More of Day 4

When going into the basement, by about the 5th step down, you have to duck so you don't smack your head on the floor that's just become your new ceiling. Blue, white, and pink christmas lights hang in different areas of the room, while sidewalk chalk drawings decorate the floor. I think i remember a plastic chandelier hanging low with a dinosaur mask and and a burger king crown dangling from it.

THE SHOW - Feb 22

The show went well. Mekenzie (I'm sure I just butchered her name. I know, I'm breaking journalism rule #1. But I think she'll forgive me) opened the night upstairs singing gently and softly, almost like a lullaby above her electric guitar twinklings. If you've ever seen Giant Drag perform, she reminds me of that girl, except her lyrics weren't nearly as strange and her music was much more relaxed.

But anyway, I don't feel like describing the music of everyone that played that night. The last guy though used a bunch of loops of himself playing guitar & bass and that was cool. the whole night his voice reminded me of Benjamin Gibbard.

OUR SETS

Our sets went well. Rob and I played back-to-back sets, with Trapdoor starting things out. We played a set of mountain songs: The Holy Mountain, Las Meridanzas, Four Green Mountains, with Liberty's Sons, Earth Mouth (which judging by the slightly delayed applause, I think confused people) and we closed with Stone by Stone (Let Them Go). It was fun. Dave sat in and rocked an impromptu cello solo on Four Green Mountains and Mike played some drums. Twas nice.

Balmorhea did well too. We opened with San Soloman and closed with Limmat. But my favorite was the new song we wrote a few hours earlier that involved all 6 of us. Finally, Trapdoor and Balmorhea completely meshed in song making. With all our powers combined,we're like, i dunno, some cartoon where all the super heros from different shows come together and do a ridiculous job taking on the world. Not that I think I'm a super hero. Or that we're saving the world one song at a time. That song just gave me a picture of Captain Planet and his team holding up their rings in a circle and their beams of light become one.

anyway! the new song called "Show Me" (inspired by Missouri, the "show me state"), has this fiddley-blusey backwoods country feel. But in a good way.
It just kind of came together out of no where, but its pretty fun.Lineup: Michael-guitar, Rob-Banjo, Aisha-I only play violin...ever, Dave-cello, Alex- Harmonica, Adam-guitar.

Ummm post-show, Alex and Rob could be heard playing songs downstairs just for fun and the rest of us meandered around. I had a fun chat with Emma, a girl who I met during the last set who was willing to speak a little for my slideshow project. Kayla Simpson, if you're reading this, she reminded me a lot of you. She told me about Missouri, fun things to do in Chicago and I don't know, as Pinetop says, we just "talked stuff." That man is awesome.

I slept on the couch, in the same clothes I wore all day yesterday, which I'm still wearing now (yeah, i'm in full touring musician mode). Mike slept on the wood floor and looked like topaz mummy, all wrapped up in his sleeping bag. I woke up to the sound of Alex and Adam laughing, and the daylght stinging my eyes. there were two dogs having some annoying barking contest through the night. Are muzzles in-humane? And can I even use the word "humane" to describe fair treatment of animals?

well anyway, this has gotten pretty long. But when I know I still have a few hours left in the car, there's not much to keep me from rambling forever. Except that I know no one will read it if my words stretch on forever. Hopefully I'll get to post this before we play tonight. Nashville, we're commin!

-Aisha