Yesterday was Friday and that means therapy. Does everyone look forward to therapy as much as I do? Is it good or bad that I enjoy it? I hope it’s good. The therapist does challenge me and give me homework. She helps even when I’m not at therapy. The two main ways I process my life is imagining how I would talk about it with my therapist and how I would blog about it. My Gentle Readers help me too. I have always processed my life through internal dialogues with others. It’s a way of challenging my own assumptions. Before therapy and blogging the discussions would be with friends. For large periods of time I haven’t had friends I could have those kinds of talks with so I’d mentally talk to friends that I no longer talked to in real life. Now that I have alternatives I find I can no longer do that.
Why do I think about these things on days I did something worth writing about and not on the days I have to search for things to write about? If I try and save it for one of those days I forget it.
My idiot story occurred early in the day. My default Friday plan in May and June is going to the Sunset Singing Circle led by Terre Roche. As my back has enough problems under the best of conditions I bring my stadium seat when I leave the house. I spent the morning thinking about singing and planning my day. After I left the house and started walking to the train station I realized I forgot the seat. I did not have time to go back and get it. That means sitting on the yoga mats that Battery Park City provides the circle singers. They are great but don’t give me back support. I wouldn’t let that stop me from going but I’d pay for it later and need to ice my back when I got home.
When I was waiting to catch the bus to the Harrison train station after therapy I checked my messages. I had one from Kaia Kater. I had sent her an email earlier in the week asking her if I could merch her show at Flushing Town Hall Friday night. I never heard back so I planned on going to the singing circle. Kaia hadn’t seen the email till yesterday; she did and asked if I could still come. That was an easy audible to make. I’m not going to miss a full-length show from Kaia. I have never seen her do one, the best I’ve seen is a split bill at Carnegie hall.
I lived most of my life in Queens, technically within walking distance of Flushing Town Hall, not that I ever walked there. It was a long walk and I had no reason to walk there. I have never been in the building. For most of my life it was an abandoned graffiti-covered wreck. I remember them discussing renovating it, that was 25 years ago, but somehow I never knew they finished the renovations and the Hall was in use. I dreamed of programming concerts there not knowing they were going on. Last night was my first time in the building. It’s great. If anyone is looking for a place to play that holds 350 people I highly recommend it. It’s beautiful, the staff is exceptional, and it’s not far from the 7 train and Long Island Railroad. There are loads of great Asian restaurants in the area.
I set up the merch in the give shop then headed upstairs to the theater. Before the concert Kaia gave a workshop on body percussion. I missed the start as I was setting up and didn’t want to join in the middle. Rhythm is my weakest area of musicianship; I can’t start from behind. Too bad, it looked like so much fun. She even had people doing syncopation.
The audience was far more ethnically diverse than most places you’ll hear folk music. Like Queens it was majority minority. As it was Flushing there many East Asians, South Asians, Muslim women in with covered heads, Hispanics, and just about everything else.
Many people are regulars at Town Hall that didn’t even know Kaia. A venue that has its own draw is an amazing resource. They help by having a membership plan that gives discounts. I’m not sure if it’s every show but high school students attended for free. How did this diverse crowd react to Kaia? They loved her. I enjoyed people telling her how much they loved discovering her almost as much as I enjoyed the music. It’s a great feeling when you meet people discovering something you already have a passion for. I kvelled for Kaia. I love saying “kvelled for Kaia.” When she wins a lifetime achievement award that’s what the event should be called. Somebody write that down.
Kaia is a young Canadian woman that I met at NERFA. Carter told me to look out for her. My first encounter was not with her music but with her. She was trying to find David Amram for a mentoring session. I helped her hunt him down. I knew I liked her as a person before I knew I’d love her music. But I did love her music. She was one of my top discoveries of that conference. I could see she was something special. What I didn’t see is how special.
Back then this Canadian girl with a Grenadian father was going to college in West Virginia to learn Appalachian music. Someone in the audience last night asked her why? She did not have an answer and said she’d have to research it. Good answer! That’s the way music works, our background does not determine what we love. Music does not know from our genes and heritage.
That first time she was playing old time tunes on the banjo and doing foot and body percussion. I love old time tunes and body percussion so of course I loved Kaia. She did it so well. But since then her musical horizons have expanded. Her music is ever evolving. Her most recent album is based on her father’s experiences in the Grenada during the revolution and the subsequent US invasion. The music is nothing like Old Time. Her singing style is nothing like Old Time. Much of what she sings reminds me of Nina Simone. She does one song with her band that’s traditional French Canadian. Her creativity goes where it wants, not where marketing says it should go. I get the same feeling about her that I get from Rhiannon Giddens and Anaïs Mitchell, that she can do whatever she puts her mind to.
Last night it struck me how different my experience with her would have been if I had heard her before I had met her. If all I knew was her singing on the radio the same thing would have happened as with Madeleine Peyroux. I would have pictured her as middle-aged, perhaps late middle-aged woman who has experienced the world for decades. Her voice and her songwriting give that impression. The reality is that she is this delightful young woman that comes off as even younger than she really is. She’s filled with useful enthusiasm and light-heartedness.
After the show I sold merch and then hung out. One gentleman walked into the gift shop where the merch was and he looked familiar to me. I couldn’t place him and figured he just had one of those faces. Then he heard me talking and came over. He asked if I used to host house concerts in Bayside. He went to see Lipbone Redding at my house! His name is Phil. We talked for a long time and discovered we had a lot of things and many people in common. Now that we know each other I’m sure we’ll run into each other; we share some of the same haunts. I love how small the folk world is.
I ended up staying out much later than I planned. I talked to Phil and Kaia for a long time. Fortunately a miracle occurred, the trip home went well. I had no wait for the 7 train. I did for the D but it ran without delays. I was home in less than an hour and a half
I got home late and it took a while for me to get settled in to go to sleep. I woke up too early in the morning and went back to sleep and was able to do so. I surfed the wave between wakefulness and sleep for about three hours. That’s always pleasant. I had many dreams. The only thing I remember is strange. Rachel Trachtenburg kept appearing and eating a sandwich. We hardly interacted; she was just there eating something between two slices of white bread with some lettuce sticking out. Rachel is one of those Brooklyn people that I have not seen nearly enough of since I’ve moved to the Bronx. Why did I dream of her? I mentioned the Rachel and the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow players to Phil and Kaia. That was enough to plant the seeds. It was current adult Rachel, not child Rachel from the slideshow players in the dream.
Today I’m taking it easy. Tomorrow I’m off to see Bobtown at Rockwood. They are having their Release Show for Chasing the Sun, their brand-new album. The CDs were delivered yesterday. You should go so you can be the first one on your block to own one. Unless of course you are on my block. In that case it will be a tie.
Wise Madness 