Ok – so logic told me (eventually) that we should’ve stayed back in Maryland and finished the damned CD. We were playing mostly to old fans and repeat customers, so coming up here before the new CD was finished was probably a tactical error. The main reason we’ve been aiming our sights on New England for this week was that I wanted to book some dates with our friends Matthew and Michael from Transcendent Third.
The interior of the Space in Hamden, CT. The open mic was semi-crowded, but the talent was immense. The host said that though things had been pretty good recently, this night was a fluke of amazingness what with a number of touring artists all crossing paths on the same night. Lots of kitsch, old video game signs, Sendak drawings covering the walls and a thrift store upstairs. Very, very cool place.
The twins have been booking short tours based around their school breaks and around the colleges they want to check out, and I just Love crossing paths with them, so when they told me THIER schedule, and we’d SORT of been planning a trip around the same time, I figured we could probably help one another out.
Last night at the Skellig was the first time for us to see them while up North, and we drove to the Skellig in Waltham, MA with a decent amount of optimism. Unfortuantely, when we arrived we discovered that the back room where we were booked to play had a party of about 20 bankers chucked in there throwing a birthday party. Tom (our host) was PISSED and we did some calming of him.
Passing through Connecticut on our way up to Boston, we run into an incredible snow storm and I’ve got to make a phone call to boast. About 3″ for me to play in at an abandoned picnic area. I like running and sliding in it. Tweee!
The excitement of discovering a cage in Whitney’s apartment and wondering what Lives inside!!! It turns out that Whitney caught a mouse in her apartment in February or so (a Valentine’s mouse, actually) and didn’t quite know what to do with it, as it would freeze to death if she just threw it outside. And so now she has a mouse (named Mouse Friend) Living on her refrigerator. Mouse Friend probably thinks he’s got it pretty good.
I hate seeing friends get angry – especially the people we don’t get to see very often. It ruins the moment a little, and lets us perhaps see a side that we don’t want to see. But on the other hand, I’m glad it was US that was there – other people might’ve been brought down too – Heather was right – an audience is better than no audience, even if it’s an audience of disinterested bankers, and the night was a miserable snap in what HAD been a beautiful week, so numbers were really, really low.
One of the twins from Transcendent Third (Michael, I think) asks for water from the bar, and the overwrought bartender just hands him the wand to fill his bottles with. At first Michael’s pretty dumbfounded – he’s all 18 n shit and just had never encountered such a thing before.
In any case, playing with Matthew and Michael’s always great. There’s some sort of optimism to them – something that I don’t like to acknowledge, in a way, because it points to how old I’ve gotten… Not that they write happy songs in any way, but just – the kind of freedom they have about falling in Love and falling out again is beautiful.
Logically, it would’ve been smarter to book a local act to share the night with, and there may have been a certain amount of self-throat-cutting involved in the night, but we had a good time.
After a bit of a rough night at the Skellig, it was kind of nice to wander back and hang out with Whitney. She flushed out the beast that we’d been so curious about. Meet Mouse Friend, the Valentine’s Day Mouse.
Tonight we ended up at an open mic in Jamaica Plain, MA at a place called Java Jo’s. Though we generally meet a lot of people we like when we come to the Boston area, we generally have pretty negative gig experiences. The open mics can be very cut-throat and the business side of the whole city can just be kind of cold. Java Jo’s was a really pleasant surprise, with Mike Delaney’s night simply feeling like the warmest thing we’ve experienced up there. I was glad Whitney got to come out with us that night, because she’s experienced so many BAD nights with us, it was good for us to see a night that was genuinely so much fun.
Departing to play the NewSong Art Space, Heather and I are passed by this junked Austin Healey and I reach to call my Dad before remembering. It’s almost been a year and I still have reflexes like that.
We saw some pretty good talent, and my first blind guitarist (I’ve seen two one-handed ones, but never a blind one!) but had too much mochaccino and sat up all night vibrating and text messaging back and forth with a friend.
6am and I finally find some sleep.
