Dark Matter

I had a busy day yesterday, which closed with a visit to a folkie open mike I visit occasionally in Fall River. (For you non-locals, that’s in Massachusetts about a half-hour east of Providence.)

It’s held at the Narrows Center For The Arts, a venue in an old mill down near the waterfront, close to Battleship Cove where the WWII battleship Massachusetts is on permanent display. Great (REALLY great) sound and a good eclectic lineup of performers in a given season — Robert Fripp just played there as did the Mekons; folks like Dave Alvin, Marcia Ball, Richie Havens… you get the drift.

The Wednesday night open features a particular kind of vibe that will likely be familiar to some folks here: pseudo-genial cutthroat competition for hot guitars and licks among middle-aged white guys who can finally afford their Martins and Taylors and custom shop Gibsons so they can sound just like the heroes of their youth, Mississippi John Hurt and Tom Paxton chief among them. The host is a nice old-style folkie who used to write with Peter Yarrow of Peter Paul and Mary — again, you can probably picture what I’m talking about here. Think “A Mighty Wind” and you’re on the right track. But there’s tons of good guitar playing, and the place has high quality standards for the most part, so overall it’s a good time.

We (we being Duende) like to play there because we stand out and it gives us good shakedown time in front of audiences not comprised of poets. They also pay their features well, and we’re angling for that at some point — paying the dues comes with the territory there, so we hit it semi-regularly.

I frequently tweak the folkies by bringing a vintage guitar with me and playing during breaks and such, then never getting on stage with it. Last night, I brought the ancient Stella with me and passed odd down moments running a bunch of drop-D fingerstyle riffs in the back corner. Love to watch people try to figure out what kind of to-drool-over instrument I’ve got; the blues guys in particular get all wet when they see it. If there’s anything more seductive to a stereotyped “white boy lost in the blues” than a beat up instrument from the 20s, I don’t know what it is. I hadn’t had it out of the case more than a minute last night before one guy was all over me wanting to check it out. ( I admit it, I can do the sword fight with the best of them when it serves my purpose. I’m not proud of it. But it’s kinda fun to feed into the frenzy, and more to the point, it got people waiting to see what we’d do.) Of course, Faro running riffs on either the guitar or the bass gets their attention too.

It was a long night, and we went late in the evening. Things went fine and we got a couple of folks all excited about our shit, so it worked out well for us. We’re all about expanding Duende’s reach to audiences other than poets lately, aiming at working music venues as well as the slam/poetry circuit. This is good practice for that.

But that’s not actually what I’m here to tell you about. No, not at all.

No, I’m here to say that last night I heard

THE WORST FOLK SONG EVER WRITTEN.

“The Legend of Don Gato” is an epic, seven minute retelling of the sad tale of Don Gato, a cat who breaks his leg jumping off a shelf, is tended by his distressed owners, is finally sent to be euthanized, and then is brought home in a monumental funeral procession where, heralded by the pervasive smell of tuna fish, he suddenly comes back to life to the joy of the assembled mourners.

Yes, I’m serious.

And so was the penulitmate performer of the evening, who sang it. Dead serious, no sense of irony, deeply felt, etc., etc. Furious sincerity delivered by an overweight guy in his late thirties with long black ironed-straight hair in a sleeveless rawk t-shirt, in a huge baritone voice with prog-rock operatic pretensions, accompanied by rapidly strummed acoustic guitar. The closest I can get is to say “Robert Goulet tone meets Tiny Tim vibrato meets Geddy Lee histrionics meets the acoustic sound of Boston.”

Yes, I’m serious. I could not detect one shred of humor here. Jack Black wishes he could come off this sincere when he does his schtick.

ETA: theklute has revealed that this is a COVER. Lyrics in the comments below.

The remaining crowd was…bemused. After that, the drunk who couldn’t play his signature tune on request was a complete let down.

Oh, dear. It’s way too easy to make fun of this stuff. I’m reminded of sateenduraluxe‘s standup comic friend who saw a poetry slam and characterized it as being a place where people poured their souls and trauma and passion onto paper and then delivered it to strangers as if it were a Limp Bizkit tune.

I bet someone’s said something like this about me at least once.

I hope I was at least this funny to them.

Great time at the November 3rd club reading last night at the Bowery Poetry Club. Good poems and good friends — those who missed it missed a lot.

Thanks to ocvictor for organizing the night and maintaining a great and important site.

I swear, sometimes, that the biggest snobs I know are the people who most despise snobbery in others. I think it’s an American characteristic these days that we justify ourselves strictly by how much better we think we are than other people. It’s so damn insecure.

At the Bowery Poetry Club, 308 The Bowery, NYC:

6:00pm – 8:00pm
The November 3rd Club -$7

A diverse collection of writers read to promote an online literary journal of political writing.

Poet and Nov3rd editor Victor D. Infante hosts, featuring: Tony Brown, Jane Cassady, Brian Dauth, Lea Deschenes, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Gary Hoare, Lynne Procope, Skip Shea, Jackie Sheeler, Rachel McKibbens, Michael Cirelli and Patricia Smith

Who’s coming?

Sorry, gang. I deeply regret going. Tourists that afternoon, snapping pictures, getting pictures of themselves “with it”…

I will likely be asked to go back because class attendance was so low. I will likely go back because I need the money. But my first instinct was correct. It was severely triggering.

I appreciate everyone’s faith in me and your congratulations on my “breaking through.” But it doesn’t feel like a breakthrough, and honestly, I feel bad about breaking the promise I made to myself and to my friends. There are things more important than personal strength.

I do not understand why this continues to be a big deal, but it does.

I’m blogging right now from One World Financial Center, across the street from the WTC site.

It’s smaller than I recall from the last time I was here. Of course, then it was a five story high heap of smoking rubble and many of the streets I just walked were closed off.

I compromised on the whole thing; drove down here from Worcester at 3AM, got into town and was parked and on the street by 6 AM. I decided — rightly, I think — that staying in the Embassy Suites on the other side of the street overnight was too triggering (and way too expensive for my budget, since I have to pay for my room upfront — even with the D&T corporate rate it was well above 300 bucks for the night).

As it is right now, being outdoors and up close to it was OK this AM, but I did have to get away from it after a bit. Kinda hoping the training room doesn’t overlook the site; 8 hours of it might be a bit much. One good thing: no sense of presence here for me right now; I expected to be haunted by memories of my coworkers, but all I keep thinking about is the smell, the way it smelled last time I was here. I can still smell it, but it’s OK.

In retrospect, I should have canceled, gotten someone else to cover this session, if only because I will miss TheKlute tonight in RI at Gotpoetry if I run into the slightest bit of traffic on the way back (and leaving NY at 5 or so, I think the odds of that are reasonably good).

Last time I listen to you guys. 😉

See you on the other side.

a Rockies win and got a Red Sox win, you’d be wrong.

🙂

I’ll be in NYC next weekend to be part of the imminently spectacular reading for the November 3rd Club next Saturday night at the Bowery Poetry Club.

Here’s the write up right from the BPC site:

“6:00pm – 8:00pm
The November 3rd Club -$7

Poet and Nov3rd editor Victor D. Infante hosts, featuring: Tony Brown, Jane Cassady, Brian Dauth, Lea Deschenes, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Gary Hoare, Lynne Procope, Skip Shea, Jackie Sheeler, Rachel McKibbens, Michael Cirelli and Patricia Smith”

If you look carefully at that lineup, you will undertand why you WILL be there.

The zine itself is here:

http://www.november3rdclub.com/

I think we’ll be staying over, though probably not in the city (not many hotel rooms available for under 400 bucks a night that weekend) and then spending some time in the city on Sunday. I could use a NY fix.

Love to see you. Come on down.

Many eons ago, there was a Cape Cod Slam. It was based in a cafe in Hyannis, MA, called The Prodigal Son.

The Prodigal Son closed. Now, the business has reopened as The Black Spot Cafe. Serves excellent coffee and sandwiches, the owner is a wine connoisseur and the wine, beer, and mixed drink selection reflects that. WiFi, cool art, and an overall thoughtfully but not pretentiously progressive sensibility make the place one I shall revisit.

Last night, Duende had a gig there. Tiny audience for this new reading — 6 people, including the host (Jose Gouveia) and not including our entourage. It was only their second night and there was some sort of baseball game on (I brought my laptop so we could keep track of the score for the, um, audience — yeah, that’s right, the audience) so there were two BIG factors for the low attendance…and I don’t feel too bad, as we equalled Regie Gibson’s turnout for last month.

We played a good set; Faro did some unexpected improvising on a couple of pieces which was FUN, and it was a good night. Some good connections came out of it; we were asked back to play as a featured MUSICAL act, which I consider a big triumph since we want to take this outside of the poetry scene.

And…a full payday as promised, even considering the low turnout. Gotta respect that.

Highly recommended. Good Time.

NEXT DUENDE GIG: November 11. Cambridge, MA. The Lizard Lounge. Expect some jammin’ with the Jeff Robinson Trio…we got a little taste of that in April when we performed with Marc Smith and Regie and Iyeoka and Adam and all; this time, the mere thought of having two basses on stage along with Jerome and Jeff has us salivatin’. Be there!