Every month or so, I go to the open mike at the Lizard Lounge. There are a ton of reasons I like to go to the Lizard Lounge – cool scene, great talent, and my favorite part: Tom Bianchi is your gracious, outrageous host. Tom is one of my favorite folks on the local music scene, first, because he works so damn hard, and second, because he really, really knows his way around a stage. I know that I can go to the Lizard Lounge and expect a couple moments, at least, of pants-wetting hilarity, thanks to Tom; and I know that when I yank his chain when he’s introducing me, he’ll give as good as he gets. Just a class act, and one hell of a performer. Read more »

I come from a family of musicians, of various shapes and sizes. My brother, you may recall, has a doctorate in modern classical composition, and is a marvelously talented jazz player in Washington, DC – he plays bass, guitar, and now, apparently, piano. My mom was a singer and pianist, mostly frustrated, but in the later part of her life, quite serious about her voice. Me, you know, presumably. Read more »

The other night, I was driving out to Groton for Gayle Picard’s open mike. If you haven’t been to this particular open mike, at the Main Street Cafe, you’re missing a remarkable evening of entertainment, because Gayle’s always keeping us open mikers on our toes. For instance, if we talk during the show, she or Marc, her partner in crime, might shoot us with foam darts – the Darts of Shame. No one wants to be the target of the Darts of Shame. Read more »

Many years ago, when I first met my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, the woman who fixed us up lent her a cassette tape that I’d made, called “Entering Harmony”. I thought the title was pretty clever; the photo on the cover was of me, standing under a sign for Harmony, Rhode Island, the hometown of woman I’d been dating when I recorded the cassette. I thought the music was pretty clever, too; the singing, well, what did I know, is what it came down to. Read more »

As you may very well know, I’m obsessed with the guitars of Michael Gurian. I have two of them, and love them unreservedly. Any of you who have heard me go on (and on, and on) about Gurian know that he made fewer than 5,000 guitars in his guitarmaking life, and a precious few of them were cutaways (you know, the guitars that look like someone took a bite out of the right upper part of the body). Read more »

I was born in New Yawk City. You may have figured this out. I spent 18 months there, tops, and it seems to have spoiled my attitude permanently. I grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, next to the birthplace of rock’n’roll – great music, great radio, great art museum, great place basically to be, well, from. And then college, and then our fair city, from which you could not dislodge me with Semtex. Read more »

You might be wondering, faithful fan, about the progress of my next album. I can just see you, late at night, tossing and turning, with one thought running over and over through your head: “When? When? When will I be able to bask in your next dose of genius? When?” (This may be a hallucination on my part, but humor me – my ego could use a boost nowadays). The answer is: not anytime soon. Read more »

By now, you may be aware of the tale of Mike Daisey. Mr. Daisey is a monologuist and performer who produced a piece entitled “The Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs”, in which he reported his investigation of working conditions in the Chinese factories which produce various Apple products. He performed this piece on NPR’s “This American Life”, and in theaters around the country. He maintained that his tale was entirely true, and in one theater insisted that the playbill bear the documentation “This is a work of non-fiction”. NPR and the various theaters took him at his word; but his word was, briefly, crap. It turned out, once the belated fact-checking was done, that while the issues Mr. Daisey highlighted were important and were indeed issues which Apple needed to address, his work was fabricated in almost every significant detail. He did not meet the people he claimed to meet; he did not see the things he claimed to see. Read more »

So I have a gig on Friday, at the Coffee Loft in Marlborough. And I’d love to see you there. Because I long for ears, and eyeballs. Such is the life of a musician. Read more »

This is going to be a shorter essay than usual, because I gotta go practice. You’ll see why in a minute. Read more »