East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam

Going to see Tom Russell at Club Passim next Tuesday, September 20. Maybe you should, too.

Here's East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam.

Breathe Owl Breathe at Club Passim

Definitely a band you have to see to truly appreciate, Breathe Owl Breathe opened two nights ago for Mark Olson at Club Passim. Funny, quirky--yes, I'm sure that word is used a lot to describe them--their music is beautiful, their melodies catchy, and their lyrics (and stage presence) are quirky--there's that word again.

These three interesting and thought-provoking performers--Micah Middaugh (guitar, vocals), Andréa Moreno-Beals (cello, vocals) and Trevor Hobbs (percussion) from Michigan combine acoustic guitar, cello, drums, and a few non-standard instruments and electronics and theatrics to tell their stories, and it's all a bit mesmerizing and entertaining. There's a funny sort of innocence about their act, which is what it is. It's not just music but rehearsed sounds and some movement, and it is a bit like watching grown-up children at play.

The song they opened with started out with Micah setting the scene, on a boat, out on the ocean with the wind blowing. He rocked and swayed, while he blew into the microphone while Trevor knocked and brushed the rigging on his drums and Andrea set the mood on her mournful cello.

Here's Dog Walkers of the New Age


And here's Lake Light


Breathe Owl Breathe - Lake Light from Miscellany on Vimeo.

Mark Olson: Little Bird of Freedom

Caught Mark Olson at Club Passim two nights ago and wanted to get the word out that if you can see him perform go do it. He left Cambridge Sunday night for Portland, Maine, then he said he was going straight to Germany where he was going to meet up with Ingunn Ringvold who he made his latest album with.

I am fairly familiar with the Jayhawks, but really didn't know a lot about Mark as a solo performer. The great thing about Club Passim is how intimate the setting is. Now most of the time when you call a venue "intimate" it means the tables are all crowded on top of one another. And, yes, that is true about Club Passim, although whoever is sitting next to you is likely to be equally as interested in music as you are, and likely to know even more. After all, it is Cambridge. But intimate, in this case, also means that the artists and the patrons mingle, and while Mark and Mallory, one of Club Passim's crack sound technicians (the club has a wonderful, clear-sounding sound system) set up, I turned in my chair and saw someone who was clearly a musician walk in from backstage (it's really an outdoor patio) clutching a fiddle case, and wearing lime green pants, suspenders, a yellow shirt, and a straw hat that rode over the clearest blue eyes I think I've ever seen. It was Mike "Razz" Russell, longtime cohort of Olson's and a member of The Creekdippers. I still didn't know who he was, but we talked about him going to the movies at the Brattle Street Theater where he fell asleep, and about music and playing and a little bit about how he got together with Mark. He said if Mark hadn't asked him to play he still might be sitting on his front porch. Afterward, Mark stood in the lobby and talked with us far longer than you'd ever expect him to do. He seemed genuinely happy to be talking to us about his music and what he was up to and about the gig he just played.

Mark and Mike are both from Minnesota, and from living in Boston for so long, and always having to deal with both its angry and snooty sides, it was such a breath of fresh air to talk to them and watch them perform. They were joyous and had so much fun together (they had a drummer, whose name I don't know but he was so tight and had such a beautiful voice, like one you'd hear in a choir.) Mark's songs are optimistic and loaded with imagery from the outdoors, again something you'd expect from the Midwest.

Mark played a lot from his newest album, Many Colored Kite. This is the opening track and I love it. It fits in so much with the play I'm writing right now, Highland Center, Indiana.

I'll be playing and singing on stage this weekend at Club Passim

Okay, we've all heard the stories. Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads at midnight, and about four years ago Baxter came over to my apartment bearing a vintage Burns six-string guitar and told me to play it, even though at the time I only knew C and G7.

Johnson went on to become the world's greatest delta blues player, and me, well, I'm happy just to say I'm still walking the earth.

I fell in love with the guitar, so much so that I've actually said that, if given the chance to barter, I wouldn't give my soul, but would consider exchanging every bit of theater talent I have to be great guitar player. However, I would prefer to meet at a more sane hour--say 10:00 o'clock in the morning. Crossroads are fine, though.

There was someone who actually said I was too old to learn to play--a theater person by trade, no less--who I gently eased out of my life. And I think there were some who felt it might be considered a crime against humanity if I actually sang in public.

So, negative theater person aside, this Saturday I will be performing with the Americana Ensemble class at Club Passim at their annual campfire on the same stage from which the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin and even my hero Chris Knight have been seen. I will be singing Guy Clarke's LA Freeway, and for two other songs I'll be playing Lulu, the 1963 Burns electric Baxter handed off to me and told me to cling to like the drowning man I was.

The simple lesson is this: You can do whatever you want. Never, never listen to negativity. Run like hell from it. You don't have to take it, or even bother with it in any way. It's your life you can do what you want. And you don't have to explain yourself either. Just simply live, and things should work out all right.

Wilco: California Stars

I know we won't be playing it this good, but this is one of the songs we (the Americana Ensemble group I'm playing with from Club Passim's School of Music) will be playing at the weekend campfire next weekend.

It was only a few minutes ago that I heard this song for the first time, so I guess I better get cracking, trying to figure out where I'll fit in in the rendition.

Oh, and it's written by Woody Guthrie.



I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I'd like to lay my weary bones tonight
On a bed of California stars

I'd love to feel Your hand touching mine
And tell me why I must keep working on
Yes I'd give my life To lay my head tonight
On a bed Of California stars

I'd like to dream My troubles all away
On a bed of California stars
Jump up from my starbed, Make another day
Underneath my California stars

They hang like grapes On vines that shine
And warm the lovers' glass Like friendly wine
So I'd give this world Just to dream a dream with you
On our bed of California stars

I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I'd like to lay my weary bones tonight
On a bed of California stars

I'd love to feel Your hand touching mine
And tell me why I must keep working on
Yes I'd give my life To lay my head tonight
On a bed Of California stars

I'd like to dream My troubles all away
On a bed of California stars
Jump up from my starbed
Make another day Underneath my
California stars

They hang like grapes On vines that shine
And warm the lovers' glass Like friendly wine

So I'd give this world Just to dream a dream with you
On our bed of California stars

So I'd give this world Just to dream a dream with you
On our bed of California stars

(Dream a dream with you)

Chris Knight tonight at Club Passim: It ain't easy being me

I'm pretty sure Chris Knight will be the next Ryan Bingham. Ryan just won an Oscar for The Weary Kind the theme song for Crazy Heart. Bingham and Knight are the real deal. Real country singers who don't do the Nashville thing, corporate country, or any of that prefabricated pop crap in a cowboy hat that LiveNation passes off for country. (Think Sugarland.)

Anyway, Chris Knight will be at Club Passim tonight, and if there are any tickets left you should grab one because Knight doesn't often tour very far from his home in Kentucky.

The beauty of 12-bar blues improvisation

Saturday morning and the living room turned music room is once again strewn with guitars, amps, cables, guitar cases, and music stands. There's an old dog lying next to his favorite person in the whole world. No, it ain't me: He's turned into such a mama's boy in his old age. She moved in and we started changing the sheets on the bed (sometimes twice a week!) and he started drinking out of a bowl next to his kibble and not out of the toilet. She--the prettiest, funniest, little thing in the world--has certainly turned Bob's and my world on its head.

Went to a play last night and by all intents I should have been riveted. It was about adultery and cancer and marriage--all my favorite topics and combos. There were some good actors up there, too, knocking themselves out. But it's not a good sign when you find your mind drifting to memorizing 1-4-5 chord patterns and you can't wait to get home and play them.

I started an American ensemble course with my old teacher, Lloyd Thayer at Club Passim. (He's not old; I've just studied with him before--that's what I meant.) Americana, to him and co-teacher, Eric, means playing the sound track to the Little Rascals, as Sue says. And to start improvising, we played a 12-bar blues improvisation--I,I,I,I,IV,IV,I,I,V,IV,I,V. Ok, people who know what that means will think it's pretty basic, but to me it opened up a whole 'nuther world. And it's something that I've needed for a long time, at least through these long dark winter months. Work continues to be a disappointment, though I learned a long time ago not to expect self-fulfillment with business majors who bow before the Great God Excel. For someone like me you can contribute to an environment like that only so much; they just won't allow it. Any semblance of the truth is off-brand. It's through the arts--theater, music, writing--where you'll just breeze along.

So that's where we stand on this dreary, cold, overcast, rainy Saturday. Glad you asked?

Benefit for Haiti at Club Passim

*Save the date*

February 9: Benefit for Haiti with

Mark Erelli, Hanneke Cassel, Chris O'Brien and Margaret Glaspy and others to be announced!

Club Passim
47 Palmer St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
Ticket line: 617-492-7679
Office line: 617-492-5300
Parking Info

Check out Audrey Ryan this Sunday at Club Passim (1.17)

It's the long weekend so you probably have Monday off for MLK Day, so get your heinie over to Club Passim and check out Audrey Ryan if you haven't seen this eclectic, alt/indie performer.

I saw her a few months back for the first time and was thoroughly impressed and entertained (that's the important word; who the heck wants to sit there like a stiff neck and be bored to tears by some high-brow malarkey, even if it is Cambridge??) And I was delighted. That's a good thang.



Here's what she has to say about the gig:

Club Passim this Sunday with my friend Richard Julian from NYC. It's an early show and should run from about 8 to 11pm. I'll be playing first. Because I only get to experience a true listening room like Passim a few times a year, I'm going to take advantage and play a few tunes on ukulele, banjo, and of course accordion in addition to the usual guitar/loop/percussion.

Hopefully many of you have Monday MLK day off, so this a long weekend. Hope to see you there, buy tickets in advance if you can (www.clubpassim.org) as they're a bit cheaper than at the door.

Sunday, January 17th @8pm sharp
Club Passim
47 Palmer St., Havard Square
Cambridge
*I play 8-9:15pm
**Richard will play 9:30-10:30pm

www.richardjulian.com

Thanks,
Audrey

www.audreyryan.com
www.myspace.com/audreyryan

Rod Picott and Amanda Shires--a great opening act

There's nothing like a really good opening act. One that surprises you. One that you can put on your list and watch and start buying their music and you can say I knew them when--and that when was when they were an opening act.

I first heard Bobby Bare, Jr. when he opened for Lucero. Audrey Ryan opened recently for The Bittersweets, and she's a local musician worth learning about. Of course, there was this English country singer who opened for The Cowboy Junkies who actually stopped mid-song because he said he wasn't singing the right words, though I don't think anyone had noticed.

Last night we went to Club Passim to hear Paul Burch. There's always a silver lining to every dark cloud, and not working very much lets me spend a lot of time on Facebook. Wait, that's not really a good thing, is it, even under the auspices of "looking on the bright side." But I was hanging on Facebook yesterday and Club Passim gave two tickets to the first three commenters, so I found myself on the Red Line into Cambridge. And that's how I heard Rod Picott and Amanda Shires.

I guess they met up in Austin. He's from Maine and she's a fiddle player from Lubbock. Now they live in Nashville and play together sometimes, and now they're touring, joking last night that they are calling their tour the 100,000 mile tour or something like that. I guess they're driving around, starting from Nashville, in an old Jeep, and they'll end the tour when the Jeep rolls over 100,000 miles. Anyway, their music--I'm new to them but I think most of what they sang was written by Picott, though there's one murder ballad that Shires wrote--their music can be called kind of country ballads--stories about real life people and heartache with a bit of wry humor tossed in.

She's got a blistering Texas twang voice that she uses with mischief; his is more gravel and barbed wire, but they sound good together, the differences in their voice complementing the other: hers pulling his out of the funk and his keeping the songs serious.

Nice surprises. Check them out if you're looking for some real country tunes.

Real relationships, not the digital kind...

I haven't been blogging that much. Staying away from Facebook as much as I can, too. Remember, I'm pulling back from the digital world, and funny, just when it's starting to be kind of fun.

But I'm getting back into the real world, with real-world face-to-face connections with real people, rather than this jerking off that happens in the digital space.

My cousins, who I haven't seen in 16 years and with whom I was just about inseparable between the ages of about 11 to about 21 came to visit...and we all had a blast reconnecting. I don't know about Cousins Jerry and Doris (yes, where I come from we call each other Cousin this or that; and yes, I do have relatives with two first names--get over it) but there were times when I was 17 years old again, and it was fun and it was alive and it was living, and living good.

I was in a play a couple of weeks ago, with two stupendous actresses (yes, they are stupendous to work with, very giving and open and free on stage) and we had a blast on stage, going out every night and just having fun.

But funny, the digital world is starting, for me, to pay off the way it does for other people. I'm starting to "meet" new people and have reconnected with people from my past--someone from school, 29 years ago, and someone who I acted with but lost touch with. There are musicians I'm slowly starting to connect with, which is so cool because music for me is such a new and exhilarating experience, and I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say I'm still alive today because of music, because of the day Baxter walked into my apartment and handed me Lulu and said, Here, this is yours. You need this.

All this is playing against the death of the King of Pop, a person who people are mourning but frankly I can't seem to even conjure up more than a simple, Ah, that's too bad, because I at least understand digital relationships but I don't for the life of me understand people who cry for famous people who they never met.

Finally, here are two videos I grabbed at Club Passim last Wednesday night when Noe Venable opened for Blame Sally. I posted these on my Facebook page, but if your not one of my "friends" maybe you didn't see them. Two wonderful artists--well, one artist and one group--from San Francisco, and what is going on out there with the music scene? First The Bittersweets come through Club Passim, now Noe and Blame Sally, all twisting music but making it all so enjoyable at the same time.

Pass the Buddha--Blame Sally

Blame Sally are going to be at Club Passim in Cambridge, Mass. on Wednesday, June 24. Check them out.

Anais Mitchell at Club Passim 4.19.09

Anais Mitchell played her magic tonight at Club Passim. Amazing songwriter when it comes to the opera she wrote about the story of Hades. She told the audience tonight that Ani DiFranco is part of the project. She said it was due out in the fall. When it's released, definitely check it out.

I've seen her three times now, twice at Club Passim. It's a small, intimate place, perfect for someone like Michell who has almost a delicate way of presenting her voice and herself. She has a really unique voice and way of phrasing songs, that can get a bit tedious. But when she throws her talent into a cover, like she did tonight with a Gillian Welch number, the tedium is brushed aside and it's like seeing her again for the first time. (Sorry, one of these days I'm going to start bringing a notebook to concerts; I swore to myself tonight that I'd remember it, but at this late hour it's completely gone from my head.)

Sorry about the poor quality. But it does give a good idea of her voice, which is so unique.

Second Annual Record Store Day...huh?

Just another forced holiday, and if anyone bemoans the decline of records, CDs, whatever you want to call the hard round things that have music on them, this is just a last-gasp effort to delay the inevitable.

I'm part of that demo that still buys CDs. Newbury Comics. Looney Tunes on Boylston Street by Mass Ave. In Your Ear on Comm Ave. in Allston. They're all still my favorite haunts, especially the used CD stores for the bargains. Also Amazon.com, where I also buy used. I download, but still like the quality of the sound that comes from my Denon stereo and Mission and Advent speakers. But my seventeen-year-old daughter won't go near a CD. She'll cringe, just like I cringed at my father's heavy, 78 RPM records. My world was the vinyl LP. It's all digital downloads for her, all the way to playing her iPod in her car. Digital is her world.

A great book to read to understand all this is Appetite for Self-Destruction, The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age. Written by Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Steve Knopper, it minutely trace the players and events that led us to where we are today in the musical world. It was greed, pure greed (surprise, surprise, huh?) coupled with just plain on bad business that sunk the record industry. They were making money hand over fists selling CDs, and never saw the Internet coming. Well, some did, but they were too stupid to figure it out. Illegal downloads. I just don't understand that concept, to tell you the truth, and that's a subject for a whole 'nother blog. Downloads are a way to promote music, and the record industry was too stupid to figure out a way to do it. Steve Jobs with iTunes and the iTunes Store finally figured it out. And now just about every "media" company is pushing their digital downloads. My cell phone that I just bought in December has a link to the ATT store that I can't delete from the phone's menu. They're still trying to ram it all down our throats, and the big, greedy suits probably will never get it.

But...when I say the record industry is sunk, that doesn't mean music is tanking like the economy. Music is more vibrant than ever, with more new music and more ways to hear it and grab it that ever before. Who knows what the Next Big Thing will be. But for sure, the little stuff is the way to go for smaller, up and coming bands. MySpace. Yourbandsname.com. Internet radio. That's just three.

Just the other night I saw The Bittersweets at Club Passim, one of the sweetest venues in the Boston area to see an act. They're touring, they're hitting the right audience, and guess what, they're promoting digital downloading of their music. That night they were promoting their latest live album on noisetrade.com. Pay what you want, including nothing, and you download the album. If you don't pay, you give up five of your friends' email addresses (sorry guys, but I picked five of you who I thought would be interested in music.) That's kind of a interesting way to look at things. If you don't pay, you give them email addresses, which actually are just about good as gold in the marketing world.

I highly recommend the album, by the way. Scroll down a bit on Action Bob Markle and there's a widget on the left you can click on.

The Bittersweets with Audrey Ryan at Club Passim--April 8, 2009

Front row table at Club Passim to see The Bittersweets, who I first heard on Radio Paradise and just fell in love with their music, their lyrics, their harmonies.

The Bittersweets are Chris Meyers (guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Hannah Prater (vocals, guitar). They pretty much just followed the playlist of their CD, Goodnight San Francisco, including playing the title track because when they were tuning up someone (moi) asked Hannah if they were going to play it and she said, We'll see. They also played Long Day from The Life You Always Wanted, and a song that was a tribute to Julie Miller (one of these days I should start taking notes.)

Originally from San Francisco (well, that's where the two met), now they live in Nashville and from all reports (from mom and dad Meyers who I talked to by the door and also the mom in line in the bathroom) they like it there. I sincerely hope Nashville doesn't ruin them. Chris was already speaking in kind of a weird hillbilly accent, which is fun and folksy and all but God please don't get caught up in all the hoopla that I suspect can come from the record industry there. My God, look what they did to Lori McKenna's album Glamorous.

Anyway, they started with Birmingham and Hannah's voice is such a surprise live. It's sweeter and softer and a bit velvety compared to the studio version. Her soft voice and easy guitar strumming is a nice counter to Chris's keyboard and raspier voice. Chris is a wildman on stage; you can just see how much he loves what he does, and how much the music means to him. A couple of the Taylors they had on stage were both gouged up at exactly the same place right where the pickguard ran out and the wood was exposed to some serious strumming.

Audrey Ryan opened for them. Ryan is an interesting performer. Hmmm...quirky? Innovative? Eclectic? That night she was playing this Jordin electric guitar, tambourine, bass drum, maracas, and oh yes, an accordion. I didn't know her music, and what she played that night was hard to place, which actually is a good thing. Start with the all-encompassing alt/indie label, but then where do you go when she records a loop with her guitar, then layers the percussion over it and sings? A bit into her act she brought up a friend (Steve?) who works in the kitchen at Passim. Um, Steve didn't add a whole lot, which was kind of funny because in a weird way he became another one of Ryan's instruments, which he probably wouldn't want to hear but it did all work together.

Something good and joyous happened this week

I got two pieces of good news in the past two days that just made my heart sing. They had nothing to do with "career" or employment or anything remotely resembling anything stable or legit and everything to do with living and loving life.

And that they both came from my two daughters, put me in heaven.

Yesterday I wrote my youngest a message on Facebook wondering if for some crazy reason she had Monday off. High school kids nowadays have so many days off, odds were in my favor that she might. And if she didn't, I wondered if maybe we couldn't do a snow dance to work up a snow day.

The reason was, on Sunday night, Sarah Lee Guthrie, granddaughter of Woody and youngest of Arlo, will be playing at Club Passim, and I thought it would be good for her to see Guthrie play. And it wasn't because she wanted to get out of school that Kathryn said she'd like to go. She's a smart, curious kid whose sole reason on earth seems to be to enjoy life. A night out in Cambridge, even with her old man, who I think she still gets quite a kick out of, was simply the better educational choice than high school...well, high school anything, really.

One of many pieces of guilt I constantly carry around with me for leaving the kids' mom the way I did was that it drove a huge wedge between me and my kids. Allison has said a few times now that one of the things that she missed about not having me around was how I always played music--all kinds of music from rock to show tunes to concert. Music is, I think, one of the most important gifts we have on the planet. We don't fully understand how it affects us. (I just heard the other day that some people see colors when they listen to music; how cool is that?) But kids need to be taught it. Otherwise, they're just subject to the whims and pressures of the culture, or what passes of culture. I hate that I wasn't more of an influence to them. And maybe that's why I'm so stoked about Kathryn wanting to see Guthrie. Maybe something of me really did rub off.

I never wanted my kids to grow up straight-laced. I didn't want them wild, either. I wanted them to grow up, experience life, make mistakes, learn from the mistakes, and keep growing and enjoying life. I wanted them to grow up, mature, and be able to stand up for themselves in this life. Make choices and responsible decisions like Kathryn did. I told them both, we all know where drinking and drugs will take us. Go out and make new mistakes. Probably not the most mature and maybe not the most responsible advice for a parent to give, but I think you, and they, got the point.

Then today I was IMing with Allison, who just arrived in Venice. She and some friends have a break from school in Granada and are just sort of bumming around northern Italy. I did something like that when I was about 17, just working for awhile and saving my money and then backpacking through Europe and part of Turkey for three months. And to this day I remember the freedom and the joy of learning and meeting new people and seeing and experiencing new sights. Life should always be that way. And I read Allison's messaging, saying she wants a life on the road (are you reading this Sue?) and me telling her I always did want to travel and she said I should and I said maybe I will. Both my kid tell me I should go back to photography.

My little girl has grown up into a traveler, something to my way of thinking couldn't be more noble. A traveler. Not a tourist, but a traveler, someone who loves the freedom of moving about on this earth and being a citizen of the earth, not some member of some arbitrary geopolitical nonsense.

I think on Monday I wrote on my Twitter status line that I wondered what the week would bring. This week had its moments. So you just ride it all out, and if you find yourself going through hell just keep moving and the devil might not even notice you're there (yes, that's a line from a country song.) And then when something good and joyful comes along, you just grab it and let it take you soaring in the clouds.

Open mike at Club Passim...and a great joke...

It's not because I'm cheap or unemployed with pittance trickling into my bank account. If I had a million dollars I'd still like a good deal and music and finding those great, simple places that put it all together.

Tuesday night is open mike at Club Passim in Cambridge. It's five bucks, or free if you're a member like me. Sue takes guitar lessons from Janet Feld at Club Passim's music school that night, so I go into Cambridge with her and hang out in the club. (I take music theory from Ray Chesna there, but that's fodder for a different posting.)

I've always been a big fan of open mikes. Years ago I saw the likes of Jay Leno, Bob Goldthwait, Lenny Clark, Steven Wright, Tony V, and a boatload of other Boston comedians try out there stuff before they made it big at open mikes at places like the Comedy Connection when it was still at the Charles Playhouse. And if memory serves, the cover was about a buck or two. What a great deal.

Like all open mikes, the one at Club Passim is always a crap shoot. The audience is friendly and supportive to all the acts, especially when someone is struggling. They are always appreciative of good work. To a person, everyone there really loves and cares about music and songwriting.

Some nights you get to see a lot of real up-and-coming talent. Other times it's really spotty. There's no guarantee that the people you're watching will be the next Tracy Chapman or Bob Dylan. A lot depends on luck and drive and talent. For every Jay Leno I saw at the Comedy Connection, I watched a lot of (mostly) guys just bomb. But that's not the point of going. It's seeing the works in progress. It's watching the fits and start. The falling down and getting back up again. It's finding that little gem of a moment whether it's new song or strum pattern or maybe just a line in some lyrics.

Last night was a typical night. One woman sang a song about a guy and a girl not getting along very well, with this line in it: I'm a thief and not a liar so I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

There was a bluegrass duo, guitar and fiddle, named The Whiskey Brothers. The two were so young they didn't look old enough to order, much less drink whiskey, but they played one song called, Block Island that was just so nice and sweet. Hard at some points with some deep bass, I imagined the waters off Block Island.

And toward the end there was a guy named Joel (I didn't catch his last name but he's in the picture above) who finger-picked his way through a song about a road, just perfect and mournful.

Along with musicians, there's a comedian who performs regularly, and an actor who recites poetry. One time I was there and he recited nursery rhymes. That night it wasn't my thing, but another night I listened to him recite a litany of poems about ravens. On and on he went, and it takes a few nights but you start to get a real appreciation for what's going on inside that man's head, whatever it is. There's a comedian, I believe his name is Michael Fast--I hope that's his name; I want to get it right--who is constantly trying out new material. I'm kind of critical and sympathetic of comedians having done stand up before. He has kind of a crazy, deadpan, intentionally dumb way of delivering, and last night he told this joke: I read that book about woman being from Venus and men being from Mars, and I think there's something to that. I met this woman, and we got along, and one night we slept together and when I woke up the next day I noticed she had crop circles in her chest hairs. Okay, it's weird, but it's Cambridge, and that's funny.

Lori Mckenna and Stephanie Chapman at Club Passim

Never let a little rain or snow stop you.

Friday night's performance of The Halfway House Club was canceled because of the snow. Sue and Lee had tickets to see Lori McKenna's solo set at Club Passim, so as soon as I got the email that I had the night off, I called Sue and asked her if I could horn in on the two of them. The show was still on--probably the only thing in Boston/Cambridge that wasn't canceled that night. I knew the show had sold out a long while back, but figuring there would be a bunch of no-shows I banked on getting a ticket at the door.

Yeah, it was blowing pretty hard, but...In Arizona there had been a few days of what I like to call weather. There was one day that everyone stayed hunkered in the hostel, even those like Sue and me who had cars. Sue and I think alike though. We can sleep when we're dead, and we're not going to let anything get in the way of us seeing something. We're both always wondering what's around the next corner. And if we're uncomfortable or cold, well, at least we're uncomfortable or cold in Arizona, or France, or Thailand or name your spot on the earth.

That day, Sue, Tetsuya, a traveler from Japan, and I jumped in the red hot Mustang and in the rain saw a volcano and a lava field. I touched and held cinders in my hand that had spewed out of the cone a thousand years ago. I saw pueblo ruins tucked on tiny ledges in Walnut Canyon. I walked on the Painted Desert, and smelled it and the mixture of sage and chaparral smelled like walking in the apartment on a cold rainy day with a pot of soup simmering on the stove. I visited a Wuptaki, a settlement that was quite the cosmopolitan setting 900 years ago. I felt the earth breath there. I did. I felt wind rush out of a crack in the earth, a sensation that I can best describe as having your head out the window of your car at 69 mph.

If we had let a little rain stop us, Sue, Tessuya and I never would have these experiences, these memories that hopefully forged us just a bit more into better people.

So, Friday night, even when Lee waffled a bit because of the dangers of the roads, I said to hell with it. Just that day I had finally had my snow tires put on the truck and loaded twelve hundred pounds of sand in the bed for ballast. I had put it off, I guess hoping against hope that bad weather never would hit, or at least I wouldn't have to deal with it. A human trait, isn't it, to try to wish away the bad, the inevitable?

So Sue and I saddled up and drove over to Lee's in second gear, and then drove to Braintree and parked the truck and hopped on the T, and there were more than enough tickets left.

Stephanie Chapman, opened, accompanied by husband Nathan Chapman, a very accomplished musician with a very mellow buttery voice. Sweet and personable with a friendly stage presence (she and Nathan are related, first brothers and sister then by marriage; see what I mean?) she's from northern Virginia and he's from Nashville. Her songs are steeped in the Nashville sound, and the album she was selling that night, This Song Is To You, is pretty much pure Nashville sound, a fine selection of happy, kind of rip-roaring songs with the expected topics about love with a hint of bittersweetness, the cute little turn of phrase (I put you on a pedestal but it's time you got down) that you could dance up a storm to in a country bar.

The weather was the hot topic for both performers. Chapman kept telling the audience how great they were for braving the storm to see them, but when you think they came all the way from Nashville to play that one little club in Cambridge, they were the ones who should have been thanked.

McKenna then came on stage and played a lot of her hits and favorites off Glamorous and Bittertown. I've never seen her solo before, and it was a pleasure. The next night she was backed by a band, and unfortunately I missed that night, but just her alone with that huge voice of hers is worth seeing. She's tiny, tiny. You look at her and wonder how the heck she squeezed out those five kids she's always talking about. And you wonder where the heck that huge voice resides in that little body. It's actually better, because by herself you can see just what an amazing talent she is. Her songs are so tight, although sometimes her lyrics about clotheslines in the backyard and how great her husband is can get just a bit tiresome, for me at least. But that's her; that's her life and that's what she writes about.

She is an absolute great lady, too. After the show I had a chance to talk to her a bit about what's up next for her. I'm one of those fans who thinks Glamorous is just okay. Warner Brothers and Nashville have been very good to her. Warner got her name out there, and Nashville introduced her to a bunch of like-minded artists who she can work with. You get the sense talking to her that she's a very smart and shrewd person, and knows what she need to do to further her artistic career. She said she and Warner would be parting ways, but that they are parting with no animosity. It would be nice to see her with a smaller, independent label that will really work with her and invest in helping her grow her career and help her where she wants to go artistically.

Lucy Kaplansky at Club Passim

Going to see Lucy Kaplansky tonight. Tell someone what you're doing and invariably you get people hiding smiles behind their hands. Covering up a snicker. I guess it's her name. I guess a Polish, ethnic name still has some residue on it, huh?

She's hot and great. Hanging with some great songwriters like Shawn Colvin and Susanne Vega and Nanci Griffith. Plus she's a doctor.

Here she is covering Ring of Fire:

Anais Mitchell at Club Passim

Checked out the Anais Mitchell concert last Friday (May 30) at Club Passim. Such a great intimate setting for her. Exactly the kind of place where she should be seen. Her family was there, and they sat at a table right next to where Sue and I were sitting in comfortable Windsor chairs up against the wall. There's no backstage. Matt, who runs the joint, gets up on stage and announces Anais, and she walks through the audience up to the stage. Most artists there walk on and off stage along house right, so if you want to get an up close and personal view of the entertainer, sit along the right-hand wall.

Anais waded through the crowd holding her beat-up guitar in one hand and her other hand raised high in response to the cheers. She's friendly and happy and perky on stage, reflecting an innocence and an openness that seems to be so much a part of her youth. And funny, I notice I'm departing from the standard way of referring to the subject by her last name because she's so darn personable and open and fresh that you feel like you do know her.

There's a playfulness about her that is also reflected in the word-play of her lyrics. You can see how each song is not what it started out to be, that the words started in one place, but were moved and shuffled to find other meanings. Look at the opening stanza to Your Fonder Heart:

come out, come on, come outside
don’t you hide your handsome face from me
I want to see you half-lit in the half-light
laughing with the whites of your dark eyes
shining
darkly

The way she repeats and contrasts the word "come" with out, on, and outside in the first line, and contrast of the words within the phrase "laughing with the whites of your dark eyes shining darkly" could all be just lyrical horsing around if it weren't for the new meaning that is imparted through the phrasing and emphasis she gives them with her voice that is part child, part caricature. She punctuates each syllable and note by modulating her voice and moving her body, feeling and reaching for the meaning of the lyrics, giving the impression she's discovering the meaning of the song along with the rest of us. Like many performers, it's one thing to listen to a recording of her voice and something completely different to watch her perform. Her stage presence is inviting, and as I said, she feels and projects every note and syllable with not only her voice, but her body.

Cosmic American is a breakup song stripped of any sentimentality, something that is so refreshing and just proves what a unique talent Anais is.

i’m a live wire, i’m a shortwave radio, do you copy?
i’m a flash of light from the radar tower to the runway
if i leave you i’m gonna do it semi-automatically
do you blame me?

you are so far out there in the static
hey, baby, am i coming through?
i am up above the buildings
i can see forever out the window of a hotel room
i spent a long night with a stranger i give my body to
still i miss you

There is an intelligence borne, it seems, on curiosity and an openness to the world. One of her most powerful works that show her songwriting and performance skills is an opera she's currently working called Hadestown. Here's a song from Hadestown called The Wall:



Here's an interview that gives you a pretty good picture of the person and the performer.