinner, watch a movie and just think about how good the day was.

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