I told my therapist something that turned out to not be true. I told her that I’d blog right after our session, before I catch up on the TV I’ve missed or eating, because I’m trying to get back in the habit and I want My Gentle Readers to know how important they are to me. I didn’t do that. Even though the session went great I realized that I was too tired to write when we finished. Procrastination is one of the main things I’m combatting in therapy, there is an irony to this. I feel guilty. I intellectually know you aren’t hanging on my every word, but I feel like I let you down. I hate letting people down.
I didn’t even cook a proper dinner. For the first time in years, I ate a frozen prepared dish, a Jamaican spicy beef patty. I love those that is not cooking. It’s defrosting in the microwave for 45 seconds and then putting it the toaster oven for five. I went full Caribbean and had fried plantain with it. This might not have been real cooking, but it was delicious. Now on to real content, live music.
My plan on Thursday was to go directly from school to see Youth in a Roman Field, at the Mercury Lounge. Doors were at six and I get out of school at 4 so I figured that it didn’t make sense to go home in between. I tried to give thrifting one more shot and went to the Housing Works thrift shop in the Lower East Side. It was expensive. Why should I spend over $20 to get a used shirt. They hardly had any pants. It’s back to Marshall’s and Amazon for me.
I still had lots of time, so I went for a sit-down dinner. I used Google and saw that there was a Grey Dog nearby. That has nothing to do with Grey’s Papaya. It’s a small local chain that I had read good things about. It is one of the hundreds of places that serves what some magazine calls the best burger in New York. I gave myself the extra treat of sitting inside. It wasn’t busy, I was the only customer, it was only 5 PM. The break was exactly what I needed after school and shopping and before a show at a standing venue. The burger and fries were delicious and the waitress lovely. One nice thing about having a job is being able to afford to tip well.
I still had time and realized that I was on Mulberry street and had walked past a church we had eaten across the street from when I went on the Cannoli Crawl. Now I wanted a real Sicilian Cannoli. My favorite cannoli place from the crawl closed because of the COVID-19 lockdown. I was not dismayed as one of my defining characteristics is that I often have a guy for any area of expertise. For cannoli and all-things Sicilian that’s the leader of the Cannoli Crawl, the fabulous Allison Scola herself. I called her and she could talk! She of course knew where to go, Mulberry and Broome. I headed straight there. Then I became Buridan’s Ass, there were two cannoli places there. I took a picture of the one that said, “Best Cannoli since 1878 (date a guess)”, texted it to Allison and asked if that was the right one. Unfortunately, she was on the phone, and I didn’t get a response. I went to the one I took the picture of. That was the wrong one of course. It was good but as soon as I took a bite of the cannola and knew that it wasn’t the one that Allison meant. Later she got back to me and confirmed my educated cannoli palate’s conclusion. As I went on the cannoli crawl, I am now a certified cannoli connoisseur. Next time I am in the neighborhood I’ll go to the right one. I need more cannoli in my life.
Then I made my way to the Mercury Lounge for the show. I was surprised at how tight the security was. We had to go through a metal detector. My timing was terrible. As I said the Merc is a standing venue but there are some benches on the side. The front benches, the ones where you can still see the stage were taken. I had to be a back bencher and I still had to wait for the music to start.
I got up for the opener but was not enthralled so I went back to my seat. The best part of having a seat was that it gave me a place to put my coat and bag. I got up near the end of her set so I could get a prime standing position for Youth in a Roman Field. I am good at worming my way to the front of a standing crowd. It was not difficult there as standees avoid the benches, I could walk down a de facto aisle.
YiaRF is a project of Claire Wellin who is also the lead vocalist and violinist of the Indy Rock band San Fermin. They are well worth a standing show even after a day of teaching. It looked like there was only one other person there above 40 and he was sitting on a bench. I hope I never have to give up standing shows. Twenty years ago, I had friends my age say they were too old for them. What makes them worth the effort? They are the antithesis of my bête noire, nice people singing nice songs nicely. Claire’s songwriting is non-fungible, nobody else could write her songs. She has a viola in the band! My second instrument, accordion was first. I don’t know if Claire went to a conservatory, I should, but she writes conservatory folk music. It’s not quite chamber folk, it’s too edgy. It creates a feel in me that I wish I could explain. It is the song that sirens, it feels like it’s coming from under the water. It doesn’t sound like it. The sensation it creates defies my vocabulary but is as high a praise as I can give. Do yourself two favors. First buy their new album, Get Caught Trying, then go see them in concert. I’m going to make this easy, you can listen right here.
Now I have to get to work on Gord’s Gold. I migrated all my music from OneDrive to Dropbox. In the process many, perhaps most of the files lost their metadata. Then it gets mysterious. If I copy and paste the file, the metadata returns. I need the metadata to show up on Windows Media player so I can prepare my show. I’m in the process of copying and pasting all of my music. I have a few songs programmed but I need more and have to finish by tomorrow morning when I record. Oh great, the file transfer froze. I see how I’m spending today.
At least last week’s show is available for streaming on demand, and you can listen right here. The sixth song is Madison by Youth in a Roman Field. They played that to open the show, about 45 minutes before you could hear it on Folk Music Notebook. I base what I play purely on how react to the song. I don’t know what other DJs think. I feel validated when the artist agrees with my taste. Before you close this page listen to Get Caught Trying and Gord’s Gold.
Wise Madness 