September 13, 2005

11:37 p.m.

What to Do with Time

I'm bone-tired and sweaty from my last full day of painting. Unbelievably, I finished the living room today and put it mostly back together, except for the window treatment. My God, I'm tired. I was going to be at the yoga center by tonight, for our gig tomorrow, but I just couldn't leave. We're back into a busy phase now, and I'm hoarding all the home-time I can.

We played a festival in Rochester, NY, last weekend, and it was a turning-point experience. We'd grumbled a little at having to be there Friday to Sunday; although we got a good fee for the one set, it did cover three days where we couldn't take any other work, and we had to do workshops and hang around all day Sunday for a few songs in the final round-robin concert. BUT. As it turned out, we loved it all, were quite famous in a small way, did very well in our workshops (songwriting and harmony, and a guitar technique workshop for Chris), and might have landed the Champlain Valley Festival for next year. It's not related, but Carol has been trying to get us in there for years, and we happened to be seen by a past president of that festival who loved us and still has some pull with the committee. We're hopeful.

The rest of the story is that on Friday, during sound check, there was a mistake in the wiring and all our electric components got fried. I'm talking keyboard, bass amp, and part of Chris's guitar rig. Gone. We had to do our set without keyboard, making some song changes, and I went direct with the bass (plugging right into the sound system rather than using the amp as my stage monitor) and Chris just didn't use his preamp but could use his guitar. It was just an accident, of course, and the festival people went absolutely above and beyond to straighten things out. One of their sponsors is a big music store in Rochester, and they took all the items there, where the owner stayed up very late Saturday after store hours checking things out and repairing what he could. The bass amp was just a fuse; Chris's rig was just a fuse and a power supply; Carol's keyboard was toasted on the dark setting, so they replaced it with a brand new Korg Triton LE, and it turned out she had all her sounds backed up on a card at home except for one song, so that was okay. We got all this back on Sunday, so we didn't use the keyboard at all over the weekend. Of course the festival paid for it all, did all the running around, and were as kind and accommodating as they could be. And, despite the stress and anxiety caused by the loss of equipment an hour and a half before our set, we somehow pulled together and played the greatest, funniest, coolest festival set we've possibly ever done. It helped that we had a little time to come up with a plan. But we went from total pissed-offness, and me inadvertently saying things that made Carol cry, and Chris wanting to strangle someone with his bare hands, to us just being us at our best. I think praying helped!

The whole rest of the weekend, people kept coming up to us, goggle-eyed and gushy. I was nervous about the songwriting workshop on Saturday, but quite a few people attended and asked lots of questions, and Carol and I each played a couple of songs, and before we knew it the hour was up. Later we three did a harmony workshop where we got to explain how we come up with the bizarre things we do. It almost felt like we'd stepped into these roles as really clever, advanced musicians with a lot to impart, and everybody just fell for it. But, having no formal schooling in these things, I'm never sure whether I can articulate what I do, or make it seem important to someone else. But it made us want to do more workshops, and I might even look for a book on harmonies so I can talk confidently about sus chords and modal scales and the difference between a matzo and a kishka.

We also heard an artist called April Verch, with her band. She's a spectacular fiddle player, AND she does this dancing that's like a marriage of tap and clogging and Irish stepdancing. And, in the encore, she does them both at the same time. Also we heard the Wholesale Klezmer Band, one member of which is in Steve's monthly men's group (I'm still meeting people who know him, everywhere), and Bill Staines who is possibly the best known icon in the folk world. He's a lefty and plays the guitar upside down and backwards. It's an old, beat-up instrument, and he makes it sound like a small choir of angels.

And a few other artists.

We stayed with someone locally, and this was the lowlight of the weekend. He has three cats and a dog, and we talked at length about the accomodations to make sure I wouldn't be subjected to allergy-provoking danders. The result was that I was in the one spare room-cum-office, and C&C were on a bed set up in the dining room with a sheet over the open doorway, just off the kitchen. The animals didn't come into my room, as I could shut the door, but my mates got lots of night visitations. Also the house was dusty to the MAX -- I'm always astonished at how people don't see that -- and in between people coming in late and the dog barking every time, and the phone ringing early in the morning, we didn't get very good sleep. Our host was very nice and helpful but I'm afraid we won't be able to stay there again if we do the festival.

All is well, though. We've had such a lingering good feeling about our performance, and the feedback all weekend was so sparkling, and we sold SO many CDs, that our faith has been renewed.

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In between bouts of painting, I finished reading the latest Harry Potter today. Cried copiously. I take slight issues with some of her choices, and I think Harry is a hotheaded nimrod at times, but the book is good. It held me, it lived in me, I dreamed about Snape. Now I shall be in withdrawal, looking for something half as engrossing to read.

Dar told me that "The Aristocrats" was the most disgusting and hilarious movie he's ever seen. Now I have to try to see it... but when? I'm so busy... maybe next week, maybe Tuesday or something.

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My sister sent me an awesome poem she wrote about assisting with hurricane relief at the CT Humane Society. She might go to Louisiana for a week to help out, if she can take off from work.

It's hot. I took the air conditioners out to paint, and so it's been hot again. It's hard to believe that these drafty windows will be letting in frigid air in a few months, and I'll be uncomfortable and shivery.

I'm sure there's more to say, things to muse upon, but I'm too tired. Happy. Finished, mostly, with painting. Just the bedroom window now, and put up a couple of new shades. Then what ever will I do with all my time?