Tale 11/28/04

I was scheduled to play the Postcrypt at Columbia University October 30, 2004. Possessed by the Ghost of Halloween Past I dressed up in a wig with shiny black hair and some (temporary) tattoos up my right arm. "Who do you want to be?" the young woman at the wig store had asked me when I stepped up to the counter. She herself was wearing a long white wig, spectacularly white princess clothing, and bright turquoise eyelash extensions. I didn't know who I wanted to be, just someone with straight black hair and a plethora of body art. It was enough. It was good. And it was the night before Halloween.

Jenny Bruce played a set first. I had thought she might appear at least a wee bit haggard as she had given birth to young Felix just a few weeks earlier, and, I'm told, Felix is not interested in sleeping more than 2 or 3 hours at a stretch. Doesn't see the point in it. But no she was luminous, just glowing, and played her soulful tunes with aplomb, con brio shall we say. Yes, I shall say. You may say or not as you like. Very engaging was Ms. Bruce.

I played my set and had fun with the no-microphone-brick-wall aspect of the venerable-coffeehouse kind of a vibe. I admit there was some riffing, some vocal improvisatory type of self-entertainment and it seemed entertaining to the intent coffeehouse college crowd as well, to the extent that they were, shall we say, rapt, and I shall say that. As for what you shall say, see the paragraph immediately above.

Then Amy Correia played. I have been a fan of Ms. Correia's since I saw her enrapture an audience at the Fez a few years back. She played bass ukelele, unconventional guitar, and was very funny. Then we met on September 11th upstate when we both played a concert that featured Suzanne Vega.

Amy was resplendent in ripped jeans and an extremely chic fitted jacket that night at the Postcrypt. She was personable in the extreme, not only playing her songs but also asking questions of the audience involving their majors and various other intimate details. She told some stories about her wild days as a student at Barnard College which is across the street and allied with Columbia.

Tale 5/30/03

From the Boston Globe, May 22, 2003

Critic's Tip
Stargazing in Passim

Every Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend, Club Passim [Cambridge, MA] throws its stage open to the Cutting Edge of the Campfire festival, a hip hootenanny of local stars, budding songwriters, and neo-folk string bands. Among the highlights this weekend are Peter Wolf, John Wesley Harding, Rachel Davis, Louise Taylor, Christopher Williams, Laura Cortese, Flora Reed, Michael Troy, the Modeles, Ina May Wool, and Antje Duvekot. No matter who's on stage, though, the shmoozing and stargazing are first-rate - Scott Alarik

"This is a f***ing insane idea," said John Wesley Harding from the stage at Club Passim. "It's brilliant, but f***ing insane. Next week I'll be playing here when you don't have to wait 20 minutes in between songs." Harding was in the round with Kenny White, Deb Talen, Evan Brubaker, and Todd Thibaud - a fantastic collection of performers. It's not like we were suffering waiting for the next John Wesley Harding song, enjoyable as he was.

I see his point though. It is insane, but gloriously so. I think Matt Smith, Passim's manager, came up with the idea. It wasn't easy finding good acts to commit to playing on either Memorial or Labor Day weekend, and it wasn't easy pulling in an audience either - so Matt hit on the scheme of booking EVERYONE. Ok, not quite everyone, but it's a festival in the club, often spilling out into Palmer Street with the music audible outside and glimpses of the stage too.

There were something like 120 performers, some of them unknown, some of them quite famous - Peter Wolf, formerly of the J. Geils Band, probably the best known of all. Some people, like Wolf, do their own sets, but most are in the round, and if you spend some time during the weekend you can hear a dizzying assortment of performers you might not otherwise have known existed.

I was in the round on Sunday with Nadine Goellner (pronounced Gellner) of Brooklyn who is a jazzy songstress, up to and including scat singing, and with Angela Correa of San Diego, a rootsy songwriter whose offerings included a murder ballad. Both women were strong, rhythmic guitar players, and good singers. I had to restrain myself from bopping around too visibly while they were playing. Fun for me but potentially annoying I think.

Anyway - we had a large and enthusiastic crowd with enormously gratifying and LOUD applause. I played

Serial Lover
Taxi Driver
Big Black Bear
and When Tears Come Down

It was enormously fun.

While the adrenaline was draining I saw most of the round afterwards - good stuff! Richard McGraw reminded me of Andy Kaufman mixed in with Tom Waits. Kat Goldman is a young woman from Canada who plays great keyboard and guitar - intriguing songs. One I remember about a red canoe. I had seen Summer Pierre at the Club Passim open mike a few years ago - she's turned into a very polished and entertaining singer. "This is a song about that moment when you meet someone and you go oh my God you're perfect for me - I know nothing about you!" she said.

Anyway - I'm sure I missed some excellent music, but I had to get out of the packed club for a while, so I spent some time with friends in and around Harvard Square.

At 8:30pm I did manage to find a seat for the round I mentioned earlier in this saga. I've known Kenny White for years. In fact he played some gigs with me after my band broke up and before I moved to New York. He's an impressive pianist and has been backing up Jonathan Edwards and Cheryl Wheeler, amongst others, for years. Recently he made a CD of his own called "Uninvited Guest" which is a knockout, and he's been opening shows for the Big Folkies all over.

Songs Kenny did that I remember: (I did take notes, but where are they?)
My Recurring Dream
Back to the Drawing Board Now )(a post 9/11 song)
(We rolled up our sleeves /dealt with Hitler, Stalin, Mao But it's back to the drawing board now)
(sorry - that's an inexact quote - but I loved the rhyme of Mao and now)
Anyway, Kenny plays piano beautifully, and his songs and stage aura are first-rate.

I had never seen John Wesley Harding and had very little idea of what he's like. Very funny. A song about an affair he had with Catherine Zeta Jones (he can't legally mention her name or even her initials in the song but tells you in the introduction)(I suppose he could have made the whole story up.). He also does a humorous high-speed retelling of the entire play of Hamlet in a song. And there was a more trad tune with a murder in it somewhere. Post-punk, English, handsome too.

Deb Talan - I had never heard her before. Great player, beautiful voice, intelligent songs with muscle and pop clarity. Yes, I liked her. A new one about 'No whiskey, no wine, all I want is you" - ok, that's a pitiful little tiny bit of a fragment which will be useful to you only if you ever see her and then you can say "oh, yes, that's the one Ina May liked."

Evan Brubaker and Todd Thibaud - the other two in this round - I liked 'em both but am running out of descriptive energy here.

Peter Wolf's set was a revelation. I grew up around Boston and heard about the J. Geils Band all the time, but I didn't get what was so good about the music from hearing it on the radio.

The band comes on first, then Peter Wolf wearing a Chico Marx hat, sunglasses, a black leather jacket over a black shirt, a striped jersey under that, gold chains around his neck. A small, wiry guy with taut movements, riveting to watch, and a master storyteller.

He told a story about Muddy Waters' band playing Club 47. (Club 47 was the legendary venue in the space where Passim is now - Dylan, Baez, etc. etc.)

Wolf was 18 and a big fan. He describes the Cadillac driving up, the shiny shoe appearing from the door. Wolf offers to help, moves the equipment in, goes to get liquor for Otis Spann and James Cotton, band members at that time("It's a coffeehouse?! Does that mean you can't get a drink?), but he has to recruit someone old enough to buy it at the liquor store.

Anyway - I am not doing any of this justice - go see him play. When Wolf tells it, you see it. It brings that bygone world alive.

Kenny White produced the last Peter Wolf record, and he played keyboard during the set along with Duke Levine on mandolin and guitar, Stuart Kimball on guitar, and a percussionist whose name I couldn't catch.

The songs are simple and perfect, and they lie in that vein where country and r&b and pop converge. A good vein to lie in. He dedicated one of the songs to any musicians in the audience. It's called "A Long Line" - about hanging in when people seem to ignore the real and prefer the fake, about the long road.

After the set I saw him in the crowd and just said, Thank you for the music. He was quite gracious and thanked me. He had a look in his eye that you might call faraway or distant. It's a long line, yes.

I staggered out of the club after the day of music with a lot of songs and stories and pictures in my mind to process.

During the rest of the week I did some family visiting.

Then on May 28, Wednesday, I performed live at WJUL, the radio station of UMASS Lowell. The show is called Coffee and Cartoons in the Afternoon, and it's hosted by a vivacious young woman known as "Kornflake." Her other name is Kristen Kerouac (Jack was her grandfather's cousin), and she has another life as a meteorologist.

"Kornflake" a.k.a. Kristen told me that she is in her last year of school and for the last year she's been getting up at midnight and going to work at 2am. She writes weather forecasts for 200 stations around the country, records them, and then sends them out via MP3. We're talking energetic!

Coffee and Cartoons is a three-hour show with a comic slant. Kristen asks her listeners for questions and during the hour I was there we got questions via email and phone.

I was asked if I like pie (yes) and if I have psychic powers (occasionally), amongst other things. We laughed a lot.

The station has public service announcements the students record, for things like "Don't carry scissors while running."

I look forward to having the Coffee and Cartoon experience again down the road apiece.

The last adventure on this trip was my gig at The Crescent Dragon Cafe in Haverhill. I got to eat some of their Middle Eastern food this time. Fantastic.

The audience included old friends and new faces. Two photographers were taking pictures of me during the show. One guy drove up from Providence to catch the show! A fan of my old band requested Bassplayer, and I sang it, figuring out the words as I went along. Other requests were: January Thaw, Blue-Eyed John, and Big Black Bear. There was much improvising on my part during two big sets. I loved that people in the audience were introducing themselves to each other. Kind of a community vibe. I love this place a lot and will be back in October. Michael Fioretti and his wife, Diane, run the Crescent Dragon with a lot of warmth and soul, good sound, and they even have a liquor license now.

Til the next Tale, be well and happy. -Ina May

Addendum:

Just before I got on stage at the Crescent Dragon, Michael Fioretti told me he'd heard me mentioned on NPR. He said it was in the dead of winter (2002-2003), and he couldn't remember who was being interviewed, but the interviewer (not sure who that was either) asked where all the good songs are now, who is carrying on the tradition of well-crafted songs, and the interviewee said people like Ina May Wool are still writing them.

Does anyone out there know anything about this? I would love to know who said it and who the interviewer was too. If you have any clues please write to me at ina@inamaywool.com. Thanks.

April 2003-Grand Mini-Tour in Massachusetts

I was tired driving up to Massachusetts on Thursday, April 3. There were several reasons for that. I'm enjoying the solo troubadour aspect of Ina-May-Wool-On-The-Road these days, but the solo road manager aspect of the job needs some serious honing and polishing.

Besides, Dan and I had gone to see a play at the Public Theater the night before. Dan had played and recorded some of the music used in the show. The play featured the luminous Daphne Rubin-Vega who was, as some of you no doubt remember, the original Mimi in RENT. It was great to see her and to hear Dan's guitar licks at the Public - but what with Ina May Wool, road manager, in need of road manager job skills, when all of us got home (IMW road manager, IMW publicist, IMW singer/songwriter, IMW bon vivant, etc.) packing up went late into the night.

(Aside: Daphne Rubin-Vega is featured on rather prominent backing vocals for a song of ours called "Dinosaurs" which will be on the upcoming CD. It's one of the few songs already mixed, and it sounds great!)

The next day, there were the many faces of me in the car in the rain on the way to WATD in Marshfield MA, listening to the radio and some choice CD's and making lots of stops.

I did manage to get to the station right on time, after calling for augmented directions, and I was greeted by the very friendly, enthusiastic, and organized Joan Orr, who remembered me from the old days on WCAS in Cambridge.

WCAS used to play Ina May Wool Band songs, though we didn't have an album, just tapes. In fact, the former manager of the station had recently and coincidentally given Joan a CD of ten of his favorite songs from the station, and my song, "Please Please" was on it, along with cuts by considerably more well-known singers, Bonnie Raitt among them. (WCAS was an AM station for several years based in Cambridge that played all kinds of stuff the mainstream stations wouldn't touch.)

It was great to meet Joan, and the whole experience was such a pleasure it made up for the long and rainy drive. Joan interviewed me, and I got to play four songs too, sitting at a conference table looking at Joan through the glass of the studio window.

Someone told my sister that WATD stands for "at the dump" - their former location -- but I can't vouch for the truth of that assertion.

A woman called in and requested "Down on Tenth Street," so that was cool, and Joan played it in a set with some Bob Dylan, which I heard on the radio as I was driving away, all very gratifying.

The next morning I woke up early and listened to WUMB while getting ready to go. Dick Pleasants was interviewing Rory Bloch about her influences, and listening to that was good preparation for my own interview. (Do you know Rory Bloch? She's a wonderful blues singer and guitarplayer who grew up in Greenwich Village. She heard and met a lot of the old blues guys in the sixties, hanging around in her father's sandal shop and at Union Square Park.)

There was more rain on the way to WUMB, and I listened to the station on my car radio as I drove through the puddles. They're tearing up the parking garage, but I wandered around underground for a while until I finally found my way in. Got to say hello to Frank Dugeon (another WCAS veteran who now works at WUMB), and also to Dick Pleasants, who had a container of clam chowder on his desk while he was talking to me. The aroma was driving me wild! I love New York, but for clams, you have to go to New England. Clams will make an appearance later in this tale).

Marilyn Rea Beyer interviewed me at noon, and you will not find a better interviewer anywhere. The aforementioned fatigue was killer by now, so I had to do some high level concentrating to answer Marilyn's incisive questions, but I think I got through it ok. I felt so immersed in WUMB by that point, that I was very comfortable in the singing part of the program. These are the songs I did:

1. Hotwired and Hungry 2. Blue-Eyed John (a new one) 3. Elephant Learning to Dance 4. When Tears Come Down

The next day was my show at the New Driftwood Coffeehouse in Marstons Mills on Cape Cod. I had set up the two radio shows to promote the New Driftwood (along with the passel of other New England gigs coming up).

Luckily my sister wanted to drive, and she did an excellent job of road managing that day. More rain came down, this time heavy, but it cleared up when we arrived in town, and we were early. That's when we went to the fish store nearby, and I got the BEST FRIED CLAMS I EVER ATE. Really. And I grew up in the land of seafood. It's just a little fish store in a little strip mall, but they make great food to take out. (if you're ever in Marstons Mills)

I ate in the car in the parking lot (Clams! Rice pilaf! Coleslaw!) A man came up and introduced himself and asked if he could film my performance that night for his cable tv show. I said ok and signed a release. (Hmmm. Haven't heard from that guy. Anybody happen to see me on tv in Massachusetts lately?)

The New Driftwood Coffeehouse is housed in a funky old building built in the 1850's as a grange hall. High ceiling, rectangular, bare room with very tall windows. The stage is proscenium and high up. It reminded me of my grammar school auditorium. I could picture local farmers gathering there to go off to the Civil War.

J. Barrett Wolf, also known as Bear, runs the place, one show per month. I met Bear when I was playing at the Prodigal Son in Hyannis a while back, and he told me then that he booked a coffeehouse. Bear is a busy and talented web designer, and I got to hear some of his songs and poetry when we happened to meet up again at Wintersongs (the upstate songwriters' retreat I coached at in February). Great stuff. Bear is a winning veteran of poetry slams, and his songwriting is really good too.

The show at the New Driftwood was glorious. The natural acoustics of the room are excellent, and Bear runs a mean sound system. The volunteers are friendly and generous. (Home baked chocolate chip cookies! Ah, the perks.)

There was a sold-out crowd! In addition to everything else the Cape Cod Times had run a nice big picture of me along with an article on me and David Massengill who was sharing the bill.

I can't tell you what I played. Can't find the set list, but I can tell you I got an encore. (Can't tell you what it was!)(Must keep better notes. Note to Ina May Wool, archivist)

Massengill got very lost on the way up, and we were a little worried, but he did get there right before I went on stage. Bear said we could toss a coin for who went first, but I was glad to go on right away and let David catch his breath. His set was, as expected, full of great stories and songs. You might know about David Massengill. He was very involved in the old Fast Folk days. His latest record is primarily about his home town of Bristol, Tennessee, and includes a collection of songs based on stories he heard from his dad in the last year of his dad's life when David was talking care of him.

All in all it was a most enjoyable trip, and I'm looking forward to more gigs in my home state in May. --

6/12/02-D.C. Panel Discussion

When Suzanne Vega asked me if I'd want to fill in for her to represent Vigil in a panel discussion in Washington, D.C. last month (June 12, 2002), I was very honored and flattered and said yes right away. Then I heard from Keith Donahue, the creative director at the Center for Arts & Culture (co-sponsor of the event along with the Goethe-Institut). He welcomed me to the panel and also mentioned that the subject of discussion would be how artists can contribute to "enduring peace."

I was still up for doing it but a little intimidated, because I'm not accustomed to being invited places to talk about international diplomacy.

As I began to think about what I would say though, it occurred to me that I have no problem presenting my work in the Songwriters' Exchange, where we try to write a song a week and sing it for each other on Monday nights. That was an encouraging thought.

I went over in my mind how I'd written "Boxcutters and Knives." The process of writing a song a week often brings up things you don't know you're thinking about.

I'd begun "Boxcutters" after hours of watching tv on September 11th. At about eleven that morning I got up and checked my answering machine. I had been scheduled to host one of my Writers' Bloc shows that night at the Living Room on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. One of the songwriters had left a message saying, "I guess you won't be doing the gig tonight - because of the tragedy." Then I turned on the tv and saw the Towers fall for the first of many times that strange week. I had a horrible feeling that the U.S. might respond with enormous military force immediately, and that that might not be at all effective. I felt compelled to put my thoughts into a song.

My traveling companion down to D.C. was Brian Rose. Brian was a regular at the Songwriters' Exchange in the early days and co-founder in 1982 along with Jack Hardy of the Fast Folk Musical Magazine. He's now living in Amsterdam. Brian came along on Suzanne's tour of Europe after the Berlin Wall fell. She said he knew so much about European politics she called him her "Minister of Information."

The plan was for Brian and me to sing the songs of ours that are on Vigil, and then to participate in the discussion, explaining what Vigil is about in our own words. Brian is an architectural photographer as well as a songwriter, and photos he had taken in lower Manhattan before September 11th were to be on display.

We rode the train down to D.C. together and talked a lot, which was great. During the trip, I also got a chance to listen to a tape of the WFUV show (City Folk Sunday Breakfast) which featured John Platt interviewing Suzanne and also Jack Hardy about Vigil.

After an hour to rest up and get ready, we arrived at the Goethe-Institut and everything went very smoothly. Keith Donahue, Ellen Lovell (president of the Center for Arts & Culture) and Werner Ott (director of the Goethe-Institut), greeted us very warmly, along with Bill Gilcher, the media director at Goethe, who would be moderating the panel. As we refreshed ourselves with sandwiches, we met the other panelists, a choreographer named Liz Lerman and Heinz Peter Schwerfel, art critic and author of Kunst nach Ground Zero from Germany.

There were about fifty people sitting in the very modern high ceiling glass and stone room waiting for the panel to start. I felt good that I was opening the evening with my song "Boxcutters and Knives." Playing my guitar and singing - that I know how to do!

Then Bill, who is a very intelligent and skillful interviewer, asked me questions about the Songwriters' Exchange, about how I'd written the song, and why I hadn't finished it until Suzanne put out the call for "Vigil."

I talked about how striving to write a song every week keeps you limber, even if every song you attempt isn't a keeper, and how it was difficult to write about the events immediately, but inevitably, since we all had to process our fears and hopes and reactions, the songs came tumbling out in the weeks after September 11th. I mentioned that there are no anthems on Vigil but just very different takes on the feelings and observations of all of us.

Brian sang "The Skyline" and then talked about how he came to write it and about his photographs of the Towers that were showing on a monitor at the back of the room.

Heinz Peter Schwerfel told how he compiled his book, a collection of essays from philosophers and writers in response to 9/11.

Liz Lerman, a very energetic and engaging woman, is the founder of the Dance Exchange (another art form - another exchange!). She uses dancers of different sizes, shapes, and ages. One of her most popular dancers is seventy years old.

Liz told us about how one woman said to her in an exploratory meeting after 9/11, "If I could only laugh again!" So the dance they worked out involved laughter, and they discovered that laughter without sound can look a lot like crying.

When we talked more and answered questions from the audience, I began to realize that I think artists respond to a crisis like this best by being artists and that continuing to feel and think and put it down on paper or in a song or a dance or a poem is the affirmation of life and our shared humanity that is the most powerful antidote to terror and loss and destruction we have.

People hung on our words when we talked about how the smoke smelled, how the sky looked, and when I mentioned how normal my neighborhood seemed that day until you'd see someone walking uptown in heels covered in ash.

When the discussion was over, those present surprised us with a very loud and longlasting ovation. One young woman told me she'd cried during the songs. It felt like we'd been able to share some of the catharsis we'd felt getting together in the Exchange in the months after 9/11, and that was a very powerful and good feeling.

On the train down Brian had told me he worked as a bike messenger in D.C. one summer when he was in art school in Baltimore and that he took his breaks at the National Gallery of Art. He promised to guide me through it the day after the panel. We didn't have a great deal of time before we had to get to the train that day, so it was good he knew the direct route to some of the most stunning pictures.

There are quite a few Rembrandts - most amazing amongst them, I thought, was a self-portrait that looks extremely alive and human. I've thought a lot about why artists choose to paint still lifes or portraits and why we want to look at them. My mother is a painter and printmaker, and I spent a lot of time looking at art when I was growing up.

One picture in the National Gallery really affected me. It's the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the U.S. A young woman looks out from the frame, with an assured expression, and strangely she seemed a lot like a young woman I'd taken acting classes with in New York. That woman is Japanese. The girl in the picture is Caucasian, and the painting was done in the 16th century. Still there was something I knew very well in her face, and different languages, cultures, and centuries did not stand in the way.

The painter struggles with color and line, a good one masters anatomy and light, and a great one captures some spirit that someone a few centuries later can feel.

I resolved to go home and to do the best I could to master melody and rhythm and rhyme - to keep trying to render what I see and feel into song to the best of my ability - because no one alive can smell the smoke I smell, see the sky exactly as I do or feel what I feel. I continue to think there is something crucial and urgent in that work and in sharing it. --

6/02-New England

Just back from a wonderful week in New England replete with rhododendrums everywhere (those huge purple and pink flowers on big bushes) the Cutting Edge of the Campfire at Club Passim (mucho fun), an interview on WUMB with the effervescent and insightful Marilyn Rea Beyer, a show at a new and excellent club in Haverhill, Massachusetts, called The Crescent Dragon Cafe (I'll be back there 10/25/02),
a swell house concert,  and an inspiring Cancer Survivors' Day Celebration in Exeter, New Hampshire including renditions of "January Thaw" and "J'ai Gagne (I Won) with arm waving, dancing, and at least 30 enthusiastic singers in the chorus. Thanks to all my new friends in Exeter.

 Hope to see you soon!
-Ina May




5/2/99-The UK Tour
On March 31, two days after the CD release party for “Moon Over 97th Street  (it was smashing! thanks for asking) Dan and I were on the plane heading for  the Edinburgh folk festival, “Shoots and Roots .  (Dan is Daniel A. Weiss, my  musical partner and producer.)  My trusty Martin guitar rode in the first-class closet over the Atlantic, but in London when we arrived at the door of the plane to Edinburgh, the woman at the desk very adamantly said nothing doing. I worried about my guitar down in the hold all the way to Scotland.  I was relieved to find the guitar unscathed on our arrival, but not so happy that my suitcase with all my clothes  was not onboard.

That night  we opened the show at the Pleasance Theatre -- dark wood paneling, big stage, a classy room -- and I was wearing the same clothes I d spent the night in on the flight over! Of course I made lots of jokes about the tiara and gown I would have worn if not for the mishap, and everything worked out. Or at least I thought it did through my jetlag haze.  Also on the bill were a phenomenol duo -- Karen Tweed on accordion with Ian Carr on acoustic guitar.  (By the way, the suitcase was at our bed and breakfast when we went back there later that night.)

We went on to play several shows in the 4-day festival.  One of the most fun was an informal song swap (or session as they call it over there) in a pub around midnight on April 2.  There were some professional musicians, but just about everyone, professional or not,and of all ages from 9 to 79 got up and sang a song.   To our delight, the whole room joined in singing with me and Dan when we played  our song “Down on Tenth Street  as soon as they got the idea of the chorus.  I was in heaven.

We also played live from the stage of the Pleasance in  BBC Scotland s radio program called “Mr. Anderson s Fine Tunes.   Mr. Anderson himself is a jovial man who interviewed me.   Dan and I played three tunes.  Also on the show were a Hungarian bagpiper, a Danish group, a Scottish singer/songwriter named Dick Gaughan, a couple of Celtic harpists, and more.   The last day of the festival we headlined a concert, and by then we had a bit of a following so it was a good old time.   We had articles about us in two Scottish papers and one English one, so we felt very famous.

On Sunday night we drove up to Aberdeen, and on Monday (Easter Monday is a holiday over there) we played a show at the Lemon Tree as part of the “Rootin Aboot   festival.  It s a Bottom Line size club with a great sound system, and we shared the bill with three  impressive young women fiddlers in a group called Fliska from Shetland and a lively Irish group called Beginnish.

Everywhere in Scotland we heard bagpipes of all shapes and sizes, fiddles, celtic harps, and lots of traditional music.   They re getting their own parliament this year, and there s talk of independence for Scotland  not too far down the line, so there s an especially intense nationalist pride in the local music.  As singer/songwriters from the States, we were very exotic!

We flew back to London and played in several clubs.  The 12 Bar Club is a great room with excellent sound.  We got a very warm reception there.  At the Acoustic Cafe we opened  for Hundred Dollar Funeral.  They re a trio featuring a hot 18-year-old guitarist who is amazing, and a rhythm section of extremely funky music business veterans.

We also played live on BBC s Greater London  Radio.   I could not understand the question the DJ asked me on the air -- the accents can really throw you sometimes -- but I said something that seemed to work as an answer.   The DJ said, “I specialize in long involved questions.  That was a good response.  Hats off to you for saying words.  (Love that UK way with words.)

After all the gigs we got to spend a few days touristing in London and the area, and all in all it was smashing and brilliant, as they say  over there.  We ll have pictures up on the website soon.  That s What I Did on My UK Tour, and I hope I get a good mark.  Cheers!!!
 
 

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