Trying not to think about the future too much. I’m enjoying the act of craft right now, but not terribly interested in creation. I’m enjoying the motion of spinning wheels, but not particularly interested in crafting new ones.
IF you know what I mean!
It’s been a weekend of making my body GO. Of carrying the gear and lifting the speakers and racing my hands to the finish line. Raging on guitar and smiling at the audience and glaring into the sun and remembering I’ve got to save a little somethin’ somethin’ to get the speakers back OFF the poles, the gear back IN the car – I can’t give 110% because I need some small percentage to get back home.
So – thank you Heather for driving – except for when it was Kristen!
Saturday was one of those days where you line up alllll the errands to shoot them all in a row. Much like Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade. I had to pick up things and drop off things and buy some things and be ready for some things – including picking up my finally-at-long-last repaired QSC TM16! However, that thing where I leave 15 minutes slack for almost every single thing I do built up and left me arriving at Seekers Church in Takoma DC with almost 2 hours to kill.
I got iced coffee, chatted with a guy who used to own the hostel next door who’d dropped in to steal some plants, wrote some emails and read till my backup arrived and then it was time to run a show.
It wasn’t the show I’d been hired to run, but I ran it nonetheless. And frankly I’m kind of proud with how I rolled with the punches on the evening. Generally speaking I think I’m good at improvising but I’m often not graceful about it. I get grumbly and cantankerous and though I try not to, I probably spend a little too much energy trying to make sure the askee knows they’ve asked more than was in the initial ask.
Yeeeah – my Thai music classical act of hammered dulcimer, 2-3 percussionists and a Thai fiddle bloomed into something bigger. Late Friday night another hammered dulcimer and another fiddler was added. Day-of I got a flute player as well.
But I got it wired, miked, louder, bigger – Doug Peach got it all online. We make an aight team and I think his calm rubs off on me.
Got home later than I’d wanted to, driving with the windows down and the system up (though I think I listened to talk radio or something, not very rockstar) and glorying in the memory of driving home late from gigs with the noise of the wind in my Volkswagon so many years ago…
I miss that beast. She was a fine steed.
The next morning, getting up early, repacking was minimal because I’d thought it through the night before, but fortunately I was still intelligent about checking my gear because at some point since Wednesday’s gig at Rowan’s – myyyyy pickup had just FALLEN OUT OF MY GUITAR.
So, pull that all apart, re-adhere, test, test, test. Good to go – off to HoneyGo where we got to bond with Kelly Bell Band as the sound engineer struggled with setup – we ate bananas and were generally uncouth, played the gig and raced off to Ellicott City to set up for my first Main Street open mic of the year.
Of course – it was SUPPOSED to be my SIXTH – but we’d gotten rained out so much in May we decided to just call it, put it off to tonight – and it was beautiful and Loverly and I must admit, everything I needed it to be to keep my enthusiasm with the world functional.
A good night.
I’m running out of steam talking about me. Clearly out of practice. From the In-person open mic to last night’s VOM I
Note to self : betwixt ilyAIMY’s powers combined – more stage selfies. No-one tags us ever even though everyone holds up their phones during our performances. I’m kind of pissed that between SOWEBO, HoneyGo and even my open mic, there’s like no evidence we performed ANYWHERE.
