Hey Hartlist,
I realized the other day that whenever someone asks me “What’s up?” I think that I need to respond with, like, a long list.
Here’s a short one:
JUST THE GIGS MA’AM
This SUNDAY, 8/28, 4PM- The Chrysalis 64: MEA CULPA
the solo livestream series on YT, FB, Insta
SAT 9/24 6PM - Brooklyn Americana Music Fest
live band outdoor show in the Dumbo Archway
FROM THE CHRYSALIS
If you’re just joining us here (welcome!), ‘The Chrysalis’ was a livestream concert series that I suddenly found myself playing every single Sunday in 2020 (and beyond). It surprised no one more than me; it wasn’t something I’d have expected myself to do. At the time I was someone who basically broke out in hives at the mention of “self-tape” or “internet presence” and had never appeared live on the internet for any reason, at least not on purpose. I just remember that as the lockdown began and everyone went into their own form of panic or coping, I suddenly heard myself announce that I’d be singing online Sunday at 4 and see you there. It wasn’t really a decision, or a “pivot”, or what have you. It just seemed like what had to happen. I played one set, and I sang directly into my computer without a mic, and my guitar sounded like it was being played at the bottom of a well filled with hand sanitizer, and I didn’t know where to look, and people listened anyway and I enjoyed it. And then I played 52 more shows more or less consecutively, and then a few more, and Sunday will be the 64th.
(I should probably do “when I’m 64”, huh? Nah, too obvious.)
In the grip of a writers’ block, I started feverishly curating and learning cover tunes both sublime and ridiculous and organizing them around a weekly theme a la This American Life. Then I started memorizing poems because I missed acting. A small audience came back every week. I learned to use a mic and some other audio equipment. It still sounded bad. Then it got better. (Right?) I made charts and learned guitar parts, over and over, two things I also did not do much before. I once spent two days straight in quarantine learning to sing Joni Mitchell’s goodbye pork pie hat, stopping only for meals. More poems, plus Shakespeare and dad jokes went into the mix. For a few months I had special guest every week. I dressed up like that Bernie Sanders meme once, and wore angel wings for the …Valentines show? That can’t be right.. and recited The Highwayman on Halloween and read the entire text of Dr. Seuss’ Sleep Book for the second ‘Kids’ show (and I’d do it again in a heartbeat). I once segued from “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” directly to Barrel House Annie’s “If it don’t fit don’t force it” and I’m as proud of that as I am of any of my smarter life choices. When my extended family ‘pod’ went out of town in the summer I made my little cousins/niblings come online and sing “All Together Now” and “This Land Is My Land” for the July 4 set. I think (?) I would have done it even if no one listened, but you did and that’s really a lot better. Oh, and I started writing a weekly letter to this mailing list, mostly about the theme of the week, or whatever I thought it was going to be, or whatever the hell was going through my head in quarantine. I thought I was mostly talking to myself. Some of you wrote back. That was cool. I kept doing it. I stayed sane, maybe even got saner. Thanks for that.
Me, obviously not in my living room, but playing a song I wrote about playing songs in my living room alone for a year.
I’ve probably said all this to you before. Not sure why I’m feeling so “looking back…” tonight. Maybe end of summer vibes.
Anyway, we’re all out and about now and going to the theatre and music venues and living life and barely even wearing masks on an airplane, thanks again Greece, but I still feel the need to jump online and sing for you now and again. Hope to ‘see’ some of you this Sunday at 4. No promises, but I may have some of those really cute special guests with me.
And I’ll see some of you IRL at *6PM* on September 24, under the Dumbo Archway. The Brooklyn Americana Fest will be an outdoor set featuring members of both the Wrong Band and the Dirty Waltz Band of yore, and there’s a message in there about past and present selves mixing to create future ones but I can’t find it and I’m fine with that. There’s a time and a place for thinking and talking, but then it’s time to shut up and play.
See you sunday,
RH