Oof. My first day back in Maryland was not admirable. I’m definitely feeling the effects of several days without much sleep (2 – 3 hours a night) and the general shift of pace of my world. Monday I was dragging much of the day and then traffic was just a nightmare getting to Teavolve for my Monday night open mic. I got there “on-time”, but that’s about 30 minutes later than I like getting there. My gear was scattered betwixt our road bag and my usual bag and so set up was a little slow as I sorted things into their proper places. I’ve also found a dead channel in my snake – not a big deal but a nuisance to work around…. All in all I found myself scrambling a little bit in the last ten minutes before 7 and I hate that feeling.
The list was very sparse and the broadcast wasn’t working right – I threw up my hands and kicked things off.
And I found myself scrambling all night. Forgetting things, not quite adjusting things perfectly. I felt like I was juggling more balls than normal in some way even though it’s always a one-man show to get things done… ilyAIMY kicked things off with two of our tunes and a song by Eric’s Trip called “Behind the Garage” that I’ve played for years. It’s a beautiful song that may or may not be about drug abuse, but it was introduced to me on a mix tape by Will Schaff and Mary back in college along with Songs : Ohia and a couple of other Secretly Canadian bands. Even though Jason Molina had nothing really to do with the song I’ve always associated it with him and with his death this week I wanted to play it. Unfortunately we took it a bit fast and it probably didn’t have the beautiful elegance that I would’ve preferred…
The music office at Franklin. Controlled chaos? Looks like they’re prepping our young musicians for the real world of rocking to ME! (that’s not sarcastic, btw) Music is afoot.
In any case, I had some issues. Feedback where I don’t normally have any (I’d loaded my Old Bowie Town Grille settings), a click on the first couple of minutes for the broadcast (I’d not CLEARED the settings from recording over the weekend) and the webcast itself may or may not have saved properly! (the feed kept erroring out, but since I was getting comments from people online I knew I was on the air and just didn’t fuck with it). Despite all that, the list filled up swiftly after the first half hour. People were definitely delayed by the weather and the traffic. Unfortunately I never quite found my stride, probably coming across as weirder than normal. It took me longer to zero in on sounds and correct mic stand problems, and with Acacia suddenly needing a third open mic (something I wasn’t set up for at first) I crossed some wires that then tripped me up for much of the rest of the night.
And yet the night was awesome. The featured artist was magnificent (Cecilia Grace is absurdly talented), we had a bunch of new performers and a bunch of regulars and a couple of long-losts including Acacia herself. To end the night “ilyAIMY” consisted of me and Rowan and Sharif + Acacia Sears on backing vocals and Dan Zimmerman on bass. Unfortunately me and Cacie got caught up in dancing and Valeri dissolved into giggles at the very end of the open mic.
Still – it meant WE were having fun!
