Having Somebody to Love Voted Essential

WXPN just tabulated and played their 885 Essential Songs which was voted on by tens of thousands of folks and I'm very flattered that my version of Queen's 'Somebody to Love' came in at number 310.

Thanks to everybody who voted. Freddie thanks you, too.

This Week at The Living Room: Requests, Ringo and a Rutle

Monday was the second week of the Monday night October residency at the Living Room.

It's always hard to play 4 weeks in a row in one room without the shows getting a bit stale, so I decided I would have themes for each night to break it up a bit.

Last week I played 'Misadventures in Stereo' solo acoustic from beginning to end, which I'd never done before (I'd never played 'Chalk One Up for Albert's Side' solo EVER, for that matter).

This week it seemed like the right crowd to do an all-request show, which I thought worked out really well. It's always interesting for me to hear which tunes people call out for, and I was surprised to have 'So Full' and 'Shine' requested right off the bat. Sometimes I really like a song but have convinced myself it's not necessarily a crowd favorite, so it was a pleasant surprise to have those come up.

I did give myself the choice of the last song of the night, which was 'Photograph' by Ringo Starr. I essentially pulled this one out of thin air, having just seen Ringo's bizarre "No more fan mail, no more signing stuff. Peace and Love, Peace and Love" video he posted that day on his website. I wonder if anybody around him could have told him what a huge PR disaster that was going to be. And unnecessary - does anyone REALLY think Ringo is reading and responding to every piece of fan mail he gets? Are there folks who took that episode of 'The Simpsons' literally? Love ya Rich, but really bad move.

But, as they say, "one door closes, another opens". I was talking with Joy Askew outside after the show (Joy, btw, will be part of next Monday's theme: Special Guests) and she casually mentions "Oh, it's Ricky Fataar".

Now, Ricky Fataar has had a long and distinguished career - he was even a Beach Boy for a while in the early '70s - but to me there is one magical thing about him: HE'S STIG O'HARA FROM THE RUTLES!! I have now met a Rutle and my life, as they say, will never be the same. I realise some of you may not know of the Rutles. Google them. They will change your life.

I'm going to suggest the next tribute night we do at the Living Room is The Rutles. I mentioned this to Stig and his response was "Why?". I now have a Rutle anecdote.

Lots of Love at the Lizard

What a difference a day makes.

When I last left you, dear blog reader, I was about to get out of the car in Cambridge, MA, after not getting paid in CT the previous night. I de-carred (hey, if it's called de-planing . . .) into a warm, sunshine-filled Autumn afternoon.

Marykate grew up in the area and so she took us around to a couple nice guitar shops. Despite some weak moments, I managed to escape with the same number of guitars and dollars as I went in with.

We then ran into Audrey Ryan, who was also playing, and went out to lunch together (check out my Facebook Mobile Uploads album for the fab ice cream sandwhich thing I had for desert). When they ran into each other both Audrey and Marykate were wearing black and white horizontal striped shirts (I believe you ladies may call them "tops"). It was only the quick thinking of Marykate who put on a sweater that saved our meal from an embarassing indie rock chick faux pax. After lunch, Audrey (who was a pleasure at lunch and played an amazing set) went home and changed shirts. In the immortal words of Bob Weir: "Tragedy narrowly averted."
When we got back to the club I had the opportunity to meet a couple fans, Stephen and his friend Melissa. They drove down from Maine to see the show, which was amazing enough, but also volunteered to sell cds (what we in the business call "doing merch") for everybody (and got the numbers and money right to boot!).

They brought with them a General Electric kids' record player to use as a display. This thing was cool - it pretty much looked like the plastic Fisher-Price model, but had ALL FOUR SPEEDS (16, 33&1/3, 45 and 78) which kicks the Fisher-Price's ass. They also had some 45s with them, including "I'm A Believer / Stepping Stone" by the Monkees, and when I mentioned that Marykate was a huge Monkees fan (she idolizes them) they insisted that she take it. Unbelievably sweet. Top this off with a huge pile of homemade baked goods Melissa made and Stephen asking if he could hug me and it was obvious these were some incredible music-loving folks. Thank you both so much.

Then came the show and it turned out that all those folks asking for a Boston area show for so long really did come out. The room was filled for the whole night and this was even with a Red Sox playoff game going on (sorry about how that turned out, Boston. I am pulling for you, at least until you face the Phillies in the World Series).

Everybody on the bill played terrific sets and when I came on after Marykate (who killed) to close the night I was a little afraid the room would empty out (it was late) or it would become "have a beer and talk during this poor sap's acoustic set" time (did I mention it was late?), but the whole room was into it and I got a great response.

Setting aside my record release shows, I haven't felt so positively about every aspect of a gig in a really long time, so thank you Boston, Lizard Lounge, Marykate and the rest of the musicians.

I'm almost to NYC as I write this. I hope tonight at The Living Room comes close to Saturday - it will be hard to live up to.

Cramming In the Tour Cliches

How do you make a quick couple of days out feel like an actual tour? By packing the days chock-full of rock tour cliches like:

* The club last night refusing to pay any of the acts on the bill.

This is a time honored classic that never gets old. I somehow can't seem to resist the urge to mention that the people who own and operate the club are born-again Christians. I guess we should've been on guard when we walked in and saw them all wearing t-shirts that said "WWJS?". We didn't figure out until it was too late that this stood for "Who would Jesus stiff?".

After THAT classic tour experience we of course went out drinking, which led to rock tour cliche number two:

* As our troop is comprised of a group of middle-aged indie rock musicians and not, for example, youthful heavy metallers, the drinking we do tends to be on the tamer, more civilized side - some people even drank wine. Still, this didn't prevent one of the band members from "decorating the inside of the car" on the drive home.

Strictly speaking, getting violently ill on the first night of a tour is considered bad form, but since this technically is not a tour, we all decided to allow it and pulled over to the side of the road.

We're just pulling into Cambridge now. We'll see what other things we can check off the list in the next 18 hours.

Tonight's show is at a regular club run by the usual godless communist pagans, so we should at least get paid.

I Realized This Afternoon While on a Train to Connecticut

Well first off, this is a bit of a test to see if:

A) I have the technological capability to do blog posting from the road and to see which of the many places my blog resides I can actually post to and

B) To see if anyone is interested in this type of blow-by-blow. .

So, ready? Let's begin.

I'm off for a couple quick days of shows in the New England area and according to plan I SHOULD be writing this to you from the passenger seat of one of Marykate O'Neil's (who I'm sharing the bills with) bandmates's car.. Instead, I'm ensconsed in Coach Class on the cheapest Amtrak train to New Haven, CT that I could find, having missed hooking up (notin that way) with Marykate and band last night in Philly when MK played with Jill Sobule at World Cafe Live.

The plan was to have some of the band stay at my place and then head up together this morning. This all went to hell somehow when Marykate didn't get a meesage about me getting to WCL by 11:30 (because I was otherwise engaged cheering on The PHILLIES as they won the first game of the NL Playoofs). So when I arrived at 11:15, I was not prepared to find out everyone had left for New Haven without me at 11.

No problem. Thought I, I'd catch an affordable Bolt Bus in the AM and all would be right with the world. However, Affordable=Popular and all the buses were sold out

And so it was this course of events that has placed me here, spending more than I will probably make on these shows to have the joy of sitting in front of a woman who seems very truly to have tuburculosous, she is coughing that much and that non-stop.

If you live in CT or know some folks there, please send them out. I'll be at The Space in Hamden tonight at 8p.

More later if I can get this to post.