Raise Your Voices

hadestown: make plans to go

*photo by Paul Janovitz

I had his profile tattooed on the back of my right shoulder before leaving Boston for Austin... the least you can do is vote for the TIM GEARAN band in this poll:

Off the Avenue

*photo by Jon Strymish

This one is coming to you from my new home in (south) Austin, Texas.

I sit here with a cup of some of the best coffee I have ever tasted and I am still surprised to be here and not in Camberville/Sombridge making plans to have margaritas with you tonight.

I have been out a few times in Austin, and so far I have found that the food and cocktails alone have justified the move. (!)

Now because you are dying to know... the live music here is fine. There are a lot of places to find it, and in just a tiny fraction of time, I have seen a handful of genius players at work.

I think anyone who treasures the musicians along Mass Ave like I do will agree that it is not just that it is a talented songwriter/player community. It is this along with who they are; people that if I were the weight of a sack of (red bliss) potatoes, I would run and jump into their arms when I see them. I would climb them like the oak trees that they are. (inspired by the famous words of Jess Tardy, "I'd like to climb him like a tree.") They are friends to love.

You never move to a new city and expect that you will find a replacement for everything you left behind. My psychotic loyalty is your assurance. I cannot imagine sinking down into the refuge of a place so beloved to me as the Lizard Lounge is, and seeing anything like a Dinty Child sitting among the SA setup, tuning up one of the dozen instruments they use up there.

In case I am unclear, I am happy and loving my new city. I am satisfied with having found a true love in the Cambridge music scene. There is not an equivalent to be discovered Anywhere on the planet, at least not for me. I did not move to Austin specifically to hear more/better/different music, I came here to discover more of me.

You who know me know this: my passion for what I love does not run out or stop functioning. I am in it. I will admit, and appear silly (because I am) and tell you that when I think about having cutoff my musical access to Tim Gearan and Duke Levine, I instantly plummet into stubborn, silent weeping. Rose P is not going to sit here and play her new song for me either, is she. So in the meantime, I just text Sean Staples. Because he oversees it all for me, and will undoubtedly text me back.

I need a warm-up for this Oaxaca blend coffee, and to get back to living in this fabulous new town I am in.

::n.a.s::

p.s.
Advice on making this happen is welcome:

"I was just thinking that you need live feed cameras at all the rooms in Sombridge so you can monitor all the musical happenings from your command central position. I picture a bank of monitors and speakers, with a continuous supply of margaritas. Of course you would want to pay the cover to these needy musicians, so you would have direct deposit to their accounts. We at least HAVE to get you a live feed of the Anais show next week (and Sub Rosa, and Kev, and Hayride, and, and, and.)" ~Dinty Child, Facebook

Ladies and Gentlemen...

The MAGNIFICENT tellers of my soul, Tim Gearan and Duke Levine.

"You Could Do Alright For a Song"

Walking Me Home

*photo by Paul Janovitz

Friends are always asking me how I can stay out so late every night, because I have not asked myself, I always say something to the effect of, "I don't know."

Maybe part of it is that I believe that the second set is always better... and because the last song will be the part that comes to me in my dreams at night, and the moment of a night that lives among my nostalgic sentiments.

A few weeks ago I went to Toad on a Monday night. This has been part of my life for only a few years, where some people started the tradition fifteen years ago. But on this night, I had been there for many hours and was just exhausted- tearfully so. I walked out at the set break around midnight, and began my usual walk from Porter Square to Davis. I got halfway up Orchard Street, and without hesitation, I turned around and quickly walked back to Toad. The band was just finding their way back to the tiny stage, and I settled in again as if I had never left.

This is just one example of a time where I have started home and then returned to the music.

Last night I walked home from Toad around 2am with a couple of friends who lived near me. I felt calm and aware that I would be doing this particular walk from a Monday night Tim Gearan show, for the last time. As I walked the last stretch alone, all the memories flooded back to me. Snow storm nights, and rainy nights like last night- A heart full of love for Tim's songs, and a pure adrenaline rush from experiencing his band.

There is something invigorating about that walk. I am not a lonely woman walking home from a bar in the middle of the night on a Monday. I am someone who LIVES. I take it all in- the feeling is unmatchable, and irreplaceable. Along the way home at night, the streets are pretty quiet, and all the places where I watch people scramble from in the daylight are left unmoving and in waiting. In that quiet the horns from the Tim Gearan Band stretch out of the dark, the rain beats in time, in the distance the car wheels pass over rough terain, and that is Timmy's voice. The music is always playing, it is always mine.

So it really isn't gone is it... so why are my eyes full of tears?

Monday night, I could never forget you.

Meghan Says...

Meghan says that "it is the end of an era around here."

It was a just a few months ago that I wrote how beloved the Tim Gearan Band is to the local fan community, and how there is no place like Monday night at Toad. Will we ever know such an epic residency like this again? (The band will be playing at Atwood's going forward... good news if you were not attached to the Friday night version of Tim's band.)

In the remaining weeks look for me at Toad as I record memories from the regulars that helped to create the energy and magic over the years. This piece will be available to view at the Deli Magazine website, probably at the end of September.

In other News...

This weekend is the incredible Club Passim Campfire Festival in Harvard Square. Tickets are offered at a lower price this year, so if you're around, it's well worth the $10. I will be there all weekend, either at the merch table or enjoying the music.

AND

I have made a little fan page for The Giant Kings on Facebook, please join. Check out this fabulously fun band twice this month at the Lizard Lounge! I have started a poem about them- that's how cool I think they are. (Duke Levine, Kevin Barry, Chris Cote... COME ON) Maybe I will post it here when I am done.

:kiss kiss:
*Check out this blog for more photos by David Griffin.

ON AND OFF OF MASS AVE: the film

Years ago, while attending Vermont College, I began writing about favorite songwriters. This was my effort to keep focused on school when my heart and free time were so clearly devoted to experiencing local music.

Sitting at Toad one night, I looked around me and I knew there needed to be a preservation of the music community that I was so attached to. So much had already come and gone, and I had missed a lot of it. Still, I drew on the unending magic of the Somerville/Cambridge songwriter scene, I visualized capturing it in a way that documented a little of what had been, and what is living and thriving here today. That is how (along with my roommate, Brian Schwartz) I came to shoot tape after tape of video footage, and why people are still eagerly awaiting this film... we all want to capture our beloved corner of paradise.

It is the way you might fall for anything- one minute you are encountering someone or something, and next you are all swoons and devotion. I got to know local music as it lent itself to me. I connected the dots, then after putting myself in front of every dinky stage around, I discovered a community of artists who generously give their talent to one another, night after night, song after song. Many of them have been playing music together for decades, others are just discovering each other's music. To be able to take part in this as an audience, and often times a friend, is something I will never take for granted.

In fact, most of the recorded music I listen to from day to day is by local musicians- I own a lot of music that is great and that I love, only, nine out of ten times I simply put on the music of people who play around me. I could listen to Timmy Gearan any night of the week, and there's a good chance that if Sean Staples, Jimmy Ryan, or Duke Levine are out playing somewhere, I will want to be there. Same goes for the glorious ladies, whose voices can stop any fool in their tracks. It might be Lori McKenna, playing a half-secret show, or the magnificent Jennifer Kimball, lending back vocals that will make you shake your head in wonder- I am always shaking my head in wonder it seems...

*photo credit, Jon Strymish

Music = Life

Some time a ago, I caught something- it was bad. Always a music lover, it was inevitable that my condition would either sustain itself or grow uncontrollably. My natural obsessive nature made it very likely that this mostly healthy sickness would be at the center of my current existence.

That is where I find myself today, at 31- In absolute love with local music, out five nights a week, at least, purely devoted. When not out seeing Tim Gearan at Toad, Atwood's, or the Burren... if not at the Lizard Lounge for Session Americana... I am privileged to be seeing my favorite musicians and musician friends play at Club Passim and other venues around town.

Of all the sprouting incarnations in town, I must say my favorite is definitely Sub Rosa, a "secret society of friends and strangers" at the Lizard Lounge. Hosted by the deliciously talented Rose Polenzani, Sub Rosa is an ever-changing musical performance of originals and covers by Rose's community of songwriters and players, with one guest stranger chosen to play a couple of songs and be interviewed by Rose. One of the things I love most about Sub Rosa, is that there is very little, if any, rehearsing. When there is magic, and there often is, it is real and it is unforgettable. (here is a video from youtube, for your enjoyment.)

Speaking of the songwriter community and of musician friends, last night I went to see Chris O'Brien at Atwood's. Chris is currently at work on his second record, after much success surrounding his first full release, Lighthouse, in 2007. Chris was a Finalist on "A Prairie Home Companion" for the People In Their Twenties Talent Contest, and was the 2007 New Artist of the Year on WUMB.

I was really loving Chris last night, though he is already a high-energy performer, he came into himself even more with the cast of players who accompanied him on stage. If you have ever seen Josh Ritter with his band, you will probably remember the mustached bass player, Zack Hickman. This man has unstoppable momentum, and a sharp, elegant style made all his own- and well, he is ridiculously awesome at everything he does. Also playing, newer to Josh's band, guitarist, Austin Nevins. Austin is among my most beloved local players and he's someone you just want to be around for his humor and for his very essence. These two have a dynamic onstage chemistry that makes for an always impressive sound. Charlie Rose played banjo, and Mike Piehl was on drums- you could not go wrong. It was a blast.