Wanna connect some musical dots? Would they just be tied whole notes, then? Well, last night i saw Peter Mulvey in concert from less than ten feet away for the sixth or seventh time. He and his sideman David “Goody” Goodrich turned in a short and moody set of favourites as well as a new tune, after which they chatted briefly with me a few different times. This has sorta become the defacto post-concert behaviour, because i’ve seen Peter so many times now that he’s grown to recognize me (and the wild war-whoops i usually let out from the audience when i’m not losing my voice). I gave him my demo cd last year and he told me last night that he and Goody listened to it on the way to their gigs and then he put it on a shelf of things he tries not to lose. I gave him my new demo (the first finished copy, so don’t think he stole yours away), and he gave me one of his discs in exchange and hugged me goodnight.

Peter’s set was (too) short because he was opening for Erin McKeown. Erin is a bundle of frightening folk/jazz guitar prowess and vocals that sliced the room right open. She was totally enrapturing. Erin was a student at Brown Univerisity not too long ago, which was my first choice school. Oh well. But, even cooler, Ms. McKeown (who i viewed from a meager distance of a yard or two) just got through with opening for Ani DiFranco, who we all know i love and adore.

Ah, but it gets better. Ani DiFranco has had (since before i could play guitar) a dedicated tabber named Leigh Marble, who i think was the first independent folk artist i had ever heard of back in those naive times. Leigh and i grew to sorta know each other by email – in that he’d tab something and then i’d send him some whiney little corrections i noticed from obsessively rewinding and replaying my tape of Ani on David Letterman. I think a few of my tabs might even be up on his legendary AniTabs page.


The most interesting element here is not that i know Leigh, though. It’s that Leigh split a 7 inch single with Erin in 1999 called Anticipation et Denouement, and listening now to the album i bought from her last night i’m vaguely recognizing songs that i first heard two years ago while restless surfing through Leigh’s site while waiting for him to post a new Ani DiFranco tab.


Yeah, it’s a small damn world. Even smaller once you pick up a guitar.