I was down for most of last week with strep throat. Probably something to do with cigarettes irritating my throat and lowering my immune system’s defenses, combined with all the sick folk who go to work despite being sick. I can’t say much on that, because I was clearly sick beginning Monday night, yet I went in Tuesday anyway because I had a meeting with a vendor that I didn’t want to miss.
Anyhow, I was down for the rest of the week, and ended up recovering by Friday. During the illness, I wasn’t able to do much of anything. The pain was bad, and distracting, but the fever was the worst part. Amazing what a few degrees of internal body temperature change will do to your ability to cope.
Saturday night, we went to Libertytown to catch Ed Snodderly. Ed is a singer/songwriter/guitarist from down in the Southwestern part of Virginia, down near Bristol. He is very much aware of, and in tune with, the musicial traditions from that area. He played guitar, banjo and dobro. I’d be willing to bet that he’s familiar with most of the artists on the “Virginia Traditions: Western Piedmont Blues” album. I’d be willing to bet that he’s played with some of them. He’s been singing and playing for some twenty-five years, and it shows in his voice. This show was my first test of live recording using my M-Audio shirt pocket digital recorder with stereo mics. The recording came out clean, although I had to boost the levels a bit in Soundbooth.
The venue was very much typical of a small-town presentation of acoustic music. Two sets of music and stories, on folding chairs that leave a reminder on the posterior after you go home, with an intermission of cookies and coffee in the next room. They were “deluxe model” folding chairs, though, so that was a big positive. You know, the kind with the cushions. The audience is generally small at these events, maybe twenty to forty total. Libertytown is sort of an arts collective, with a bunch of studios for visual artists (painters, sculptors, etc.) For some reason, one of the artists there, Bill Harris, has always resonated with me, since the first time I saw his work, especially one piece that I believe has been sold, a lovely painting of a woman outside the back of a house, standing on a suitcase outside a window, caught in mid-escape. The mother of one of Sophie’s playmates has a painting hanging in there as well, she is or was a student of Bill’s. Her painting is of a woman, possibly herself, floating in shallow water, with leaves. At first I thought she was just floating, but one foot is turned a bit and one shoe is missing, so perhaps she’s dead. Hell of a painting. It’s like the old days all over again, going to galleries and knowing the artists. Well, maybe a little bit more evolved. In that previous incarnation, my friends and I would go to our friends’ openings with two purposes — moral support, and free wine.
Coming off of the sickness is rejuvenating. Live acoustic music is just as rejuvenating. After all this I was motivated to go take a panoramic photo, and to work some on my boat. I think it helps me to be able to tie my goals together into one larger, cohesive purpose. So thinking it through, I had been putting things off until I “can afford a studio,” which is probably prohibitive right now. So I decided to tie the completion of the boat to that, so that when the boat is complete, I can use that room for an in-home studio. It’s big enough for portraits at least. I’ve got more gear coming shortly — backdrops, light stand adapters, a newer and better DSLR body & lens, a bag to carry it all in, etc. — and I hope to turn some of this toward profitable enterprise this year. Perhaps the panos will be profitable and the portraits will be fun, or vice versa.
Friday night is the Songwriters’ Showcase, another monthly acoustic music venue. I’ll tell you about that this weekend.
