june 22, 2009
Monday june 22, 2009
10:32am
Little Chef, right beside the Travelodge in Middlewich
Let’s face it: any Whitney Houston is too much Whitney Houston. But god damn, I’ve heard more Whitney Houston on the trip than I heard in all of the 80’s. What the hell? There ARE other artists out there, like artists in the last 20 years … [insert rant here]
I’d like to start a radio banishment list, and it would begin with Whitney Houston. And then I’d add Michael Bolton.
end rant.
So here I am again at Little Chef. As the tour wears on, our sleeping schedules get increasingly unreasonable. So Zak has been sleeping in quite a bit, which is great – but when we’re at a Travelodge, as last night, where they don’t believe in having a lobby with seats where people can sit, well then I’m hard pressed for a place to go in the mornings, and there is, almost always, right nearby, a Little Chef. So here I am, waiting for my porridge and typing on the computer, well out of earshot of the sleeping boy.
Got to meet some nice folks at the festival yesterday – Liz, the organizer, who also sings and plays in a band. She’s got a nice little trio and they play stuff from the old American songbook. It’s a joy to listen to, and be reminded of old songs you’d forgotten.
And one of the main festival … well I’m not sure what her position is really but I know she was Liz’s right hand man, her name was Jo (sp?) and she lives in Cambridge. And actually I’d have met her the night before when we played Cambridge, but she was up here in Middlewich helping Liz with the festival. She also helps out with several others festivals I guess –she mentioned Cambridge and Ely and others. I don’t think she could have been more centered and grounded and calm, and just enjoyed watching her work and talk to folks. She was graceful and left a trail of calm in her path.
Jo introduced us to a fella named Brooks Williams, who was passing through town on tour himself. He’s a singer-songwriter from… somewhere in the northeast US. Didn’t get much a chance to talk with him as we were shortly called to the stage for our set, but I’ve seen his name around quite a bit over here and now am eager to look him online and hear his stuff.
I also met and chatted with Andrea Glass for quite a while. Found her to be completely free of pretense and I really enjoyed her. I didn’t get to see but a couple songs in her set, but we swapped cds and I’m eager to hear hers.
Also had a nice talk with Nigel, the guitarist of Thea Gilmore (he may be her bf or hubby too, I’m not sure). He was real sweet and we had an accidental good long visit at the very end of the day, as we stood there near the merch booth. Nigel produced Thea’s most recent cd, and he and I swapped cds as well. So I’m looking forward to hearing his work.
Today, we drive about an hour to Wolverhampton where we play The Robin. It’s a big, cavernous venue and it probably holds 500 standing. But what I recall most clearly is the sound system being really wonderful!! Looking fwd to that!
Time to go rouse the boy,
R