Back in 2008, I attended and played a showcase at NACA West, then spent part of 2009 playing college shows that I booked there. Mike and I manned (and womanned) our own booth together. We had a great time, and you can read all about it in this ‘vintage’ blog from that fall…which includes an appearance from Mr. Belding. This fall I’m VERY pleased to be playing showcases at NACA conferences in Buffalo (Mid-Atlantic) and Covington, KY (Mid-America), and possibly one more. This time around I’ve got help from Jose over at Call Box Entertainment. I’m hammering out some details, but I will be adding a few shows around each conference, finally giving me the chance to return to my beloved Michigan (GR! I’m coming to you!), hopefully NYC, and more! So if you’ve been hoping I might come to your town, please stay tuned. And wish me luck!
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1. Audio gear and girls don’t necessarily go together
2. Audio engineers and live music…don’t necessarily go together (yeah, I’ll explain that one)
3. Everybody loves free stuff!
As mentioned in my previous blog, I came up to San Francisco to play at the Performer Magazine booth at the Audio Engineering Society conference today. Mike and I have been to San Francisco a few times, now, so we’re feeling oddly in between tourists and people who truly know where they’re going. Today we took the bus for the first time, and the 12:22 bus came right at 12:22! The bus ride back from the conference site to our friend’s apartment was not as smooth, because traffic had really picked up, but nonetheless, I’d certainly give San Francisco high marks for public transit. Not that they asked me to rate it… Read the rest of this entry »
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Well, I really fell off the blog wagon during the last week of the tour, so let me see if I can re-cap a little bit.
Thursday, May 8 we played at Tusca Cafe in Pittsburgh’s trendy South Side Works. We’d actually been there earlier in the week to go to the Cheesecake Factory for, well, cheesecake, and my poor friend was served a frozen piece of cheesecake that I can only describe as a cheesecakesicle. But I digress. Tusca seemed very swanky and upscale, and I enjoyed listening to Heather Kropf and Brad Yoder’s smooth piano/sax stylings and then the nice smoky vocals of Sonji. The only bummer of the night was that the place kind of cleared out right around the time I started playing. Apparently Pittsburgh is not one of those places the parties late – at least not on a Thursday night! But it was worth it to be a part of a great event, and it was nice to get my feet wet in a new place. There seems to be a great scene there. We had a great time in Pittsburgh generally; we went to the Andy Warhol museum and enjoyed the budding spring for a few days. Read the rest of this entry »
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Sunday night we played in DC at The Red and The Black, a very hip little place. The decor is funky and it was one of those clubs that seems all the cooler because it’s small, and the place filled up nicely. Stella Schindler played first with her lovely voice, sweet presence, and folk-country stylings (complemented well by her boots – shall I call them ‘cowgirl’ boots? Wish I could pull those off!). Her fans were incredibly gracious and stuck around for the whole evening, even on a school night when the music didn’t even start ’til 9:30. They listened attentively as we played after Stella, and then stayed for Mara Levi’s band, Thomasina and the Jam. They rocked out with supertight harmonies and killer playing…I should say that their fans rocked, too, because they came early and took in the whole thing. When I put the show together I had this vision of women working together to put together a great show and it absolutely was that and more. What a great spirit of collaboration and support in that room! Fabulous. I really really cannot thank Mara and Stella enough. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tuesday, 4/29 – Burlington, VT
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that this was a weird one. Burlington is an adorable city and things are beautiful this time of year (though cold. There were snow flurries while we were there, whoa!). And the venue was cute. But we had to do our own sound for the first time on the trip, which basically means Mike did it, and it was no big deal but I always feel bad when he has to worry about the PA and his own bass playing at the same time. The crowd was very reserved, very quiet, which made me wonder if they were digging it at all, and I kind of assumed they weren’t that into it. But when I played my last song, people were like, ‘no, play some more…’ Go figure. So I guess they liked it well enough after all… Read the rest of this entry » -
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Mike’s aunt (in New Jersey) fed us entirely too much.
Yay for friends in NYC – Regan and I smile pretty in Union Square.
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Here are a couple more, as promised, from James Crafford.
The first couple were kind of impromptu, before the show, and the last is a ‘live’ shot. -
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Last night was the Boston show at Kennedy’s Midtown, which all in all went pretty well. We had a small but enthusiastic turnout, and Mike and I definitely had fun playing. Kennedy’s is situated right in the center of Boston in the middle of lots of historical sites and a beautiful park that’s right near a church where our friends were married a couple summers back. When we got there, they were setting up a drumset and there were a bunch of kids – well, not kids, college students I guess there, part of a band who’d be playing later called PolySky. Read the rest of this entry »
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I was extra hyped up about this NYC show, I think, and admittedly a bit nervous, because 6 pm is such an early time to play (no such thing as a 6 pm show in LA!) that I wasn’t sure anyone would make it. Rockwood Music Hall is known to be a very hip venue these days, and I always find hip intimidating. But Ken was very welcoming and the space itself is really lovely and warm(figuratively – though it’s always warm onstage!). It’s tiny and a really charming mix of brick, wood and windows, there’s great sound (again – go Ken), and a stage takes up a chunk of the room, with tables oriented towards it in a clear emphasis of what the room is about – music. Some of the tables are so close to the stage you can, as the performer, set your glass of water on the table and just reach down and grab it when you need. All of that seems to encourage people to be very, very quiet. This is definitely the first true ‘listening room’ that we’ve played on the trip, and it was jarring at first to have people indeed really listening to all your lyrics. But then, of course, that’s exactly what a songwriter really wants! It was great. Read the rest of this entry »
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Oh, so first off, I forgot to mention, in my last blog, Matt Jones – he performed after us at Rockwood and completely rocked it with his band. He’s very soulful and is a very nice guy to boot, so check out his music.
There were actually a few people photographing the show yesterday, which was pretty funny – with all the clicking at the beginning in particular, I felt that it was a high-profile media event rather than our lil’ show…
I’ll share all of them eventually, but for now, a few courtesy of Adam Jason Photography:
Love this one!
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