Happy New Year? Well - happy VOM New Year. Happy Spring? Well - it's better than it WAS. The world's reopening if not the venues and these masks help with my allergies at least as much as they help with not spreading miscreant droplets so that's my silver lining. ilyAIMY is booking Sidewalk Serenades in Baltimore and we've got outdoor shows springing forth like tiny, grungy, acoustic toadstools... (and of course we're steadily doing Wednesday nights' Live from the Lair)

If you’ve got some digital currency burning holes in your digital pockets, we’ve got physical merch at ilyaimy.square.site and digital merch at ilyaimy.bandcamp.com – and of course we’ll happily accept donations at paypal.me/ilyaimy and Venmo @ilytips. We even have an Amazon wishlist covering things we use regularly or could regularly use – whether you’re thinking “gosh, they deserve a new audio interface and / or action figures and some socks!”.

There's always more to say, and as with any "new year" there's an urge to feel contemplative, to take stock. Thank you so much to all the open mikers who did rob songs for VOM 52. I was TOTALLY caught off guard, and is my nature, it took me a while to catch on.

But beyond a "new year" ... "celebration" (I'll put THAT in quotes too) of the Virtual Open Mics, it's a year of performing from the basement, and it's a year of questioning every gig. It's a slow year of division and probably very little healing because it's hard to forgive venues, artists, audiences, politicians, people - that said "no, THIS tangible thing is more important to me than an intangible potentiality" - and as we slowly return to face them again, I'm unsure of what to say to a venue that once laughed at me when I said "I'm going to have to cancel because of COVID" or an audience member who says "glad to see you've got the courage to take the face diaper off" or the artist who says "well, I only want strong fans anyhow". 

I've seen all of that in the last year and though I've also seen incredible acts of selflessness and grace - beauty, adaptation, evolution - all the things that make us MOST human - few of us would've passed the Gom Jabbar this past year.

And so thank you ALL THE MORE to those who celebrate one another. Thank you to everyone in the Rob’s Open Mics community for such an amazing, heartfelt night commemorating one year of Virtual Open Mic…especially the 15 (!!) folks who threw down covers of Rob songs: Debbie Annen & John (Stray Cat Strut - not really a rob song of course, but thoroughly robbed!) Roscoe Beano (Crazy As a Good Thing) Dave Godbey (Secret Surgery) Jimmy Stewart (Baliset) Dave Benham (Georgetown) Rick Millman (unEven) Rowan Corbett (Valeri)Lacey Anthony (The MARC) John Peiffer (rob Me [a rob Tribute Song]) Chris Ehrich (The MARC) Jillian Matundan (Crazy As a Good Thing) Joey Jenkins (Elephant Joke) Chris Otto (Secret Surgery) Matt Holsen (Negative Space) Kosi Akosua Gyebi (Rearview). More about that AND the video here : https://www.ilyaimy.com/wordpress/2021/03/23/march-23rd-2021-thank-you-thank-you/ 

-rob
ilyAIMY
Baltimore, MD (FOREVER!!!!)
www.ilyaimy.com