I meant to post this Friday night before I headed off to a contra dance, but I was having too much fun getting ready.I love this Steve Earle song. It makes we want to stand up and dance. Enjoy.

Sorry people but by the time I get home from work, grab food, and get ready to go wherever I’m going to go at night, ( it usually involves music) I don’t have time to write lengthy blog posts every day. So I’m giving you this.

Last book finished: Can’t you hear me calling- a biography of Bill Monroe by Richard D Smith.- absolutley brilliant. So good, I cried.

book in progress: “Musicophilia- your brain and music” by Oliver Sacks.

The prelimary tentative performer list for Joe Val 08 is up. I got so excited I almost fell out of my chair. The information put a big smile on my face on an otherwise rainy day and everytime I think about it, I get all giddy.

I’ve been sitting her running late for dancing because I’ve gotten caught up in Bluegrass Gospel Project. I made a commitment to write a post every day this month and now the music has got my soul, mind and voice. I’ve been singing off key interrupting the band’s harmonies. I’ve been enjoying myself but I got to get out of here.

OK. so earlier in the month I said I would post every day for the month of November. It’s only day three and as usual I’m running late. I had a crappy week. ( see other post)
Earlier in the evening I had a splitting headache and out on the couch after eating indian food and watching about a half hour of “Mean Girls.” If you haven’t seen it, it’s actually not a bad movie- written by and staring the most lovely and kick-ass Tina Fey ( though maybe not in literal kicking someone’s ass kind of way- at least I don’t think so) I even missed a Loose Ends gig out in West Newton and “A.K.A.C.O.D” at the local bar. That’s how bad I felt.
I still have a lingering goddamn headache. Is this all a good excuse for a late post? And anyway, I gave you links. Sorry it was late.

Some of the reasons I love bluegrass:

It’s the high lonesome pitch of Bill Monroe, Taylor Armerding, Joe Val and Ron Tomason. It’s the deep reverberating basses that anchor the sound and all the other voices in between that pull it all together. It’s the breathless fiddle, soft meandering tinkle of the mandolin, the rapid plucking of the banjo, the soft luster of guitar. It’s dark bars with cheap and good beer simutaneaously flowing out of cold taps into tall glasses. It’s whiskey neat. It’s people dancing in their seats and tapping their hands and feet in unsnycopated rthythms to the music on the stage. It’s the musicans who will talk to you after the show and answer the email you write them. It’s the fans who still come just to hear the musis. It’s the parents who bring their children hoping some of it will rub off on them. It’s the hot summer nights in small little league fields where festivals are held and the pitchers mound is the middle of the audience. It’s the fans who sing off key and nobody seems to mind.

OK, this is an old draft so the music is from a different day but the feeling is still the same. My posts this month are inspired by National blog posting month (learned about of course by Alejna) I thought I would give this a try:

Got dressed to the Dixie Chicks: “Long way around” and most of “Not ready to play nice.”

It drifted into “Please don’t let me be misunderstood” by The Animals” I owe this to watching and then falling asleep to “British Beat”
I
may have started off the day singing Corrine Bailey Rae. I can’t remember but sometime this week I walked to the red line singing “Put your records on”. Normally I can’t say I would recite her songs, but I saw “Venus” over the weekend and she envelops that.

Later it was Tom Wait’s “Better off without a wife.” Mostly the bowery bums part. I found myself singing this while at my desk and in the elevator.

That was a segway into Greg Brown’s “All by Myself” and anybody’s version of “I shall never marry”

On the commute home it was “if you don’t get it at home”. Greg Brown again.

Back home, it was a repeat of the Dixie Chicks and straight on the Pogues. Ahh Irish scoundrels. Saucy sweet melodic and strange. Ballads that curse and sway. anybody wanna grab a beer, a shot of whiskey, or just jump around a bit? After a day at work and a walk in the blustry wind down a city street,the Pogues are perfect to come home to.

The other day I found myself surfing Craigslist Nashville looking up apartment rents and job postings again. This is not to say I want to move tomorrow or even next year. I just go searching for something different every so often when I think I’ve lived in a place too long or feel like I need a change. Sometimes change comes easy like dyeing my hair or buying a new outfit. Sometimes change is slow like thinking I might want to relocate to a place I’ve never been to where I don’t know anyone. It’s the music that drives me. It’s what makes me get out of bed in the morning. It’s what goes through my head during the day when I forget to worry about the little things. Yesterday I sang “Shady Grove” in my head as I carried my tray through the office cafeteria. I dream of moving to Nashville and working for the record business. I picture myself promoting bands and getting better at the banjo.

I’m posting today because I haven’t posted in a long time. I’m posting today because I feel like writing. I’m posting today because sometimes when the little things start to pile up like misplacing your cell phone and forgetting your locker combination the only thing to do is laugh hysterically and listen to the music, and in the case of tonight, go to the gym and have dinner with a cool friend. As long as I l keep following the twang of the banjo and the shimmering mandolin I know I’ll be alright. It’s just a matter of following that sound.

Who knew you could do the cha cha to Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back”?

I did it Ryle’s one Saturday night. I don’t know what is scarier: me dancing the cha cha or secretly enjoying the song? Oops. I think I’ve said too much.

On saturday after a day of watching competitive dance at MIT and a night of attempting to dance to at Ryles and no bluegrass I came home and sat on the futon. I turned on the tv, baloney sandwich in hand and came across The Carter Family biography on WBGH. Of course I couldn’t turn it off. Guess I will always be a bluegrass girl at heart.