We’re headed south. We’ve mulled maps and fed computations into the GPS. My phone and Kristen’s phone and the GPS are all finally seeing eye-to-eye with google maps and what I saw in my mind – we’re headed south to our nemesis : New York City. This sprawling metropolis inspires nightmares and cold sweats – not because it’s dangerous or fancy or special or in any way important beyond its own conceptions – but because it’s hard to navigate and traffic is ALWAYS a nightmare.
Bearing this in mind, we’ve devised an ilyPincer assault. Kristen and I are approaching by car from the North, and Heather’s approaching by train from the south. We’ve both leftabout a half an hour clear in our schedule for mishaps – and because I’m paranoid, that NY half-hour is in ADDITION to the time I’d already buffered in… at the moment we’ve actually made back some time (and currently have 51 minutes of buffer-time) and Heather’s lost time due to a delayed train (and is now running about negative the same number of minutes).
It’s like a race.
Jess Razzi in the house at the Manchester 65 Open Mic. These are oddly similar, aren’t they? Yeah – we’d been learning from Lelehuna, I’d say.
We’re About 9? I have no idea where they’re coming from – if we’d truly spent some time planning this out like a military campaign I’d certainly have been amused by the 6 individual members of the bands all approaching from different directions. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d prefer the aerial approach, careening out of the sky with my OX and a parachute. I think Katie Graybeal on a horse would be a sight to be seen – Heather by train, Kristen by car – I could imagine a subterranean route as WELL as an aquatic one… if we were rich and had all the time and whimsy in the world we could’ve truly done this in style.
As it is, I think Heather’s probably still bound to win since we’ll have to hunt for parking.
The trip’s been good, if a little grey. Yesterday the sun came out and joined us for a wonderful driving and wandering tour of Newport courtesy of our friend Jess Razzi. The rest of the week’s been grey, grey and more grey. Though we’ve mostly avoided the weather there have been a couple of wet packs, and there’s not much out there in the mundane world of small annoyances that I hate more than packing wet gear.
After Sunday’s show at Hank’s Dairy Bar, it was looking like we might not see the sun again EVER. Cape Cod was grey, Providence stayed pretty grey. Tuesday night was a night off, but Wednesday we were back on task hitting up an open mic at an interesting venue in Rhode Island : Manchester 65 was weird to approach – again in the rain, there was not much to inform the casual passer-by that the warehouse space the GPS had directed us to was going to have Life in it, much less Live music. Fortunately we spotted someone loading gear in through a set of blank, grey doors and followed him in.
What came next was a fun night. It’s one of those nights where I get to bond with people who are a little bit older than me but still rocking out. The host of the night, John Juxo, was one Hell of a piano player and turned out to have some pretty neat performance checkmarks on his resume. Including playing keys in a giant bug costume. John really radiated joy and sees real potential in this giant warehouse of a venue… and I see it too. It’s like they’d bought one of the old wood and glass bars you can get whole at the architectural antique stores in Putnam, CT and shoved it into an old, concrete and metal warehouse. A stage occupied one end, the bar the other, there’s a pool table and a couple of huge LCD TVs, but neither of those were in action as everyone was there for the music.
Drum kit, big amplifiers – and if you wanted a slightly smaller ambience, a second stage to boot down on the floor next to the comfy chairs and couches, lit by floor lamps rather than the harsh stage LEDs. It was a sparsely attended night (the host was adamant that we should fault the weather) but I had a great time. We rocked out and pressed the flesh, had a drink and eventually moved on. Jess had no idea what to expect when she pointed us in the direction of the place, but I think she found a real gem. It could truly host huge sprawling rock shows and be SO much fun.
Thursday night it was back to gigging, this time as the featured artist at Rick’s Music World’s open mic. They’ve got a pretty wonderful thing going on there, with a pretty mainstream musical instrument store that looks to draw most of its income (and community) from the wonderfully apportioned practice and lesson spaces located off the main floor. It’s just a beautifully cheerful environment and everyone’s enthusiastic and supportive – and having that as a feeder community for an open mic is – well it makes it like almost no other open mic. Talented people, a tight community – but a group of people who know one another well enough that they’re really excited when something new comes to town.
Perfect environment for us really – and the other performers were great, we had a great show and sold some CDs, made some new friends and hung out with Tom and Rick (the hosts and in the latter case, the owner of the shop) for a while after the night was through and… well… add it to the list of places that I wish were a little more local to us!
Jess Razzi and her dad! Yep. , Kristen generally stayed on the high ground, especially as Jess and her dad started scolding me because apparently the tide comes in a LOT faster than I generally expected it to…
Last night found us playing at Deville’s in Providence, RI – ANOTHER really friendly venue – this one’s a lesbian-focused bar with a bit of erotica on the walls and excitingly neon-lit EVERYTHING. Lots of big tvs and video screens showing a mix of sports and 80s pop music videos. Kristen and I settled in with Jess and ate perhaps one of the best burgers I’d ever had in my Life. Unfortunately only very small audience joined us upstairs but we had the attention of the dozen or so people downstairs and with outdoor speakers in play, we eventually attracted some people in off the streets too.
All-in-all a fun night – and bonus : great smelling restrooms! Huzzah!
Man – all this talk about how the grey has lifted hath called down the attention of the weather deities – as we dodge traffic, pushing back from the I-95 corridor and turning our attentions to the Merritt State Parkway, the scenery is turning greener but the sky is getting greyer and we’re getting the edgiest inkling of raindrops on the windshield.
If rain does to New York City what it does to Washington, DC – well – I can only pray that the skies will hold off till we find our venue for the night….
it was just need to peek into Club Passim and see people on the stage down there, especially after learning so much about the club at my Library of Congress appearance. after dropping Heather off at the airport in Boston, Kristen and I joined up with Laura Grill to see her band performing at Beat Hotel. They were in pretty rare form, funny, talented and beautiful. It was really cool to see them do their thing. , it was probably wrong of me to appreciate this shelf as much as I did – but I was so pleased to see a bookshop where Bibles and books about Jesus were shelved in the same “mythology” section as books about UFOs and Atlantis. (book store on Cape Cod in MA). You know, just the Cape Cod Time Capsule. I have no idea what it is
