Holiday Spirit

James is nestled into the corner of the couch reading on his nook, Cadence snuggled in, sound asleep, on one side, Hazel, also sound asleep, snuggled in on the other side, curled around a purring Carmen cat. I've got my tiny little Calliope cuddled in my arms. Lily and Puy are off in some cozy spot or another. The only light is from our humble little tree, and we've got the Christmas music my pare

nts would always play when I was little wafting softly through the room. Out the window, the world is drenched in a heavy white fog and the red line metro looks like a model train all lit up as it rumbles by.

This is what Christmas is to me. Happy holidays to all, whichever ones you may celebrate. I hope they all bring moments of bliss to you and yours the way this one has for me tonight. I am so grateful for all of this.

Comfort & joy, all.

Derrick & The Black Sea

James has been very busy these days, what with the normal classes and homework that come with being in law school along with a few freelance jobs, in addition to being on the board of a student group AND now the journal he's been working on for the past year, all while working on the ongoing litigation against our former landlords and being a present and active father and husband...so I am very happy to report that he has been able to find some time to focus on something that has always been a passion for him; his music!

James has been performing with our good friend Derrick Karg as part of his band Derrick & The Black Sea. Still a fledgling trio, James, Derrick and their musical partner Richard Ruggiero have a really awesome, unique style - the 'name' of which genre, I understand, is somewhat controversial; "hard folk" and "folk metal" have both been suggested, but Derrick insists that it is "dark country rock"...They perform mostly original work, so I guess the moral is that you'll have to go out and hear them, and then decide for yourself what to call it (and, I suppose, report your conclusions)!

I had the great fortune to actually attend one of their concerts recently (a rarity since they tend to play bars and clubs that are understandably inappropriate for the little ladies) and had a blast. I've posted one of their songs below, though it is one of the more traditional songs that they played early in the set...I totally recommend that you all come see them really rock out in person!

Happily, you'll have the opportunity to do just that TONIGHT!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

FREE

7pm at Spike Hill, located at 184 Bedford street in Brooklyn.

Go out, support some great musicians, and Enjoy!

Oh, and check out their facebook page, too! Just click here!

Below is a (terrible sound quality, sorry) video of Derrick & The Black Sea performing Colorado & Down at Sullivan Hall.

Trout Fishing in America Concert!

...also a little addendum to my last post: The next morning we got up and headed down to madison square park to attend a Trout Fishing in America concert!

TFIA is a duo (Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet) out of Texas, who does music for adults and kids alike, though I think they've been more focused on kids music these days. They are good friends with a very close friend of my family's, so our paths have crossed often over the years. Since I grew up listening to their music, it was very exciting to be able to share this with my own girls!

Cadence loved it, but bless her little heart she didn't understand why everyone was talking and smiling and singing along, and got very angry with me when I tried to get her to get up and dance...it only occured to me afterwards that we've trained her to be a good audience member and when she heard the word 'concert' she must have immediately thought of the many classical music concerts she has attended to see her Baba and uncle Andrew perform.

Afterwards, though, we got a copy of their latest CD and Keith and Ezra both signed it (and Ezra drew a teddy bear for Cadie!), I sent Hellos from my family, and Keith even told us that he once spent a whole birthday chasing birds, too, just as Cadence had done the day before - and he caught one!!

Afterwards we went to splash around in the water feature in the playground, hence the bathing suits...all in all, it was a pretty great excursion.

Local Celebrity

The following is an excerpt of a page from the local publication SOKY Happenings:

Notice anyone?

So has half the town.

James has been getting a lot of violin playing in, between the Bowling Green Western Symphony Orchestra and my dad's band, Coyote's Angels (pictured above).  They've been doing pretty well for themselves, playing several gigs over the past few weeks.  So I guess it's no surprise, really, that now that he's working in a capacity which puts him in much more contact with the public than he has had since we moved down here, he's suddenly realizing how high profile his musicianship has become.

He gets recognized almost every time he leaves the house these days, and folks seem to love his playing; whether it was one of their gigs at Greener Groundz, WKU, the UU church (below), with the BGWSO, or the benefit concert they played for the Friends of Hollis. (As a sidenote, please do read her story and keep her in your thoughts and prayers.  She's one of dad's former students, and was a jolly person to have around...I always enjoyed her company.)

Now that their picture has appeared in SOKY Happenings, they have been even more high profile than before, and even more people are taking an interest in their musical talents.  It's too bad we're going to be moving away so soon, the musical future here seems so bright!

(PS- Apologies to our good friend Ian for my poor excuse for concert photography...we could use your expertise around here.  Just be grateful I didn't post photos from all of the gigs as I had planned to; believe it or not these were the best shots I got.)

vroom

As an addendum to my last post, here's one more song...

Get On The Bus!!

Today was a bit of a crazy day here in Bowling Green, with reports of armed men entering the south campus of WKU this morning followed by shots fired on the main campus, resulting in an evacuation of the former and a lockdown of the latter...thankfully the worst injury reported was a broken arm suffered by a good samaritan trying to break up the fight, but it was pretty unnerving to be getting phone calls from my dad from inside the school, where he, some of his faculty, and their students were waiting to get word beyond "shots fired, take cover." He's home now, and said it was rather awkwardly boring, just waiting around on high alert, getting nothing done...waste of a day, but at least everyone is safe, and that is, ultimately, the most important thing.
But, this whole thing makes the event I was going to post about anyway seem all the more welcome.

As we've alluded to in the past, one of the great things we've gained by moving here is the opportunity for James to explore new avenues in the musical realm, and last night marked a milestone along that path. James has joined my dad's band, and last night was their first concert!  Dad has dubbed him the "fiddolin" player, and they seem to have a lot of fun, they both come home satisfied after rehearsals, which I can't see as a bad thing.  The rest of us (the girls, haha, since Dad and James are the only boys in our six-person, seven-critter household) were very excited to finally get to hear them play together.

The concert conditions were less than ideal, they were doing this particular gig, entitled "Get On The Bus!," as a favor for some students doing a senior seminar on political activism, (the song list was comprised of tunes composed about or during times of political unrest of one kind or another) and the kids just didn't know the ins and outs of the performance world...the late evening, outdoor concert was hampered a bit by the quickly setting sun, which left things cold, and well, dark, since the lights didn't come on until the encore...at one point, they were playing in pitch darkness!  But they handled it very gracefully, and we were proud of them.  And, now I'd like to share a snippit of it all with you!  Below is just one of the songs, written by John Prine...I'll probably have some more up on youtube later, but for now here's something to whet your appetites.  :-)

Vocals/Guitar - Scott Stroot (dad!)

Vocals/Keyboard - Forest Halford

Vocals - Lisa Van Wye

Bass  - Frank Lawrence

Fiddolin - James Yu