Good news is that recording seems to be coming together. The bad news is that it will take a few months before I have anything to put out there for the whole world to see. I hope everyone is alright with that. If you aren’t then I am sorry…Not really though…seriously.

Side note: a Friend crashed at my place this past weekend, and we decided to grab something to eat the next day and decided to go to Taco Bell. I needed to use the restroom but I had to be buzzed into the restroom (that’s how they keep non-customers out of the bathrooms). Turns out there was a lady waiting to get in and she didn’t realize she had to be buzzed. So I got the guy behind the counter to buzz her in. At this point, a large latina lady who was seated near the restroom (who evidently thought the problem the lady was having had nothing to do with being buzzed in) says, “I think she was trying to just push the door, instead of turning the handle and pushing.” then she waves a finger from side to side and says, “there’s a difference, you know…there’s a difference.”

words for the wise…

Ok.  It’s been a long while since I have posted anything on here.  I’ve been busy.  I moved, I bought a keyboard, and I am recording soon.  So in lieu of all of that, I have been working 9 or 10 shifts a week.

I am headed into the studio for recording in a couple weeks. I am not really playing out at the moment until this is taken care of. I am excited about it, though. I am recording at The Bunker Studio out here in Brooklyn. The biggest news of all is that it will be full band and it will kick ass. Who’s excited? Raise your hands! Good. Stay tuned.

I went to a Johnny Walker tasting this evening. It was awesome. We did a tasting of the entire flight…including Blue Label (which, by the way, is quite possibly the greatest thing I have ever let touch my lips). Afterwards I went out with my brother and some friends and got some after party drinks.

On the way home I was walking over to City Hall in Manhattan to catch the JMZ. As I was walking, I saw a newstand that reminded me of one time when I was in High School I came out to New York with my family to visit my older brother Josh who was interning here. He showed us one of two (at the time) public restrooms that you paid a dollar to get into. I think it was an idea that was eventually scrapped for being kind of lame. It just reminded me of how in love I was with this city long before I ever really got a good taste of it. I think I truthfully popped out of my mom looking for something more than the small town I grew up in. Then I passed my subway stop like an idiot and kept walking. I’m retarded.

After work some people were going out for a drink and so I joined them. While we were sitting there, I suggested we go down to the Lower East Side and try our hand at finding some good music to listen to. We ended up going to the Living Room, and checking out the adverts lining the front window. I saw that Jesse Harris was playing and so we stopped in. Jesse Harris co-wrote a couple of the songs on Norah Jones’ first album, and his stuff is really cool. He had a full band and with an organ and his set was definitely the best of the night.

The highlight of the night, however, was when Mike Viola took the stage before Jesse. Mike Viola was par for course as far as New York City singer/songwriters go. He was good but showy and not so hot at it. Nearing the end of his set, he says, “I have three songs left so I want to call a friend up. We met a month ago, and became fast friends. Well…John Wesley Harding.”

I fainted.

No, but seriously…John Wesley Harding. I was in the company of a minor legend. It was a good night.

I had to play the prelude music for my friend Joe’s wedding on saturday. It was amazing. The music I played was a little weak because I couldn’t practice for it until right before the wedding because my keyboard is such a piece. We went camping on thursday before the wedding, and that was something I was relaly looking forward to. I haven’t been camping in forever, so it was great to sit around with friends and drink a few beers and smoke cigars.

Possibly the best thing that has happened since I came back to Ohio for the wedding happened on sunday. i was driving with my little brother and my dad when my brother threw up a west side hand signal in jest (making a joke about something on the radio or somthing like that).

At this point my dad asked me, “Luke, are you up on hand signals?”

I replied, “Exactly what do you mean?”

My brother then said, “He means this.” And proceeds to show me The Shocker. It looks like this:

“Drew!” I repremanded.

“I didn’t show it to him. He just saw it.” My brother replied.

“So what does it mean?” My dad chimed from the back seat.

I stalled for a few seconds looking at my brother, and looking back at my dad. Trying to decide whether or not I could really tell my dad (a fairly conservatively minded republican man) about something like this. So I decided to just go ahead with it:

“It’s The Shocker. Two in the pink. One in the stink.”

My dad looks at me, thinks for a couple seconds, and then just says, “Oh. I get it.”

That was basically the reverse of every pre-adolescent boy’s nightmare. That nightmare being the day their dad sits them down and has the “birds and bees” talk with them. I, however, had to have a more in depth talk with my dad. Makes me shiver.

The show lastnight went really well. At least that is what people tell me. So either they really liked it or they are just blowing copious amounts of smoke up my ass. It was good. We’ll just leave it at that.

Everything was going well lastnight, however, until afterward. That’s when I got drunk and belligerent. I was on fire. Everyone was laughing. Whether at me or with me? Who knows. It would seem like everything was going well but I was definitely pissing one person off with snide, backhanded comments. It is true: when you are drunk you are simply more of who you really are. For me? I just lose the filter that makes me think before saying all the honest things that are running through my mind. I am simply less selective. Some may call it belligerence. I call it extreme honesty.

I played the anti-hootinanny open mic at Sidewalk lastnight. Other than a few bruises, the show went really well. The crowd seemed super receptive to my stuff when I was handing out my flyers after I played. So that made me pretty happy. So happy, in fact, that I went to williamsburg and got shithoused.

Today I will be working on set for wednesday. Mostly, though, I will be working on the songs I am playing for a friend’s wedding in a few weeks. Since I have my friend’s keyboard, I need to (as we say in the sticks) make hay while the sun’s still shining. Which is a silly hillbilly phrase meaning “take advantage of an opportunity.”

So I set up this web page. It’s pretty simple, but I wanted to get something up by the time of my first gig here in the city. My brother is going to take over from here and basically trash all of the HTML I designed and put something a lot sexier up. Until then, however, this is the motif.

I have been prepping for my gig all day. Prepping, of course, started with dragging my ass to the dark side of Williamsburg and borrowing my friend Chiara’s keyboard. Why should I need to borrow her keyboard? Good question. The answer to that would be that my keyboard is severely hurting: several of the keys are broken. I do owe Chiara for this little favor. This will all be fixed when I get a new keyboard. I think that is going to happen soon too. Soon, as in the next few weeks.