(above : Mama Saray and Kim Gravatt join us for a post-performance selfie…)
There was a lot of weekend in this weekend. And in the old-style sense of a musician’s weekend, meaning it was the week. Friday was my Monday and onward and onward. Tomorrow, Monday is my hump day and Wednesday will be my Friday. Ish. Thursday will be my off day and Friday it all starts again. Assuming the weather holds true.
The weather definitely held true THIS weekend. Which again, was my week.
Friday night we returned to American Ice Co. Café in Westminster, MD – and the weather was stunning and the moon rose above us and we played our little hearts out to a packed (for post-COVID-value of “packed”) parking lot, had amazing wraps, light, fluffy, delicious beignets and got drawn and photographed like we were rockstars again.
It felt really, really good.
Rick Millman came out with friends, Heather’s family came out in droves, people returned from the open mic, others just… just came out. I didn’t interview the humans to see from whence they came, I was just happy to see them.
Additionally I finally let my QSC K12.2 out into the wild – we’d initially only tried it out once in Ellicott City, solely as a monitor, but generally it’s simply been the monitor for every Live from the Lair show for much of the past year. It sounded crisp and clean and generally I was plenty pleased. Enough that I’ll have to keep my eyes open for another…
The wind picked up. The breeze was perfect. We played mostly Heather tunes as it was initially a solo gig – but she was kind enough to share after we enjoyed ourselves so thoroughly at the open mic, and thus it came to pass that Friday night was probably the best time I’ve had with my guitar in a very long time, and certainly one of the best audiences since the Refuge.
Photographer John Carter (of not Mars) claims that he had a “more evil version” that he’ll let me see if I’m comfortable with it. 
Now, truly wonderful gigs like Friday’s tend to be followed by whiplashingly disappointing evenings filled with the backs of disinterested parties, crowd noise and technical issues, so it was with a certain trepidation that Saturday rolled around…
Kim Gravatt of Sonic Spell hosts an annual Dock Party. Something to which we’ve been invited numerous times before, something that I’ve often been surprised to be invited to since I never thought I was cool enough to hang with KIM’S crowd, but it’d never mattered because in the heart of June we were always on the road.
This year it lined up – and I’m so glad it did.
It was a party. I don’t normally LIKE parties. I don’t know how to function. I’m awkward and I really don’t ‘people’ very well even WHEN my social skills haven’t been corroded by 18 months of pandemic-induced isolation. By this point generally I AM probably more comfortable playing to a camera eye than to a hundred human ones but we got to really put it to the test last night.
In addition – I was NOT in charge. It was even made stranger by the fact that generally, anyone I knew at the party was someone I knew from Teavolve! In other words, these were people who knew me as The Open Mic Host. The person who enforced a very specific type of order in a little tea house in Baltimore. A frenetic solo singer/songwriter (IF they ever showed up early enough to see the host play) who sometimes MIGHT be joined by a beatboxer and / or his cellist wife. Truly, none of them knew ilyAIMY.
And so I tried to force myself to relax into this strange Other Role. I wasn’t in charge. I didn’t need to crack the whip. I introduced myself to the sound person and then proceeded to just hang out and watch the band and the water and the weather and the people. I think Sharif had expected to be thrown a beer as he walked in and, strangely, in addition to the expected hippie contingent there was a rather hefty BRO vibe to a lot of people, but no-one threw beers, no-one got weird – we staked out a patch of lawn and watched the band while waiting for ours. All the while I sat there pretending like being comfortable with people was something that would just sort of come back to me…
And it kinda did!
Learning the lesson of the Refuge – we never let up – we played hard and swallowed the bugs. And we had a really, really good time. We didn’t take a break, playing for almost two hours straight in hot, humid, sultry weather, covered in gnats as tiny wriggly things crossed the stage beneath us. It seemed like the overall volume got higher and higher over the course of the night and we had dancing and whooping and eventually a visit from the local cops JUST as we were wrapping up.
The party was nice, the neighbourhood was … probably nice if you’re quiet and white. So it was good we wrapped up when we did. There was definitely a bit of TENSION in the area as we eventually headed out. Sharif and I drove together so at 11.45pm or so we packed up our gear, got back in his van and left the Essex neighbourhood well and duly rocked, crossed back over the Key Bridge and went the Hell home.
Oh. That’s right. THERE’S the appeal in playing to the camera eye! No 1am parking-hunts, no 1am gear hauls.
Bah. It’s worth it.
I was up till 3 or so and woke up again at 6. I couldn’t totally get myself moving but was ready for another band gathering at noon, with another 3 hours of practice with everyone but Sharif – it’s been a really fantastic weekend. How do I make them all this way?
Heather and Kristen and I will probably be back to this sort of pace fairly soon. The calendar’s not PACKED but it’ll get there – but this feeling of momentum with the larger band will probably fall off, which is a shame – my heart really, really lies there.
I like the drums.
The drums in the deep.
