Caught up

So, I've been playing oodles of shows lately, but now I'm in a little lull and it occurs to me that I don't post much about the shows themselves. I will do that now:

The past few weeks I've played a couple shows at Fantasia, one of which was a rowdy Ladies' Night that featured two poets (Anna Wolff and Jessica Lohafer, who was brilliant and hysterically funny), a woman on the autoharp (Stephanie Kontournos) who played old folk songs and sang in this rich, throaty voice, Kat the Unsinkable and her gorgeous voice and me and my guitar and my tamborine.

After that I played at Three Trees, all on my own, and it was wonderful--a small audience but an enthusiastic one (which I'd take over huge and indifferent, thanks), and now I'm gearing up for another show at Fantasia on the 11th.

But here's the exciting thing: I've had more fun arranging songs now that I get to play for an audience regularly. Arranging? Yes. See, I am my own percussion section, which makes for a whole lot of fun as I figure out where I can possibly snap my fingers, pound a beat on my guitar, and so on. I play the tamborine with my foot, and now?

Oh yes. Now:

I'm playing the egg shaker. Which means, at the craziest points, I am playing the egg shaker, the guitar and the tamborine, while also singing. It is such a weird rush--like amateur juggling. Inevitably I'll drop something, but what? And when?

Mostly I practice all this in my bedroom, yelping in frustration and laughing at myself in turns, which then starts Mitch laughing at me as I keep each song going for so long and then fumble, and the whole mess comes crashing down. It's great. It's especially colorful after a few glasses of wine.

So on the 11th expect color--a few new songs and one very, very old one (written when I was 16 and recently revived--and revised), and a new trick or two. I'm stupidly excited.

But all this is to say nothing of the lovely and bizarre encounters I've had with audience members--that is possibly an entry unto itself. No, it definately is. That will come later.