An hour past showtime. I will never, ever, ever play into microphones outdoors ever again in my career as a bitchy little folk singer. The student tech crew could inexplicably not get either of our guitars to come in via our pickups, so we had to mic them both with microphones. Now, i dunno if you’ve ever seen me play before, but i shimmy around like a belly dancer with a cricket put down the back of my shirt, so giving me a stationary microphone to play my guitar at is the worst idea you could ever have. Furthermore, they couldn’t even get our vocal mics to come out of the monitors in front of us, so i couldn’t hear Gina singing anything directly, just from off to the side. After sitting there strumming a G chord for ten minutes while the sound guys did everything but get us any sort of monitor mix we could hear, we finally decided to start and see what happened.
“Punk” was a thankfully quick crash and burn, though at that point we were assuming the monitor problem would get fixed. In our naivety we managed to get some good harmony going. However, the set took a downturn during “Deadweight” when two obnoxious guys were standing directly in front of us having a conversation and we still couldn’t hear ourselves playing. I, of course, started directing all of the lyrics right at the conversationalists – which wound up getting their attention rather quickly (they especially looked up when i screamed “i can’t get rid of you even if i want to, cause your deadweight the way you serve no purpose”). “With or Without You” was quick and rather painless for me because Gina was singing, but i couldn’t hear her guitar so i didn’t know what the hell was going on. “Lost” sucked because i couldn’t hear my guitar over the reverb of our voices (which finally found their way into the monitor), so i basically just played it quick and angry (which generally works well). I stalked off to retune after that and Gina bravely attempted “Landslide” solo while the wind dueted into her microphone, after which i came jogging back onto the stage for a very brave attempt at “Under My Skin” (in which the solo was rendered totally moot because Gina had no pickup for her acoustic guitar so we couldn’t hear what she was playing). After that we were supposed to play another 20 minutes of songs, but i was basically just muttering “fuck” under my breath inbetween every lyric and Gina was totally frustrated, so we hammered out “Can’t Do” and walked right off the front of the staging area without even saying thank you. Yep… i’m a rock star in training; i’ve got the attitude and everything.
The next band’s instruments all plugged in fine and the band sounded wonderful, even though they had too much reverb. There was a chick guitarist in the last band, but i was too pissed to hang around much longer. Somehow i managed to sell fifteen demos in the midst of all of this, but that leaves me with mucho extra copies, so get your orders in now. Ugh.
guitar
So, last night i did one of my favourite things in the world .. ran down the middle of the street in West Philly with my guitar strapped to my back at 2am. Okay, so… maybe it’s not really one of my favourite things. There’s sorta been a few muggings in the blocks surrounding my apartment, and while i’ve never once been harrassed in my nineteen years here in Philadelphia i feel something akin to a bullseye with legs and frizzy hair when i’m walking around with a three hundred dollar instrument and nothing nearly as threatening as a can of pepper spray. Or even just some pepper.
I had been at Bill’s place (Cast Page Update Coming Soon) just messing around with his sweet keyboard and my guitar … we managed to get a few ad-libbed songs off the ground but eventually i got tired and all i could muster were very strummy E minor chords and various and sundry Ani DiFranco lyrics, so we called it a night. I don’t think it was until i got outside that i realized how much of a night it really was. But, anyhow, i made it home in one piece, and even got into the building (despite having earlier locked my keys in the admissions office). So… yeah, that was my big adventure of the day. And, i ate a crepe with my little brother from PiNu. Very exciting stuff. Now i’m gonna go file something…
Um, hi. Nice to meet you. We might have met before… i used to write stuff on here every so often. But, lately i’ve been out and about. You know… concerts, rehearsals, theatre … all that arty junk that college students do because they aren’t doing nearly enough work. I went a whole weekend without even thinking about checking my email; could you imagine? Obviously the computer has become so much a part of my daily work-life that i dread and avoid it when i get home. By contrast, with my decided lack of music curricula this term has made my guitar the most exciting thing on earth. Really. My fingers hurt just thinking about it. I even did a Trio yesterday, but it really sucked, so i’m gonna try again. And other stuff too. Back to work.
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.
How often do you see people walking around playing guitar? I mean… not while you’re walking around and they’re sitting down, but when they have a guitar strapped on and they’re walking down the sidewalk across the street from you while singing. I usually sing on my way back home from the office, and i draw odd looks most of the time (i don’t really endeavor to sing under my breath…), so today i was coming back from a rehearsal with Gina (for our show in the Quad on the 3rd) and i decided to play a few songs. I had gotten through “Punk” and into the outro of “Under My Skin” when i was flagged down and invited into my favourite pizza place by the chef, who asked me to play a few songs. I obliged by ripping into a bouncy version of “Under My Skin” in an attempt to hold the attention of the various patrons (which really was just two sisters with one’s child, the cook and his mother, and two young boys splitting a pizza) and at the end they clapped. I’ve been clapped at dutifully, or patronizingly, but instead they kept clapping after i smiled and thanked them and reset my capo for the next song and started.
Thirty minutes and four songs later i left the pizza place having promised to return with my new CD next week and having been invited to play at a restaurant downtown on Monday. I got several odd looks as i entered the more residential neighborhood while playing “Crashing,” but just as many people smiled and nodded as i passed them with a strum. I think i’ve found a new way to spend Saturday afternoons…