Trombone Shorty puts on a damn good show, packed with energy, dancing and pizzazz. The Filene Center is a great place to catch his act. But by all means skip the opening acts. (Seriously, Dumpstaphunk was a disorganized mess, and JJ Grey was in need of a trailer park bar. We were looking at each other like “what the fuck.”)
Then this happened and the place magically transformed.
No show this day was complete without a tribute to ozzy.
Life goes on, especially if you are a little girl. We celebrated Iulie’s birthday in the kitchen. But first some quality time with bubbie recharging batteries.
The morning came bright and early.
After presents at home we headed over to see great grandma and share some homemade strawberry cake.
The thing is, we were too lazy to conjure up tickets on the day of release. Or maybe too busy. But anyway, there were none left for a while. Then a few popped up for too much money on the Ticketmaster resale site. And we were off to the races.
Boy are we glad we went. It was a great show. It all started with empanadas from Gringo Gordo at sunset and some properly-made dark and stormies.
We had never been on time for a wolf trap gates opening line before. Dang. Fortunately we had seats in the seventh row.
The orchestra started in, and into the sonic ocean walked Beck. Yeah, the National Symphony (who had performed maybe one run through) was very good indeed.
Lonesome Tears was the first song (track 4 on Sea Changes…from which Beck plucked many a great song to play with the National Symphony).
Honestly, Tropicalia was one of the weakest pieces on the program (and it wasn’t bad). The orchestra was having a hard time moving the four against the three of the bass player (and the conductor beating only a downbeat was not helping). Oh well.
In the end, Beck got the audience to clap the beat.
Tropicalia
.
We Live Again
Morning
.
Known for his romantic “dreariness” part of the time, there is also the most pit Beck.
The audience got to their feet for Where It’s At.
.
.
Oh yeah!
Then the orchestra filed out and Beck screwed around on stage for a bit. Some slide guitar was improvised.
Romey was rewarded with Devil’s Haircut.
.
By that time, we were all singing. (Sadly, we missed recording Loser.) And then it was final bows.
The Southside Lounge is a private juke joint situated at a non-disclosed location just south of Richmond, Virginia. And it’s a damn fun place to play a gig.
My good friend Charles Arthur’s daughter performs as JOBIE mostly in Boston. Her first CD “grendel” is available on Spotify. It’s excellent work. The show was a CD drop party in Richmond where JOBIE grew up.
First comes sound check. (I played fiddle on one song.)
This was Romey’s birthday gig present to me. Here’s the birthday girl herself. All we need is…LOVE.
And then come the people. The place was packed with an engaged, raucous crowd.
Family gathering on the stage.
Behind the scenes from the green room.
The star of the show, herself.
Mandolin.
Cello
Drums
Here we go.
Irish Goodbye included some fiddle and pole dancing
Everything was looking good, from the could-have-been-worse schlep through the Zurich train station with the enormous guitar case (no carts?! no humans who help?!), through wine tasting in SwissAir First Class, to smooth arrival in Boston.
My trusty ally and friend Spoolia was there to scoop me.
And driving into Newton it was as if we hadn’t even left Italy! Heck, dinner even was Italian, but pronounced incorrectly.
Mabel was impressed, and this is a dog not really impressed by much!
So it was off to New Hampshire for some music. And a side of accidental COVID.
Oopstock has been going strong for 29 years. Many of the usual folks were in attendance. But get this: there was a professional sound guy, and there were high school kids manning the grill. Holy cow, so upscale!!
This made my life much easier (not to mention Rhine’s). Here are my feet on the table where the sound board USED to be positioned way back when I was the sound guy. The hombre to the right is Steve. He ran great sound.
The usual instrument pod.
The East German Gold Medal Swim Team Captain.
New blood with high charisma.
Where’s Aubrey did an iteration of the Into the Unknown game. We all missed Sogol’s dancing. But here is the picture that April made.
The Moose Hut guys also got whacked by COVID. Chris was down and didn’t make the party. As a result, a game of musical chairs around who plays what instrument resulted. Zack played drums?!
Everybody missed Romey.
There was, in deference to Italy, a Negroni session mid-day.
The sun set. The babies went to bed.
And the bands came out under the actual light show. FWIW, LED lights still attract shit tons of mosquitos.
And then it was the Grayhounds (a quasi-iteration on Splatterfoot with a new guy named Paul whaling on guitar).
Sadly, Rhine was infected the whole time. He started feeling symptoms Sunday. And I got it from him. I am pretty sure this all started with the Italian villa art collective (and I secretly wonder about their self-reported negative test results before our performance). So many years of top notch risk management come tumbling down when you change your risk stance. WHOMP.
A view from the stage. We played electric until 10 then shifted to the campfire where this year’s highlights were a complete treatment of one side of the Pink Floyd Animals record, and a coveted iteration of Hangin.
\
Then it was off to Spain to become a vector. Unknowingly. Alas.
Special thanks to Spool for making this all possible and to Rhine and April for persisting with the music party even in a summer crammed with art and fun.
The stadium in Campiglia Cervo is scaled to match the interstate highway system that blazes through the center of town. We packed the stadium to the gills with what I am told was 65 people, including the vice mayor who introduced us, but not including the mayor himself who had more important things to do like look at himself in the mirror. Just so you know, this was a much bigger show than the show Metallica put on at the same stadium!
The show was actually very good. Intimate. Interesting. Tight. During the rest of our time in Rialmosso we ran into lots of people who either attended or heard through the grapevine about our performance. That was both really cool and very gratifying.
The road crew set the stage after arriving the day before to check electricity levels and make sure all of the seating was available. We have nothing but admiration for our intrepid road crew. They work so hard so we can do what we do.
The show consisted of three parts as shown on the billboard above.
Here is a stage floor view of the set list for those of you collecting bootlegs.
And a view of the nosebleed seating in the back before anyone was in the house. You can see the dancing props professionally built by our dedicated construction crew.
Publicity was run by our crack PR team who were able to put up a poster with the last of the tape.
Fortunately that poster was all it took to fill the space to the gills. When we started (only 5 minutes late), people were standing because the seating was gone. Even the reserved section for mastiffs and toddlers was full.
We sincerely appreciate the willingness of the locals in the area to support our art with enthusiasm and love!
The stage is set. The weather is perfect.
And we’re off. Sogol and Matt play Bach together.
Dancing to Vivaldi Concerto in G major for Two Mandolins, Strings and Continuo, RV 532 (re-re-arranged for violin, guitar and piano).
You might die, but if anything is noted as the cause of death, it will be loneliness.
There are no people doing art or even visiting Terzo Paradiso unless you count our unruly bunch. Here’s what we saw (and what we did).
First we explored random spaces.
And then we found some art to see (but only after getting lucky).
After a short nap in the hammocks near the circles, we found the projector and those glowy rocks from Land of the Lost.
There were no Sleestaks. So here are two for good measure. They covet the glowy rocks.
There was dirt.
There was also very silly science. But it was arty.
Not surprisingly, the room was better than the dirt.
Watch this video. Really.
Rhine took pics too. It was hard not to.
We got lucky and found another human who told us how to cross the highway, go down the stairs and find even more art. Or rather more art places with not much art. Something like that.
Rhine woke up from his long nap, dreaming of Sleestaks and late 1970s TV.
The space rang a long cool echo of lost civilizations and the empty planet to come.
So there was dance.
And reflection
We climbed back down to reality using a ladder that was too short to reach the sky.
Eight of us have convened in Rialmosso, Italia to create some art together. Sadly, three of us were almost immediately infected with COVID from the trip across the ocean. So far, the other five of us are healthy and working together to create, well, something. Here’s how that is going.
We have a movement artist, a painter, and three musicians. For one section of the show we are performing this Sunday we’ve decided on an art form where we pass a token between us, one after another (and sometimes to a group). The idea is for each artist to improvise in their medium given what the artist before them came up with in another medium.
This set of videos shows our second attempt at this performance game.
Who, uh oh, passes the token to me (Gary McGraw). Fortunately, I was unable to film myself playing the violin. (Though you can find some video on Rhine’s blog Blame it on Sally.)
Now that Matt Savage has joined us on the piano, we have five players. This is an interesting experiment that we’re having fun with.
Ready…
Set…
Go…
We are also performing some classical music. Here is some Vivaldi being worked up. Sogol will dance to this once we figure it out.
A more pedantic video of the Vivaldi sessions.
There is Bach being worked up, and Chopin too.
And we’re spicing up some Where’s Aubrey tunes with simultaneous art and dance.
The incredible result of one of our improvisations
Our time together at Villa Emma has been filled with ideas, collaboration, and the joy of creating something together.
