graydon james's show blog

Once upon a time I got a mic when the Pocket Co. played in the ol’ front room of the Cameron House.  But after playing without a mic, I’ve realized I don’t really want or need one because the tyranny of having a mic is that you start using it.  And when you don’t have one, but the room is still pretty small, you can sing if you want and you can not sing if you don’t want, and if you’re practicing a new-ish harmony you can just sing quietly.  Granted, you could probably do all that with a mic as well, but my brain sees a mic and it makes me start singing harmonies at inappropriate times.  I also need more practice for some harmonies in order to get them to the point where people should hear them.  So having no mic is not a bad thing.

It also removes me from the possibility of providing banter, and the prospect of having to banter is sometimes like a swift punch to the kidneys.  Just pure painful.  I’ve given some good banter (as you will soon discover), but mostly I’ve given some terrible terrible banter, and that has an effect on an audience.  In any case, the show we played last evening at the Cameron House was a decent Pocket Co. show and a good time.  Randy did some filming, including putting a camera behind my shoulder to catch a different view of the band, for editing purposes.  So of course I gave some meaningful asides.  But right after the show Noel & I had to jet to The Boat because the Young Novelists were set to play at the Gather Round series with the Hamilton Trading Company.

The Gather Round series is a PA-less event, which means no microphones there as well.  We’ve done that more than once, and it usually turns out pretty well.  I was slightly concerned because The Boat is such a big space, but I didn’t have to worry because the acoustics are actually quite good for just plain ol’ belting out a song.  I also had Shawn and Laura there to harmonize and bring the vocals up to snuff.  The evening started with great music from a duo of fellows who normally play in a full band together.  Unfortunately they gave me their name but I lost it and now I have no idea who they were…except that they sounded great.  I’m an idiot.  We went up and played all right; Shawn played some mean stomps and handclaps and shakers, and Noel’s mandolin and banjo stuff came through nicely.  I managed to banter decently — talking about For The Record, I said that I’d written the song to convince a girl to *not* like me.  And then I added that you wouldn’t think I’d have that kind of problem…but so it goes.  And everyone chuckled and then we went into the song and it all felt pretty good.  At least, I hope it did.  It’s amazing to think that people actually put in time and effort and money to come and see us make some music.  I’d hate to think we let them down.

When the Hamilton Trading Company took the stage they almost literally took over the stage with sheer numbers.  They are essentially a folk chorus and play some cool, stripped-down style folk-rock songs featuring a tonne of harmonies and stomping and clapping and hand percussion and even one guy who played drums by beating his drum sticks against the carpeted stage itself.  Wild good times.  The whole thing comes across as quite an experience, and I’m positive it’s never the same twice with them.  For one thing, there are so many people in the chorus that they are virtually never all together to chat at any one time.  The whole night was pretty great, even from the Pocket Co. show.  I don’t need a mic, but I wouldn’t have minded a bullhorn to shout from the rooftops.

The first oddity of the day was that someone came to my house and roadied my drums to the Carlu so they could be set up and ready for sound check by the time I got there, after work, at 2pm.  I’ve never had someone take my drums for me, or set them up for me, and even though it was Christian who plays bass for the Pocket Co. it was still odd.  It set me up for a day of musical oddities that were all refreshingly good.  When I got to the Carlu, I had some difficulty getting in because it’s a pretty swank kind of place that has its own elevators (it’s located on the 7th floor of the building at College and Yonge) and you have to get buzzed up by the concierge folks of the Carlu itself.  Which means finding a small intercom tucked into a nondescript wooden box beside the elevators.  I wandered around for about thirty minutes trying to figure out how to break into this Fort Knox of a music venue before someone came down in the elevators looking for me.  Then I was whisked up, through a huge and swank art deco lobby that would have cost a couple thousand bones just to vacuum and could use twenty gallons of metal polish at a go, into an auditorium and onto the stage to sound check with the Pocket Co. for our show that evening.  The best part of the sound check was everyone asking for (and getting) their own vocal mix in their own monitor.  So many monitors.

After that I jetted over to Shawn’s house on the streetcar to set up for an interview and short performance that the Young Novelists were doing for BrockTV.  We picked Shawn’s living room to do the deed because it has a fireplace and a mural and what those in the business call “character”.  It was also pretty convenient for everyone, being right off College, relatively close to the Carlu.  While the fellow showed up for the filming and set up some very bright lights, Noel and I jumped in his car and went back to the Carlu because I’d forgotten to bring his amp over.  That was a mildly useless exercise though, since his amp only picked up some Spanish radio when we set it up at Shawn’s house.  We decided to go all acoustic, and played a few tunes (Damn All Those Critics and For The Record) and then gave the most sheepish and unprofessional interview I think anyone’s ever given in the history of internet-based TV.  Thankfully nothing was being webcast live, but I feel bad for whomever has the job of editing our monstrosity down to something watchable.

As soon as we had wrapped production on our version of Spartacus, I had to head back to the Carlu for the ACTRA awards, where the Pocket Co. was going to be playing a couple of songs during the ceremonies.  There was a line for the elevators because the doors hadn’t officially opened yet, but Laura and I strode imperiously past the line and a fellow with a clipboard checked my name on some list and up we went, waving so long to the suckers who actually had legit reasons to be at the ACTRA awards.  Well, I guess my reason was legit enough; still it was odd to have this pseudo VIP status.  We got up to the Carlu but nothing was going on in the green room so we strolled the lobby and, since the food was just starting service, we ate miniature foodstuffs from miniature plates.  Tiny hamburgers, bite-sized portions of high-quality macaroni and cheese, poutine spring rolls…it was pretty good food although I did feel like a giant who had stolen his meal from a Smurf wedding.

The actual performance was nothing special, we did all right (or, at least, I’ve played better for sure), but I remember looking up at one point and seeing a sea of people in auditorium seating and thinking that this was very very odd.  There were hundreds of people there, and here we were cranking out the rock and/or funk the same way we do in the Cameron House front room to three or four people every Sunday.  We were even dressed the same, cowboy shirts and jeans and such, and playing for people in their evening finery.  Afterward Colin Mochrie received an award for excellence and/or achievement and his speech was amazing.  I didn’t meet him, but as I was loading my drums in the loading dock elevator I did grab a couple of bottles of fruit juice.  I call that my award for excellence in achievement.

Our second show at the Winterfolk Festival was an early matinee on Valentine’s Day, which meant we got to set up fairly leisurely but it also meant that we were without Shawn because some things are more important than band junk.  Like ladies.  But with Shawn not taking up the acre of room he needs to swing his bass around, we did have more room on the stage and therefore more ability to do rock kicks.  Not that we did; it was a little early in the morning for rock kicks, even from me.  We did get to meet some of our drummer Mike’s family, who came in with kids in tow to watch us play our set.  The kids were awesome.  They danced briefly.

It was a decent show, but we all missed the third harmony part that Shawn does, and Jason was forced to admit that he normally listens to Shawn to tell when the next change is happening.  So we weren’t as tight as we were the night before, and there wasn’t as big a crowd, but those things kind of don’t matter and we played our nuts off and had a good time.  One of the volunteers that Laura & I had met on the meet’n'greet night for the festival, Nicola, came out to the show with her friend Liz.  It was a nice amount of international support: they’re both from Australia.  And after the show we bumped into them again at different venues because we were both taking in some of the shows and seeing some of the other acts that were playing.  I hadn’t had much chance to do that the previous night, and I even had to leave early to head to the Cameron House for the Pocket Co’s weekly residency show.

That show was a bit of an up-and-down show, as they sometimes can be.  We did do a version of “My Funny Valentine” that opened sounding like “Stairway to Heaven” in waltz-time.  It worked surprisingly well, considering we had never played it before.  Don Francks improvised a lyrical part in the end break, but we all came back in like we’d rehearsed it for months.  It was a nice moment for all of us.  Noel even played some guitar with us, ripping out jazz solos the same way Logan does, which is to say that they make it look easy even though it takes a ridiculous amount of skill.  For the most part I kept it simple, but there were moments where I took a crazy pill and played like a five-year old for a few bars.  The rest of the band sounded good, though, so we carried it off decently.

Afterward, Laura & I went back to the Winterfolk Festival and saw a few more acts.  I didn’t get to see most of the people that I would have wanted to see, mainly because of my schedule conflicting with the festival schedule.  I wanted to see Eric Fisher, Sue & Dwight, William & Polly again, and Ian Reid.  I got to see part of Ian Reid’s set, which was really good.  And most of the performances were, if not amazing, always very solid.  A lot of great harmonies, a fellow who played mandolin so fast it made me shake my head in amazement, and really attentive and good crowds of people.  Folk music seems to bring out the nice crowds.  The whole festival experience was pure awesome.

When we auditioned for the Winterfolk Festival, it was as a 4-piece folk set-up (that is, no drums, no piano) but since then we’ve been playing shows as a full roots-rockin’ kind of band.  So when we showed up at the Dora Keogh to play our first Winterfolk slot, there was some confusion as to whether or not we should even be allowed to go up with our full set-up.  I had e-mailed some administrative person from the festival with the information that we were a full band, and also with an updated picture.  I should have known that e-mail might not have made it through when the picture was never changed.  But I didn’t realize it would be such a hullaballoo to get the band on the relatively tiny stage at Dora Keogh.  We’re pretty used to setting ourselves up, including mics and all that jazz, and we can do it in about seven minutes flat.  And we’re also used to playing small clubs and/or living rooms and/or basements.  In fact, we kind of prefer it; when we get on a larger stage we seem to get lost and alone, and wolves start howling.

In any case, we did set up in fullness, thanks to the talented and hardworking volunteer folks who were working for the festival, and by the time we got on-stage the place was fairly packed with people.  It was Saturday night, and Dora Keogh is a pretty popular watering hole.  For some reason I’d decided to play “Scarecrow” first, which is a really quiet and soft and very folky tune; that is, there’s banjo in it.  Normally, playing quiet in a loud and raucous bar means no one pays attention, but when we started it became eerily silent.  I’m not sure why.  I’d love to say it was because of the song, but I think it was a much more social phenomenon.  Because of the production of cramming six musicians (well, five, Jason stood off-stage but his keys were on-stage) onto that tiny stage area (probably 10×6) it seemed like this was a real “event”.  So people were paying attention to the whole kafuffle and noticed when we started playing and decided to give it a chance.  Whatever the reason, there were upwards of 100 people watching us very attentively through that first song.

And eventually they drifted back to their conversations, but we did get a very nice reception, and for the most part people were watching us play and having a good time.  The sound mix was great, and everyone played really well, which is always necessary because I kind of need to be carried through most of the songs.  I’ve realized that the band makes a big impression, but if it was just me solo there would be nothing very special about it.  It’s a funny thing that after the show is done I usually get someone saying “great harmonies!” to me, and that is a wonderful compliment, but I really have nothing to do with the harmonies.  It was even more direct after the show last night because John, the lead singer/guitarist for Cities and Towns (for whom I play lead guitar of all things) said “you have an amazing band”, and while I couldn’t agree more, what I get from that is that it’s a compliment on my abilities to put a band together and then not get in their way too much.  Which is a certain skill, true, and I think it’s a huge and amazing compliment.  It makes me realize that I need these folks more than anyone else.  Thank goodness the Winterfolk organizers let us play as a band.

We got our feet wet with Chopper’s radio show in Ottawa, but it was just going to be Laura and I who would be on Trent Radio before the show at The Spill last night.  We got there early, much to the surprise of the host, James Kerr.  Apparently most bands aren’t that punctual, and/or they cancel out altogether.  Which surprised me; James chalked it up to the creative mindset warring with the notion of punctuality.  I’m not sure myself, but we were on time and that might be because, respectively, we have degrees in mathematics and chemistry.  Yep, we’re nerds.  But when we set up in the booth with James, he commented on the glockenspiel and melodica saying that he was a fan of eclectic instruments.  So maybe we’re not as straight edge as all that…just kidding.

We did play two songs live, one featuring Laura very gently plucking out her glock riff and the other with Laura rocking a melodica solo.  In between James was great about plugging the show and letting people know who we were and where we were playing that night.  That kind of shameless promotion is not our forte.  After the radio show was done we hiked it down to The Spill and set up our gear and waited for the other guys to arrive from their joe jobs.  The owner/booker, Dave, was a fantastic fellow and helped us out immensely.  Not the least of which by playing “The Last Waltz” on his TV.

The show itself was tough for us, on stage.  Maybe because we’d spent a few days apart, we weren’t really connecting with each other on stage and it was hard to find a balance for everything.  But I really have no way of knowing exactly what it sounded like for the audience, which is why I think you have to just take that sort of thing as something that just happens.  It’s hard sometimes, but for me it makes the most sense to not celebrate the victories nor wallow in the defeats.  Every show is its own beast to be tamed.  In a way.  I know it affects Laura, and we talked about it on the drive home.  She really enjoyed the show in Montreal, and I said to her that we’re the same band that played well in Montreal, despite not playing as well in Peterborough.  I don’t know if that sunk in.

Mike DuGuay and his band played afterward, and they cranked the volume in the place and really rocked and rocked well.  It was too much for some of the folks that came out for us (Laura’s parents, for example), but it sounded pretty good especially considering they had only rehearsed most of the songs that afternoon.  Sometimes having things be fresh like that can be invigorating.

This is what kind of band we are: we didn’t know last night was Superbowl Sunday.  But when we walked into the Rainbow Bistro, the Who was playing their half-time show and so we watched on the rinky-dink TV slung from the ceiling near the bar.  Then we loaded our gear onto the giant stage they’ve got, and put our cases back in the band room, and felt like hey, we’re a real band with a real stage and so forth.  Weird, wild stuff.  But what with it being the Superbowl and us not knowing a ton of people in Ottawa we weren’t sure what the turn out would be like.  It wasn’t amazing, but there were people there, and that’s all you need for a show.  Our friend Yaacov came out, and I haven’t seen him in so long that I didn’t even know he lived in Ottawa.  That’s one good thing about touring.

The other is crowd-surfing.  Or more seriously, I enjoyed Andrea Gauster’s opening set.  She has really grown in her confidence and abilities since I saw her last, and she’s always had a very comfortable stage presence so she just gets up on stage and is purely herself.  Which is harder than it seems.  She had us singing along to her songs, which is always a good sign.

I sympathize with sound people about trying to set up for us, because we present like a big ol’ rocking band but we really do folk it down and it’s hard to mix us I’m sure.  It’s hard for us to find our own relative comfort levels on stage.  We just aren’t used to playing large stages and large spaces, and the Rainbow Bistro is pretty large.  Having said that, the show wasn’t technically amazing but we had a good feel for things on stage and we were having fun with the songs.  Jason felt particularly good about the show, although I’m not positive why.  Maybe just because we had fun, which may have been due to a certain amount of tiredness.  Either way, you take the fun shows in stride with the bad ones.  It’s important to not let either one get to your head and do funny things inside there.  Everyone has the potential for a great show or a terrible one at any time.

After the show we had to trek it home so I could get to work.  I slept about three or four hours in the van and then we were back in Toronto and I drove to work because that’s the kind of musicians we are.  We haven’t quit our day jobs yet.

A week before we left on this mini-tour, Mike decided to see if he could get us a radio interview in Ottawa.  So today we woke up at 6:15 at my parents’ house in order to roll into Ottawa by 10AM so we could be on the show Canadian Spaces on CKCU 93.1FM with a fellow named Chopper, who once was asked to manage Stan Rogers.  We were…not nervous, but nervous.  And when we got there, I don’t think they expected five scruffy musicians (even Laura is scruffy sometimes) to pack into their Studio B for an interview plus some live folk music action.  Chopper is a fantastically scruffy fellow himself, who has had a radio show for 29.5 years at CKCU.  He has a full-on folk beard and coveralls and a pageboy cap and he is probably in his 60s.  He was pretty much awesome.

After the interview, which was a whirlwind of playing live, answering questions, and hearing some tracks from the album, Chopper invited us to brunch at Irene’s, which is where he always goes after his show.  We piled into the van and then piled into the restaurant, where Chopper and his radio show are well known and beloved.  People had listened.  It was only moderately disconcerting because during the performance I wasn’t thinking about how many people might be listening.  Maybe there were quite a few…and I’m pretty positive I said something stupid at least once.  In any case, Irene’s had an open mic afternoon so we decided to stay and play a few songs.  It was great, playing a second stripped-down set before 3PM had even rolled around.  And after we came off stage a woman named Chloe Perrault played three amazing songs with a voice like how Tom Waits would sound if he was a young woman.  We were wowed.

But we still had to drive to Montreal and play a show, so back we piled into the van and had a quick stop at Mike’s friend Pat’s house where we would be sleeping that night and some people had showers who needed showers and then we took the corduroy road to Montreal.  It was a seriously bumpy, pot-holy drive.  On our last tour Noel’s parents had to replace the suspension on their van to the tune of multiple thousands of dollars.  I cringed over every bump.  But we got to Montreal alive and well-tossed and set up in Shaika Cafe on their new stage that was almost big enough for all of us.  Jason had to be sidebarred.  We got a few cups of tea, and then played.  Maybe it was because it was our third show of the day or we were just getting very cosy on the small stage, but we really were listening well to each other and played a very decent show.  I played “I’m Not Worth Saving”, a solo piano tune from the third album of the double-album (yes, there’s a third album) that I’ve never played live.  It was shaky, but acceptable.  Much like I am in the sack.

It took Laura & me a bit too long to drop off the bass amp we had rented for the Waterloo show and get up to Noel’s house to pack up his parents’ Previa van and get on the road.  We were supposed to meet at 3PM; we got there at the crack of 4:15.  It was a stumbling block, it’s true, and mostly my fault because I’m a raging idiot when it comes to scheduling my time.  But we finally rammed the van to the gills and I crawled into the back seat and made a fort for myself out of musical instruments, and then we double-timed it to the highway.  En route, I was almost killed three times by Noel’s mandolin nearly cracking me in the temple.  That’s touring for you!

We were all a bit edgy trying to get to Belleville by 6PM, which was physically impossible, so we decided to show up around 6:50 and hustle our gear into the Organic Underground and set everything up as fast as possible.  The first act was supposed to start at 7PM, but rock shows never start on time and they started everything around 7:15.  Not too shabby considering I had made us all a good solid hour late.  After we had set up we saw Craig Cardiff, who I hadn’t seen in nearly a year, and he seemed his usual tired yet affable self.  He had let us in on the bill at the last minute, so we felt bad about showing up late and our huge amount of instruments compared to everyone else.  He was only concerned that the other performers didn’t get punched in the face by our full-on punk sonic assault.  We assured him our punk days were behind us, which is semi-true.

The first act was a 13-year old girl with guitar singing a couple of covers, and she had a very lovely voice and seemed surprisingly calm and cool on stage.  I didn’t play my first show until I was 20-ish and I had three heart attacks over the course of the set.  Confidence is something I always find impressive, and this young girl (I believe her name was Maya) did a great job.  Then Maya’s guitar teacher, Louise, came up and played a few tunes.  She had an old-school folkster vibe going on, with crazily precise fingerpicking and great melodies.  And she revealed, from the stage, that she was playing Winterfolk opposite us on the Saturday night.  So Winterfolk will be an old-fashioned folk throw-down, festival-style, on the streets of Toronto.

After Louise, we got on stage like a herd of musicians and potentially scared some folks.  It’s hard to know what to expect when six people cram themselves on a stage and get ready to play.  But they were amazingly attentive, and we started out with a quiet version of Older Bros. Never Listen and slowly built up over the course of the set.  It was a great room to play, and the audience was typical of a Craig Cardiff crowd: large, listening, and lovely.  We got a fantastic response from them, and played with a serious comfy vibe on the stage.  Everyone was trading looks, listening to each other, playing to the song…it felt good.

Craig, however, brought the house down.  As he was going on stage he said “Can I borrow your guitar?” and I think my guitar has never had a better show.  I tend to beat the music out of my guitar…I’m a drummer first, is my mentality.  Craig is a guitarist, and treated the instrument sweetly, and the crowd really dug it.  Afterward I told him it was a great show and he asked me what was good about it and, besides the great songs and stories and musicianship, I think the best thing about his shows is the vibe he gives.  He creates a bit of space where the audience can just relax, not have to think about the stresses of their lives, and they can just simply enjoy the music.  I’m a lot more chaotic, and I make a crowd restive, which is maybe a good thing or maybe a bad thing.  Either way, it was a great night of music.  The capper was getting some free grilled cheese sandwiches from Organic Underground, then heading to a bar called the Red Lion and hearing a sweet bar band rock some Doobie Brothers.  We stayed as long as we could, but we had to get to my parents’ house and hit the hay.  It was after 1:30 in the morning when we got to bed, but we slept like young novelists…and/or babies.

We were pulling into the parking lot of Maxwell’s Music House in Waterloo when I realized I had forgotten the bass amp and the guitar amp I had promised to bring.  Fortunately it was still barely 6:30 and when Laura and I rushed to the Long & McQuade they were open and willing to rent a bass rig to us even though we would have to return the stuff in Toronto.  We heaved a half-sigh of relief and got the bass to Maxwell’s but still didn’t have a guitar amp.  As we finished setting up the bass, Noel and Mike arrived and Noel reminded me that I did have his guitar amp; I had packed it two nights before and accidentally left it in my trunk.  I’ve never been quite so scatter-brained before.  It’s not a pleasant feeling.

What was pleasant was the entire rest of the evening, because both of the other bands were great and the owner of the venue, Paul Maxwell, was a super-sweet guy and had so much enthusiasm about us playing there again that it’s only a matter of time before we’ll be back.  We also got to see and hang with our friends Jamey, Donna, and Emma (for whom the song “Emma, Keep My Stuff (Safe)” is titled) and our new amigo Preetam from LAMA (Let Artists Make Art).  All good people, and people we hadn’t seen in a while.  From East to Exit was the first band, and they had a great tight sound that was surprisingly full for just being a three-piece.  They rocked some great instrumental sections in their songs, but they always knew exactly what they were doing with their arrangements.  Surprisingly mature for a group of guys barely 21.  The last band was Slocomotion and, unbeknownst to me when I was watching the show, their regular drummer couldn’t make it.  Instead, their bass player rocked the drumkit and a friend of theirs played bass.  I would never have known if the drummer (actually the bass player) hadn’t told me.  They had some great tunes, especially at the start of their set there were some high energy 70’s-style classic rockin’ songs.  And they were all really really skilled musicians.

We got sandwiched nicely between these two groups; a somewhat eclectic mix.  We played really quiet for the room, whereas the other two bands basically rocked out like the hounds of hell were on their heels.  Okay, maybe just the puppies of hell, but still.  We have been pushing ourselves to play quieter than before and it seems to be connecting well with people.  One of the things I hear after shows is how people enjoy the harmonies.  I think it’s semi-hilarious that I get compliments about the harmonies, because I have virtually nothing to do with the harmonies, but it’s very sweet all the same.  And possibly it’s the thing about us that sets us apart somewhat from other bands.  We really do work on those harmonies, and I have to give a lot of credit to Laura and Shawn (and even Jason) for working so much to get them just right.  When we rehearse I sort of stand back and let them duke it out over what’s going to happen, harmony-wise.  My only commentary is “Yeah, maybe don’t sing anything there”, otherwise we’d have non-stop harmonizing which, while awesome, can be overpowering.  In any case, the harmonies came through at the show last night and I was very proud of everyone for playing to the vocals.  I actually didn’t do a very good job at all, to be blunt about it, but I was basically carried through by everyone else’s really superb playing and vibeing with each other.  It’s a good good thing I have a band.

I took it a little too far away from the straight-playing last night.  These weekly shows with the Pocket Co. do give us all a chance to experiment a little bit, but that means sometimes the experiment goes awry and you end up with a face full of soot.  Anyway, I was playing a little too fancy last night and I need to take it back to a simpler groove for most of the songs.  This might all be a little too in-depth, navel-gazing over exactly what I’m doing on the drumkit.  You start to wonder if anyone really notices, except possibly that they notice that the song is feeling right, that the musicians are all getting into it, and that everything is gelling, or not gelling as the case may be.

In some sense my feeling is that you have to be a very harsh critic of yourself in order to improve.  But then, you also need to give yourself some space within which to try things and fail, otherwise you will be caught in a rut too easily.  When it comes right down to it, though, we just shouldn’t play the Woody Woodpecker Theme Song without charts.  It is great, though, to see very competent players get lost and try to talent their way back to the song somehow.  Logan, who plays piano, is an amazingly competent jazz/classical/rock/funk pianist.  He can play Beethoven’s Emperor Suite from memory, for the most part, and that’s ridiculous.  He clearly knows what he’s doing, except he didn’t have a chart for the Woody Woodpecker Theme Song and so he was really just playing by intuition, trying to find the chords and structure of the piece.  For the most part it held together, but there were moments where it fell spectacularly apart.  And probably the best thing to see was Logan flame out but then haul himself out of the ashes and suddenly play perfectly for a handful of bars.

Blame should be placed where it is deserved, and some of that blame lands square on my shoulders.  I was over-playing most of the songs last night, and that’s not cool.  More listening and less “jazz hands” is really the mentality I should cultivate.  At least after the show was finished I got to drown my sorrows in a healthy taco dinner with my friend Christy.  Tacos are the cure for what ails you, sometimes.