The back of the jack . . . et. Of Print Runs and Bits and Bytes
Earlier this month we unveiled the front cover. Here’s the reverse, including the track listing (if the text is too small, clicking on the picture will open it at its original size):
Not too much to say about the art. I used the “moon” (it’s actually a doctored street lamp bloom) from one of the layers on the front cover and hollowed out one of the crows.
I’m not really spoiling any guests except Mike Ward, who played piano throughout Fireworks at the Carnival, returns to play organ for us on “Put on the Brake.” Mike now plays in several great bands in the area, including June Star and the Egg Babies Orchestra, the only cover band that I have paid money to see multiple times.
The more interesting part is at the bottom, because it says what the print run is: 300. Read more…
Pics from the Sunday Songwriter’s Songfest (Frederick Coffee Company, Frederick, MD)
It was our first time playing in Frederick, and it was a great experience: The coffeehouse was full, the other performers were excellent, and I guess most importantly, people seemed to enjoy hearing us play. It was my first time seeing the wonderful Michelle Murray, who let me sit in with her on mandolin on the world’s happiest murder ballad). Leify Green (Lief Huber) had a great story, to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” about how he got saved from the Mafia by learning two hours of Christmas music in one day.
Our host, Todd Walker, took these photos.
There was a lot of candy behind us - very distracting. That speaker stand IS a speaker! Crazy.
oh, hey, that's all three of us. We did three part harmony for the first time ever. This was during "Let Me Go." I know because there's a noose around my neck.
Andy actually looks like he's standing still when you see him in person. However, he vibrates his face at superspeed to avoid being photographed. Microphones are much better behaved.
We played a short set that was very unusual in that it contained two of Jen’s originals: “Undertide” (I played guitar on this and Andy played mandolin) and “Dream Vacation.” Jen has played the latter at many shows. The other songs we chose for the afternoon were “Fairest of Them All,” “Let Me Go,” “Danny, They Say I’m a Coward” (it was nice to play this after almost 6 months of leaving it out of set lists), and “Don Quixote’s Deathbed Conversation with Sancho Panza.”
Pictures from A Flamboyance of Flamingos
Photo credits to Angela Horner, who organized the event. We helped raise $300 for Health Care for the Homeless at the door. The Mostaches for Kids’ Stache Bash was held the same night, so the place was packed.
Angela Horner (front and center) with friends John, Marie, and Phillip. Poets around town doing some greater good!
Peeeooooplllleeee. (Mike Ward, piano player extraordinaire, is on the couch to the far left. Them's poets in front.
I want to see the dim lights tonight.
Andrew Luttrell with his mandolin and a poster.
Hey, look! It’s the new album art and title.
This is a composite photograph (put together with careful editing and layering in photoshop) of over a dozen pictures taken around my neighborhood (Northwood) and downtown Baltimore at Guilford Avenue and Saratoga Street.
There were several things we wanted the art to accomplish: Read more…
Food Defuses the Funk
Something that I go through pretty much any time I finish a large creative project is a period of depression and apathy with what I’m going to call “completion anxiety.” Some creative types experience an inability to let things go. I just sort of say, “Oh. That’s done. What else is there?” And sometimes when there isn’t something else, I start to get a little depressed.
The apathy is the worst part. It’s hugely inconvenient for promoting a newly completed project, and even worse with my fiction, which I just can’t get into the habit of submitting repeatedly to different publishers. Partly it’s just that it no longer weighs heavily on my mind, I suppose. Partly it’s the sting of rejection, which even after a 11 years of submitting writing I can’t seem to stop taking personally. (I keep a drawer full of rejection slips, but I’m not happy about it.) The only thing I’ve ever had published was in the Chesapeake Reader, which apparently doesn’t even exist anymore. I guess I could just make up what made it into the printosphere. No one would know the difference.
This time around things were a little more depressing than usual. Normally I’d at least have shows to look forward to, but the week that we finished mixing the new album, I got a slew of gig cancellations. Four of them, including our CD release.
We don’t book that many shows. It was literally everything I had on our calendar after the first of the year. This means we have a little short acoustic feature set in December and then nothin’.
This made it tough to do anything creative. I let some reviews I volunteered to write for Driftwood Magazine go for two weeks. I subjected the band — and a new bass player we were auditioning — to a highly lackluster practice.
But something finally got me out of this funk, and it turned out to be cooking something. I made dinner for my parents and nieces last night: Coq au Vin; apple, walnut, and spinach salad, and a new experiment, an onion, date, and goat cheese tart. It’s outrageously simple but tastes really really good:
Tart crust:
1.25 cups of flour
5.3 tbsp cold butter
3 tbs ice-cold water
Blend flour and butter in a food processor, then transfer to a bowl and mix water in by hand. Turn out on the counter, sprinkle both sides with four, and roll out until you have a 12-inch circle. This is basic pie crust. Place it in a tart pan if you have one, or just a 9-inch round, and crimp the sides so they come just to the top of the round.
Filling:
8 ounces soft goat cheese
2 medium minced yellow onions
1-1.5 cups of chopped dried dates
A tbsp or two of milk to make the ingredients easier to mix
For the cheese, I get the kind that’s just called “goat cheese” at whole foods. It’s inexpensive but very good. You can also use chevre. You can get fancy at this stage and caramelize the onions before putting them in the pie, but I wouldn’t bother. It’s going to bake for 45 minutes, and they’ll be as sweet as you like once they’re done. To mix, just get in there with your hands.
Add to the tart crust and then bake at 375 for 45 minutes.
Sauce:
2/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp brown sugar
Reduce in a small sauce pan until it coats the back of a spoon and slides off (i.e., thread stage, about the consistency of molasses). Drizzle a little over each slice of pie.
Tonight I made some pumpkin pies from a fresh pumkin and managed to get done a bunch of reviews. I guess in the end you just have to get out there and keep plugging away at things.
Some portion of Midway Fair will be at the Teavolve open mic every Monday through the end of the month. I hope some people will come out and see us and help save Cacie’s open mic. It really is something special.
—Jon
Exploration in October
Midway Fair hanging out in beautiful Druid Hill Park.
Surreal moment of the month: About a dozen people, half of whom had dreadlocks, getting in front of microphones with banjos, mandolins, fiddles, and acoustic guitars to sing Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.”
Late September and early October were a time for some experimentation. We played a show for world peace and to keep a German in Baltimore, opened for Mike Huchison from Fools and Horses at an art opening, and plugged in a bunch of electronics to support the largest day of environmental activism ever. And despite playing four shows in two weeks, only one featured any two of the same people.
So how did it go? (pst There’s a surprise at the end!) Read more…
Midway Fair 