Blues for breakfast please. And for dinner too.

This photo was taken a few weeks ago. My feet and my dog play a starring roll you can tell. No, the frog takes center stage in this frame, panting heavily in the afternoon sun, un-able to move itself from its resting place in the middle of a local forest road. We placed it safely near its contemporarys on the other side of the road in the direction that it was heading. There was a small woods pond filled with these creatuers screaching away as they do so well, and lets just say, this frog had a mate waiting. Maybe several. That day every frog had 8 legs...

     I have begun playing guitar with a friend of mine who plays in severals bands, performing regularly. Playing guitar is nothing new for me, but playing with others is not something that always happens frequently. He is very talented and it makes me want to be so much better! That is exciting, to do well with your playing, but at the same time be inspired to play more, and to play better than you do. He is making his living playing music which is also inspiring because this is one of my life goals. We are hoping to write some material over the summer and play some shows together.

    We have been having some conversations admist our practicing about playing and performing music as a business. It is decided that one of the major social challenges that arises, is being accepted by people as having a "real" or "legitimate" job. The skill that goes into being a musician takes years of hard work and effort, just as much as everyone elses profession, even more so than some! I find it hard to tell people often times that I'm a musician and want this to be my money making living, and not getting laughed at, or criticized, even by people who you would normally thing of as supportive of creative endevors. This criticisim also comes from people of every age and backround, not that I'm continually faced with it, but the memories of these negative encounters has built up over the years. My friend has had similiar experiences, and he's the one out of the two of us that is actually doing what I want to be doing!

     So don't go harpin on those that play the blues for their bread! They are a hardworking kind. And if you're the one doing the trashtalking, your almost guaranteed to be immortalized in song at some point in time. And remember too, that those songs are the ones you turn on the sterio when you're driving down the road sad as hell, or having a rocking good time on a Saturday night, and that those songs were written by the hardworking musicians that surround us everday. And till 2:00 am too.

Farming Again

So in my last couple of posts I think I failed to mention that my farming work has begun again for the season. I work on a small (2 working acres) organic vegetable farm. There are goats and chickens that live there and run around too, but not for the purposes of the people that buy produce for the farm. This is my 3rd year working up the road and around a couple bends where the farm and it's people live. The first week was difficult getting back into the rythm after so many months of doing less activity. This season I haven't had as much of a roll in doing the seed planting which involves mixing compost, organizing seeds, making seed blocks and squinting as hard as the eyes can to see the small lettuce dots that litter ones hands. I have been doing a lot of transplanting the past two weeks. The first large project being getting all of the onions and shallots in, which when it was all said and done consisted of well over a thousand plants.

     I've also been working on planting lettuces and cabbage, potatoes, broccoli, squash and tomorrow a bunch more of the leafy types. Today we worked on potting up tomatoes and eggplants in the green house, placing the 2 inch seed blocks into wider and deeper pots. So now they can expand themselves, loosen their belts and drink up. It will help their figures.

    It was raining hard this morning and last night so we kept our work confined to the brightly lit hoop house. It always impresses me how dark our homes are when you are standing in a greenhouse and the sun is nowhere to be seen outside, but under the plastic material you're transported to a warmer and brighter land. Granted all of the plants are smaller than normal, and you dwarf everything around you...Tiny seedlings are very humbling.

Pacman and Packin and the Bands

The middle of the week was spent hosting some great musicians (from my last post) who needed a place to stay during a rest over day from their tour. Heres to the long Haul, hauled it back from Providence, managed to get my phone number from a friend, and called at 11:30 pm hoping for somewhere to stay. They hung out for a couple days, played some music, relaxed, went hiking, and had a show on WHUS  with Washboard Pat that we hooked them up with. It was great to get to know the guys, get to hear them play more, and to make a southern musical connection. 

       Todays picture is from a lovely seller on etsy that you can find here on misterrob. I love this kind of artwork.

    So far my weekend has consisted of a lot of cool and un planned events involving music. First a friend of mine at WHUS radio invited me and Truckman to see a free thats right FREE blues show at Black Eyed Sally's in Hartford. A real cool music venue that has a lot of primarily rock and blues shows that I've always wanted to go to. WHUS was sponsering a live broadcast of this band The Delta Generators that hail from CT and just competed in the International Blues Challenge in in Memphis TN, and they came out as one of the top 10 bands out of hundreds from all over this country and elsewhere. The concert took place at 10:00 am and was broadcast live as an advertisement for a show that they are doing this Saturday at 9:00 pm same venue, same town, same good music. Killer guitar playing, loose and groovin drums, an excellent bassist, and the voice that comes from Craig Rawding is big and booming, you can tell that it comes easily from his gut. I'm coming to find that a lot of the singer I like the best have this quality of big vocals that come from a deeper place than just sitting in the throat. 

    After the show in Hartford we drove to the Reggae Fest at Wesylan University. It always seems that events at Colleges are poorly attended, as the afternoon wore on attendance picked up a bit. Some musical aquaintances of ours, a couple of musicians from Club D'elf performed and were great as usual. If you check ou the link above to Reggae fest you can look at the other bands as well. Buru Style was big but tight, we left partway through their set. 

     To top off the night we bought a boxing match on the tellie (yes I'm a rather large and very closet boxing fan) between Manny "The Pacman" Pacquio and Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton. It ended in a second round knockout with Hatton laying in the ring. Tough fight to watch, but I can't beleive their athleticism and dedication. Thats always worth watching no matter what sport it's in if you ask me.