I had a couple of conversations this week that were meaningful to me, and I thought I’d take some time to share them – you’ll see why. The first was with a friend whose family has had some significant health issues over the last year or so. I wrote him to check to see how he was doing, and the health problems are abating, and he speculated about whether he was going to start playing again. “I did get my guitar overhauled recently with that in mind”, he said. The second was with a musical acquaintance who reappeared after a relatively long absence, who commented to me that she had been derailed by “life changes”, which were now concluded, and so it was time to stop procrastinating and start playing again. Read more »

The other night, I was chatting with one of my favorite performers after a show, and this performer made a comment about how hard it is to keep a toehold in the Boston music market. “I’m huge in five other markets, but here, I can barely make a dent”, or something to that effect. It’s true, and a shame, but I’m not sure it’s avoidable, and I’m not sure we’d want to avoid it if we could. Read more »

So much of life amounts to ditch-digging, doesn’t it? Even when you have this crystal-clear vision of what you want to do. The plan always looks lovely when you write down the high-level goals, like, say, finishing a marathon; it’s only when it turns out that the plan bottoms out to, oh, waking up at 5 AM and running 10 miles in the rain, that you start to think through gritted eyebrows, “This had better damn well pay off somehow.” But of such tiny actions, larger accomplishments are made. And so it is with my music. Read more »

After my mom died in 2006, my father said, “Write me a song before I’m dead.” This degree of bluntness might be startling to those who don’t know him, but it’s not even remotely out of character – when it comes to family, diplomacy is just not part of the equation. What’s even odder is that it doesn’t bother me in the least – but, of course, I’m not the most tactful of people myself, so I doubt any of you are surprised. Read more »

This tale is about the inside of the music business, which, for audience members, is sort of like seeing how sausages are made – it might not ruin your appetite, but you really have to forget about it to enjoy your meal. So I apologize in advance for anyone whose appreciation I might diminish – you’re welcome to skip ahead to the gig listings :-). But if you’re interested in what the sausage looks like from the ingredients’ point of view, read on. Read more »

I’ve always wanted to be able to juggle. When I was in college, I had a roommate who was an amazing juggler – he did devil sticks and four balls and all sorts of stuff. I could watch him for hours. But I never learned to juggle myself. So a couple of years ago, I decided to try it. I took some books out of the library, and bought some supposedly helpful books on-line, and went out and purchased a set of three leather balls specifically for juggling, and set out to, well, throw these balls spastically around my living room. I am, as far as I can tell, hopeless. I understand the principles, but I’m still in that Helen Keller phase; the lightbulb just hasn’t gone on yet. Read more »

It’s the end of the year, and time for reflection, and perhaps a dose of humility. So I’m in the mood to make a belated apology. Read more »

Over the last week or so, I’ve had a bit of a squabble on a newsgroup on the Interpipes. The person in question – let’s call him Man de Ramparts – expressed some deep disappointment at the willingness of a particular folk media outlet to occasionally devote some space to an artist – let’s call him Rocky Kindapopster – who doesn’t really match the folk profile. I certainly agreed that Mr. Kindapopster didn’t match the folk profile particularly well, but I took umbrage at Mr. Ramparts’ apparent need to draw a big black line between “folk artist” and Mr. Kindapopster. Read more »

Java Jo’s in Milton had a big fire a couple weeks ago. It’s not clear what’s going to happen to it; my pal Mike Delaney tells me that the owner is building a new restaurant down the street, so I imagine that the chances he’ll rebuild the coffeehouse are pretty slim. I’m not used to losing a venue like this – most of the open mikes listed in my open mike graveyard went out of business, or just decided not to do music anymore. A fire – well, that’s a first. Read more »

Now it can be told. The reason that I’ve been in radio silence for the last two months is that my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, and I have been on a two-month automobile junket around the US of A. We’ve touched thirty states or so, seen virtually all of our friends (some of them twice, due to their own travel schedules), beheld many great wonders of natural beauty, and discovered one hellhole (Mesa, Arizona -105 in the shade in September, drivers with the manners of pigs, an ecosystem consisting entirely of concrete and chain stores – never, never go there). Our new heroes are the folks at the National Park Service – the vast variety of this great nation of ours is well and carefully entrusted to these folks, in spite of whatever happens with the chuckleheads who allocate the money. We are exhausted, overly tan on our driving arms, and thoroughly satisfied. Read more »