I had another pre-pandemic typical day. Yesterday’s adventure was going to Common Ground Coffeehouse to see The Murphy Beds. Even though they are a pain for the carless to get to shows at Common Ground are home games; I’m one of the volunteers. It helps that Carter’s taste is the closest to mine of any local presenter. The next show is Robinson and Rohe and you know how much I love them. Common Ground had to find a temporary home as their old one, the First Universalist Unitarian Society of Westchester in Hastings-on-Hudson was wrecked by a flood of biblical proportions. Fortunately, Carter made an ark and was able to save two of each kind of folk singer. For now, they are operating out of the South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry. Hastings and Dobbs Ferry are both River Towns on the Hudson. On the bright side they are beautiful and the train ride there is incredibly scenic. The problem is that I live on the Harlem Line, and it takes me a half an hour to get to the Hudson Line, longer at night. I need a ride from either train station. Fortunately for me Elana, another volunteer lives near the Harlem line and has a car so she was able to pick me up and drive me back to the station. My entire travel time is about the same as how long it takes me to get to Hudson Line.
There’s an idiot story. Common Ground hosts a few shows every year at Irvington Town Hall. Even though I knew full well that last night’s show was at Dobbs Ferry, and even discussed which room the show would be in when I imagined my trip there, I was thinking of Irvington. There is a great barbecue place a few blocks from Town Hall and that was where I planned on having dinner. I should have brought dinner with me. Luckily Elana also needed dinner, so we picked up Chinese take-out. I had General Tsao’s chicken. Have all My Gentle Readers picked up that I always tell you what I ate? This is really my food blog and everything else is filler.
I was delighted to find that the show was a sellout. We had to scrounge up more chairs. Nobody knows what to expect in the pandemic age. Which is the overriding factor, pent up demand or COVID-19 caution? Pent up demand won the day. We required proof of vaccination with ID and wearing a mask. I did an informal survey, and more people will stay away from a show for not requiring a vaccination and mask than requiring them. It might be different in other parts of the countries and other demographics, but not for the New York area folk audience. It’s an educated and older population.
This was my second time seeing the Murphy Beds, Jefferson Hamer and Eamon O’Leary in the last few months; they played the House of Love in Brooklyn on October 8. Good thing I love them and are happy to see them often. I have always felt that they don’t look like you’d expect from their sound. They sing sweetly but look rugged. Jefferson has always reminded me of Rod Picott. What’s stranger is that I don’t usually like sweet sounding singers, especially men. It’s so easy fall into treacle, a trap that Jefferson and Eamon (rhymes with Raymond without the D) keep clear of. Their songs always have substance. They sing Irish and American traditional music along with their own compositions. Can you figure out which one is from Ireland from their names? It took me most of the evening for me to realize that I could take advantage of that. I have to record Gord’s Gold today and didn’t know how to pronounce one of the songs, Siobhan Ni Dhuibhir. You might recognize Siobhan as the correct spelling of Chivon. Ni is easy, it’s knee as in the Knights that Say Ni. In modern Irish Ni became O’. I was clueless about the last name. I tried looking it up online and found two totally different pronunciations Dwyer and Gweer. I realized I could ask Eamon. He said it wasn’t easy at there are regional differences, but he’d say Ihver. That makes sense as the bh is pronounced v as in Siobhan. This is what happens when monks with nothing else to do come up with the rules of spelling. It comes from the same place as the whimsical doodles in the margins of monastic Irish manuscripts.
I had my usual job selling merch. That’s a natural as I’m usually familiar with the music. I have played the Murphy Beds on Gord’s Gold multiple times. I also sold the Common Ground Cookbook which I contributed to. For some reason people tend to be more interested in the musicians that contributed. Chanukah starts Monday night and Christmas is only a month away; the book makes an excellent gift. Buy it now directly from Common Ground. All profits go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Buying it as a gift is a double mitzvah blessing both the recipient and those with Parkinson’s disease. You can also tell people, “I got this recipe from Dar Williams.” You’ll be that much cooler.
After the show Elana drove me back to the train station. I just missed the train but as they come every half hour that wasn’t that bad. After that it’s an easy walk home. It was a successful evening all around, I got to hear great music and hang out with my friends. Now I better get cracking, I have to do laundry, go shopping, and record Gord’s Gold. I leave for Massachusetts on Tuesday.
Wise Madness 