This morning I’m beat. When we’re home, the constant flip flop of going from musician schedule to folk star schedule and back again is probably aging more than anything else on my plate and my body really fought me this morning. Two nights a week I have to wake up at around 8.30am, but generally four nights a week I’m not getting home till midnight and generally I can’t get my head down till closer to 2 or 4 in the morning. Last night I just couldn’t stop my brain from squirreling and so I read myself into exhaustion. Tom Clancy may not generally have the most gripping of narratives, but he definitely can bludgeon a rob into unconsciousness with paragraphs of decorative technical text.
It’s been a good couple of weeks – dramatic weather that seems particularly expressive of the theory that our climate is becoming more and more chaotic has been throwing snow and sun and rain and sun and fog and sun at us. Today a Simpsons sky throws light down up on a world suddenly bereft of the snow drifts that have been our constant companion. They up and vapourized in the rains the last couple of days and the hygrometer in the rob hol has been recording vicious extremes that make me all the more grateful to play carbon fiber.
We played our second show with ilyDraftee Joey Jenkins this weekend. Café Nola in Frederick, MD proved to be a good testing ground for a new drummer, and it was the first time where it was “just a show” and not part of a special event of some sort. I’m really enjoying having him in our roster and I think it’s bringing on a change in sound that I’ve been really craving. He’s also just a really positive spirit to have around. He’s full of optimism and energy and at the risk of sounding kind of new-agey, I really like his spirit.
The Honest Mistakes had invited us along for the show and they debuted a bunch of new tunes – and we ALMOST debuted a couple of new tunes but I basically wimped out at the last second and struck them from the set list. We played well with only a couple of issues here and there, a lot of GREAT energy and a killer crowd. We had a wee bar brawl in the centre of the night which caused me to rear back into rob-cobra mode (i.e. one foot up so I can either kick people who get too close, or catch or move the mic stand if I’m able – I’m actually pretty good at this and didn’t miss a beat) – apparently electric cello was just too much for the refined sensibilities of Frederick, MD and one guy ended up senseless on the floor for almost a full minute.
By the end of the night I was vaguely worried that I wouldn’t be able to get back in to idiot-check the stage due to police activity – but such is the Life of the folk star.
But now it’s Sunday morning and it’s just another quiet day… the WAMMIES are tonight. I’ve learned long ago not to keep my fingers crossed…
(funnily enough, listening to an interview with Trombone Shorty right now, from New Orleans, and he talks about using his trombone slide to smack audience members who get too close)
rob rides the Jackalope. Not a metaphor. It’s a jackalope. At South of the Border just south of the North Carolina in South Carolina! Heather tunes up her guitar at Ted’s Fun on the River in Wilmington, NC on February 18th, 2015. Our show at Ted’s Fun on the River was marred by difficult sound, but we were still pretty honoured to be part of the night, hosted by our old friend Laura McLean – and it was absolutely thrilling to see our sound guy from Sunday’s show at Bourgie Nights, Sean Thomas Gerard, who was absolutely stunning.
Coming back through Cary, NC we saw this wonderful, wonderful sign…Unfortunately, even their Lego selection was less than inspiring. Good sign though. So the trip that we took south involved almost zero warm weather. Like… I think there was ONE day over 50 degrees. At ALL. Sigh. Gorgeous icy fountain in Cary, NC.
