Harvard and Yale in one trip
ahh yes, so what the shlop have i been up to of late? well, there have been many adventures to keep a travel-happy bloke guessing.
a week or so back i found myself somewhere between late night twilight zone dog-bark cabin fever insanity and boredom with the entertainment of rosanna arquette movies on my little portable 5 inch screen vhs player. so i gathered up all my living necessities and got on the road at 4 am. post all this cd release hoopla, it was high time for the road.
i was feeling so alive, just like sweet freedom was nipping at my neck, and more awake than most mortals on any late-night shifts outliving the sleeping, and then... somewhere 20 miles from York, Pennsylvania... WHABAAM!! fwop, fwop fwop, fwop...
it really freaked me out- what had happenned to the car? but soon i found accompanying me on the shoulder two other cars who had been taken from service by the stretch. what we found was this huge piece of scrap metal, some unidentifiable peice of utility scrap that weighed about 60 lbs, that had taken out all 3 cars. basically me and another guy had gotten flats, and the other unlucky guy had damage to his radiator. one point for those of us americans who ride up a couple feet higher as we piss on the environment is that we have a full size spare. and so after an hour or so i had seen the sun come up and i was back on my way, the same way i was going.
anyway so i saw me some twisty windy connecticut, and i walked around the campus of Yale among other things, after mailing all my packages from a post office that looked like it just as well would be sending things off by horseback.
i had looked up this open mic in danielson, ct on openmikes.org and i was all excited to navigate my way there. but all the address navigated me to was this spooked out funhouse of horrors, guarded by two large stone lions in the front. when i am rich my house will most DEFINITELY have stone lions in the front. anyway i found a local to point me in the direction of what i _was_ trying to find. and what i found was a really cool hometown vibe kinda place with a big kickin stage and people who wanted me to keep on playing. i had a nice time and a gypsy type fella played percussion with me before i headed off into the night. this time for boston.
the two places i played in boston got negative points on the venue scale.. actually i think if i were in super mario brothers then they both would have been negative worlds. i just had to fish myself out in one piece. one was this sausage fest made up of folk dudes from some christopher guest movie and the other was a hidden 'coffee place' in some Harvard church, where the insane who instead think they are poets go once a week to excorcize whatever reality they can't quite handle. all i did was play, drink the god-awful dyed water they called coffee, give worried looks to rachel, and politely escaped out of there the very first chance we got. we headed off to the 'oldest bar in the country' (i'm getting a little skeptical of all these 'oldests' and 'firsts' i am encountering in this big expanse of u.s. of a.) to down coronas to the sounds of berklee students making spare cash by totally musicfying classic rock standards.
i got to have the privelage of staying in a house full of accents. it was sort of like 'Friends' except where everybody is from a different country. killer old house with a huge deck and PARKING and old wooden .. spirit. and there was a nonstop rotation of perspective, chock full of cardgames and puzzles and pabst and rainy day house fever and baseball and everything american. except with no semblance of a tv anywhere. that's the best kind of house there is, really.
the next stop was a brief passthru of NYC. good music and ghetto fullbox chinese and the warmth of a lil apartment party awaited me and i felt absorbed into the night.
i forgot my hi-hat in boston but had a little stop home with enough time to attend an atmosphere concert (more on that later) before i headed down to the coast for the beaches of virginia. i somehow had a feeling about norfolk, that i should consume a day as a thrift store junkie, and i tell you, my inkling could not have been more on. i don't know if it is just something about beach towns, but basically after my research led my on course, i ended up in THRIFT STORE HEAVEN. between the streets of monticello and virginia beach blvd, there is such a huge expanse of thriftage, i can't even begin to ask, 'where does all this crap come from?' is there some former race of men who left behind enough vinyl and lamps and garments to feed a whole country with kitsch? anyway i slept in my car and got up bright and early to do all that and relax a bit in the sand with a novel. then that night was a gig at granby north, headlining a showcase set up by the talented sonya lorelle who has different conglomerates of musicians every week. that was very good stuff, and i got to talk extensively to and play with this fellow named todd who has never made a record but writes some of the most feeling and perfect songs i've heard all year. it boggles my mind what is out there, that the radar flies so far away from in its misdirection..
i have some big rad important shows coming up and i am looking forward to it all. i recently purchased a work of art that is a guitar, and to be more specific, something very space age. it is like less than 3 lbs and made of some kind of nasa-type blended material, but it sounds and plays amazing. cello-adam got me all thinking about just doing it, just going for an instrument that inspires the best to come out of you. because he's around all these orchestral people all the time who instead of putting a down payment of a house, they put their all into acquiring a 150-year-old cello from france that goes for about 40-50 grand. we guitarists have it easy.
o yea- the atmosphere show. it i think was my first real hip-hop show. and for every show at the 9:30 club there is always the kid in the audience who has to make a show himself out of the way they are getting into it, where they have to palpitate and oscillate and fellate and roll their eyes back and gyrate and make sure EVERYbody knows that they are made that much more ecstatic by the music than everybody else who is there. well i happened to be standing next to that guy. and this time he was really tall and with a booksack, so i got the worst of it. well, maybe not, because some diplick eventually thought it was a good idea to crowd surf, and that its fun to kick people in the eye and threaten everyone's enjoyment of the ryhmes. so after i headed back somewhere much more inconspicuous i was able to enjoy the show much better. and the openers were some of the best i've seen, from p.o.s. who was clever and sarcastic and really had a flow and then blueprint who was feelgood and more like 80s styled rap and really fun. and atmosphere, who was with both with a band and a deejay alternatingly, was really amazing. charismatic and engaging and wonderful. i very much see why he's like the conor of indie rap.
it is rainy wet dim but all the change is upon us. i feel security in the change. the constancy of it makes me ok, actually. these fall days are gonna be so good, and halloween is just around the corner. i feel bad that i won't be able to do carlotta street this year, but i will have my fun. big hellos to you, because you are my posse. keep checkin in, ok?
My spin on Press
well jonathan scanned a few of the press pieces we've been getting lately into the site:
www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=90www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=91www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=92www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=93www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=94www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=95it's been some strange experiences with these things. more than once me and someone will be sitting at the table in normal fashion doing whatever, and all of a sudden one of us will go, 'holy shit, that's YOU right here in the paper..' the other strange experience i've had is having someone totally twist and morph my words into something i definitely didn't say, and have it come out to be something that either makes me sound like a cheezer or an egotistical asshole. i pretty much have a new perspective on press and quotes that they use on people now, because of the obvious point that they are either trying to put their decided spin on making something into a pointed story, or they are trying to be brief. hmm, maybe bono isn't the self-righteous bafoon we all read him to be. but then again, just consider the dude's moniker. anyway, it's mostly just where i babble on for like 2-3 paragraphs worth, and the writer tries to state all of that in half a sentance. that usually doesn't fly well. just keep it in mind when trying to judge the angels who are our politicians, rockers, and gardening experts.
CD Release
well, the CD release went pulchritudinously. there were many claps. the room was full of people. there was even a standing ovation. there were many people in there i've never seen before. and i even received an extremely nice gift from a guy i don't even know how to contact to thank. so THANK YOU, amazingly nice music fan who felt the need to shower me with a box o goodness. anyway, it all went so fast that i can't even really remember much except that there was a room full of intensity and support and warmth and every age and dress-code. here are some pics of the night:
www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=82www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=83www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=84www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=85www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=86www.danielleemusic.com/gallery_image_view.cfm?id=87i have mostly since been letting my brain reformat and mowing lawns and watching gilmore girls and thrift shopping and returning to normalcy. tho there are a bunch of good shows right around the corner. and wednesday night i'ma see Beck. i've always wanted to see that freak. what a good man he is.
i'm off to sleep. write n let me know what u think of the disc, bretherins and sisterins.