Last night we were at our least favourite of the Dogfish Heads.  At first glance when they first opened a couple of years ago we thought this was going to be our MOST favourite – big room, large space for the band to set up, etc – we could even have a full-band show there! But in reality, playing to a large, undivided room that’s NOT at all focused on music (and really much more focused on hockey, baseball, golf, extreme full-contact man-smacking or whatever the other tvs were playing) just makes for a difficult, loud and tangled performance.  You run into a similar problem as above, where you CAN really pump the volume, but the people up front won’t appreciate it – and in the case of a restaurant setting you’re then forcing people into the position of either grinning and bearing it or asking their waiter to please move them.  Never ideal.

Justin Trawick and his trio of awesome musicians have at it at the Black Squirrel in Adams Morgan in Washington, DC.

Still, a good night – we never won over the majority of the room but had a small attentive crew.  Great food of course, and actually things ran on time, but an exhausting night with little return.

My last open mic in town for a while wasn't just notable for my impending absence - there were a couple of heavy hitters in the room - like the above Jeff Aug, someone I've been a fan of for years!