My old friend Phil worked with me at the Maryland Science Center… sheesh… 15 years ago… and also surprised me by showing up out of the blue! Hee! It was nice to have Acacia drop in for a visit at the Teavolve open mic!

Happy birthday George! My little brother of the past 36 years is kind of awesome and, coincidentally is way more adult than I will EVER be.
Holy crap. I’d forgotten how good an open mic can be. Last night Heather dragged me to Acoustic Thursdays at Peace and a Cup of Joe in Baltimore, MD and we got there – very, very early to get a slot on the list and a seat for our asses – and sat back and watched one Hell of a show.
Kitten update: still cute… but wait! What’s this that kitten has spotted?! Tis another beautiful praying mantis! The sweet mantid would like to lay eggs in Amy’s brain! They really are just so amazing. Normally we’ll see a bunch of these beesties over the course of the year – but this is only our third of the season, and autumn’s just about upon us.
To add insult to injury – in this case the injury being that Heather really can’t have a kitten in her current Living situation and these kittens were needing homes at our show at Great Country Farms… the insult is that the wee beesties were ultra-cute and free!

It reminded me a lot of Tom Bianchi’s scene up in Boston where there’s sort of a cult of personality centred around one very, very talented and charismatic individual and his extremely-talented somewhat pick up slightly make shift jam band. It’s also fun that the leader of said cult sort of reminds me of me (further reinforced by Heather saying “see! He’s the black YOU!” after a not-so-veiled Knight Rider reference and an attempt at the Shaft theme song).
Nelson / Nelly’s Echo was another fantastic musical surprise of the night. I don’t think we’d seen him since the last NACA conference we’d attended. (at Teavolve in Baltimore, MD)

It’s a one-song night and I generally HATE that, but betwixt Marc Avon Evans, his percussionist Chuck “Mad Ox” and his guitarist – there was a solid core of spectacular and charismatic musicians holding everything together joined by one of the best bass players I’ve seen for a while – Ian “Spaceman” Trusheim – who just tied everything together with funk and juice and groove, never straying from the pocket and really getting me inspired.
We even snapped up Ian and Mad Ox for OUR set adding bass and beat box to Oracle in a previously undreamt-of rendition. Later, watching Mad Ox perform I understood what Kristen was talking about when she’d returned from a recording session with him lamenting his consistent request for “more stank” in her cello lines.
The night was all ABOUT the stank.
It ran long, the transitions were anything but swift and smooth and the sound was problematic – but the room was full of warm, wonderful, accepting and enthusiastic people and it was the best time I’d had at an open mic, or any show for that matter, for a long time!
Our friend and fellow performer Artem Bank jjoined us at Peace and A Cup of Joe demonstrating, among other things, that I need to remember to reset my shutter speed after shooting in a dimly lit ethnically requiring-of-fast-ISO-settings populated room. Marc Avon Evans lead the night with stunning panache and no small amount of geekery. Up front is Ian “Spaceman” Trusheim on bass and in the back is Chuck Mad Ox on percussion… right in the middle was Kevin? on guitar – he appeared to have no nick name…. our friend Andy Felicitas performing with the house band at Peace and a Cup of Joe. They take “acoustic Thursdays” pretty seriously, to the point that Andy was denied a line to plug in his iPod with his backing tracks. But the band listened to the tune for a minute or three and worked it out…
I know what I’M doing with my first Thursday back in-state in November….
Janice B. was the featured artist of the night – and she was celebrating her birthday too – the marvelous Scorpio cake was indeed marvelous – not just in appearance but deliciously moist as well! Oh Heather. The last act of the night was my old, old friend Nikki from the band Jeznick. We used to play together at places like the 8×10 and I probably hadn’t seen her perform in ABOUT 10 years! It was absolutely incredible to see her walk in and to watch her perform again. Coincidentally, she’s also the human who sold Heather her guitar! (at Peace and a Cup of Joe in Baltimore, MD)