I’m full. I’m tired. I might die.
The last couple of days have been Lovely, but very full. I’ve been falling asleep at around 7am this past week, and then Saturday morning I had to wake up at 7.45am to go to a meeting for the Emergenza festivals. Saturday was also PLOJ so I knew I was going to be up late, late, late… after PLOJ I even went over to a friends’ house and hung out till dawn.
I’m very, very tired.
It’s Heather’s birthday weekend and so we’re also eating. A lot. Of everything. And it was PLOJ. And Joylene likes to make sure people are fed. Oh God.
Friday night, Heather and I played with Dan Layman-Kennedy back at the Cup in Bel Air, MD. We played hard and fast and won over a lot of people. A woman remarked that I reminded her of Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars III. I’m not sure if I’m flattered by that or not (Episode I? Hell yeah!) but at least I’m not the cone-headed one or small and green.
Her response? When I start introducing music with “Play you this song I will” THEN I’ll be in trouble.
After the show I went over to Chris and Joylene’s to expose them to the Chicken. The Robot Chicken. Thank GOD they wore out after about 6 episodes. After that I find that my attention span becomes eroded for the next couple of days. As it was, Chris and I still sat around singing the theme song, voices dropping with fatigue.
The next day, this Emergenza thing, I’m not entirely sure what to make of it.
On the one hand, I like the ideas behind it – Indie, I like how organized it is. On the other hand, I really hate all these competitions, and this is a little closer to a Battle of the Bands than any of these competitive folk festivals we’ve done over the course of this year.
I don’t have high hopes of getting anywhere in it, but it could be really really cool – and even if we only get through the first stage, well, it’d be a huge coup to play some of these venues that perhaps we couldn’t get into on our own. Of course, then my own internal competitive side speaks up – the vicious side – that knows that if we DON’T make it through the first round I’ll internally compare us (unfavourably) to the accomplishments of the Dreamscapes Project. I hate it when I do that. I worry that somewhere in my subconscious, my brain is plotting harm to my friends’ bands.
Saturday night was PLOJ XXXIV. Ugh. We ended at around 1 in the morning, which is really, really early to end the PLOJ – there simply wasn’t any enthusiasm left. I’m beginning to think of moving the whole thing some place else, at least during the school year – I miss having the Pot Lucks at a private home, but simply have no friends that have a large enough space.
We just didn’t have the numbers of songwriters this time around to hit that critical mass where the jams shift and form and drop and there’s a lot of real variety. The last couple of PLOJes have been mostly glorified mass sing-alongs, more appropriate to camp fires than to what PLOJ has always been. That aspect is welcome, but when it becomes the focus… and the older writers I think just don’t appreciate the atmosphere of Perk.
I don’t know if that’s really true, but I’ve had a couple of people remark that they don’t plan to come to another PLOJ as long as it’s held there… but I don’t really know where to turn just yet…
Big sigh.
