So - Cape May was both awesome and frustrating (and, oh, yeah, 10 days ago). I met some "industry people" who were very helpful, supportive, and otherwise really self-affirming. One of the songwriters who listened to my song "How Do You Spell l.o.v.e.?" asked me how much I liked The Who. I was a little confused, said a lot, and consequently was listening to the beginning of the rockopera Tommy the other day and I totally could have written that. Even the little triplets that Pete Townsend rocks on the acoustic guitar? I do that!
At the hotel bar, met Berg (
www.myspace.com/berg ), Dave (
www.myspace.com/davetamkin ), Steve (who I’m sure has a myspace but I dont know it) and Ryan (
www.myspace.com/ryanmillermusicspace ). Hung out with them for a while - they are pretty good...no they arent they are AWESOME guys. We were drinking, talking shop, trading CDs, and at some point realized we needed dinner. at a lobster place. THEN we decided we were rock stars. We stopped at the bar for drinks, hung out with the bartender, we talked a lot to the hostess (sorry if we embarrassed you Brooke), the waitresses, the people at other tables around us, ordered more drinks, more apps, more lobsters (which of course the boys from Chicago were amazed at East Coast lobsters - I promised them more when they got to Boston), more drinks and had an all-around awesome dinner. That pretty much was the best part of the whole trip. I do hope that at some point I will get to hang out for an extended period of time with those guys.
My show went -eh-ok- I was playing at a place that might have been a body double for Bertucci’s and I was tucked in a corner next to the pizza oven. I guess the sound was ok and out of the 100 or so people there I’m pretty sure about 4 were paying attention. Old Man Cactus (
www.myspace.com/oldmancactus ) was on ahead of me, and they were pretty good but I kept calling them "those Cactus boys" for I thought it was witty...either way they were some pretty amazing musicians (piano and sax) who jammed with me on "Year" and "Fantasy" and both sounded awesome. The rest of my set was merely decent and I was getting somewhat shy talking to people afterwards, and I didnt want to drink too much cause I had to drive back to the hotel...so I left. Quickly. Unfortunately my quickness was noticed by the Cape May police. SO I got a speeding ticket, which I deserved, a run-down of all the sobriety tests there are (yes, I counted backwards from 77 to 62 and recited (not sang) the alphabet and walked nine steps forwards and backwards toe-to-heel and passed them all with seemingly flying colors) which I think I didnt deserve, got back to my hotel and was just annoyed, went to bed, and woke up later than I wanted to to head back to Boston. Which, of course, put me later getting home, so I rushed around and could not for the life of me find my phone.
So - it was positive until about 10PM...and then after that was ok...and then went bad...and then the drive home wasnt too bad - it was sunny. But you know, I’m very lucky. In general, in life, in my friends, in that I can play music...there was a car that put it all in perspective for me. A station wagon with PA plates and I were passing each other pretty much all the way through NJ and CT packed like a kid was moving into his dorm and it had a bald 12-or-so-year-old in the passenger seat with a "cancer sucks" bumper sticker on the back of the car.
Damn lucky. only ok shows? not that bad. speeding tickets? not that bad. Good friends? Good food? Good times? Life in general? lucky AND good.
peace,
Dann