When i'm in New York for too long a stretch, I always get antsy. I start thinking about the open road, criss-crossing the country on Rt 90 and coming back on 80. Or heading down 95 to Atlanta or points beyond. Or even better, being on a road so obscure that even my new GPS unit gets it confused for a cow pasture (which did happen a couple of times in Montana).
But when I return home, I'm always reminded about why I love this city. It has a frenetic energy in the summertime. People are outside at concerts at bars just trying to beat the heat -- the heat in the city, especially if you live in a walk up, is somehow just a little bit grosser than other parts of the country.
As soon as I got home from driving I started going out every night, catching up with friends and seeing music. On Wednesday, I ended up at the Bowery Hotel which I was in when they were half-way through construction because my friend Corbin, who was the architect, took me on a little tour. It looked pretty swank all finished up.
Ben called me up and told me to come down -- Open bar, Elefant is playing right now and then Brazilian Girls. Ben opened the show with another singer whose name i don't recall at the moment, but he coincidentally forgot to call me in time to catch his set. hmmm. Anyway, I got there and the bouncer told me that they weren't letting anyone else in and it didn't matter that I was on the list. I called Ben and he snuck me in the side door. We walked into the hotel ballroom and immediately ran into Sabina from Brazilian Girls who is one of my favorite performers (I remember a gig they did at Nublu a couple of years back where she made a costume that made her arms look like they were 6 ft long which was amazing and hilarious because the place was so packed that she kept inadvertantly smacking people in the head) and Ben said she had just spent the last 40 minutes on her hair which she had fashioned in such a way to obscure her eyes a bit (which is her thing).
They were about to go on and when they started I saw that they had a new bass player. I looked a little bit closer and it turned out to be an old friend named Jason that I had played with briefly in the summer of 1995 in Vermont. The longer you stay in the music scene, the smaller it gets. So, that night I watched a private set from Brazilian Girls drinking free vodka from whomever the sponsor was. I also got to meet Ital Shur, who had played with Ben that night. He was the original keyboardist for Groove Collective which was one of my favorite bands of the 90's...and one of the reasons that I wanted to be in New York.
The next night was Aimee Mann at the Highline Ballroom. I've listened to her records for years but never seen her live. She was such a seasoned and amazing performer. I was blown away. She played for almost two hours and I was enthralled for all of it. Ben wanted to leave to get a burger, but I refused to leave until the end.
Then the next morning as I was eating my breakfast and flipping through Time Out, I noticed that Me'Shell was playing a free set a noon...in Brooklyn....right by my place! I had just enough time to put on a shirt and roll out to catch the bus over there.
I've seen Me'shell lots of times, It's always different but she rarely dips back into her catalog. It's almost always new stuff or new new stuff, which suits me fine because I'm into anything that she does. She had her core band with her that's been playing with her for a couple of years now - Mark Kelley on bass and Jason Linder on keys but she had one of my favorite drummers - Deantoni Parks behind the kit. His playing has so much energy and style that it elevates whatever music he's playing.
Me'shell was a little bit bewildered to be awake and in public at the tender hour of noon and it was completely disarming. Her stage personality is always a mixture of humbleness and stand-offishness that reminds me of what I imagine Miles was like but at noon in the park she was accidentally charming and without her usual armor. As I was leaving I ran into Maya Azucena who is one of my closest allies in the NYC music scene. She sings on my records and we've done countless shows together. She is in my estimation, the hardest working woman in show biz. She is always knee deep in five different projects. It was good catching up with her.
Last night, I spent playing ping-pong in the back of an Irish bar called Iona. I've been in that place a million times and never knew they had a huge back patio with a ping pong table. And then eventually we made our way over to Ben's roof which has a great view of the city. There was a DJ up there playing music and about 50 random people. I was talking with a singer named Samantha Stollenwreck who Ben is playing with this weekend at Gathering of the Vibes. We shared a bill together in SF a couple of summers ago...and now she's on Ben's roof.
So now it's Saturday. What's nex
