Rockin' the New River Festival

photo by Mary

I guess I've been working nature festivals for about 18 years now--as long as I've been with Bill of the Birds. My first was the Bosque del Apache Festival of the Cranes in 1991. Yikes, that was a long time ago. It's a niche, made more fun and interesting by the inclusion of music. Bill has added that dimension to my life. Without him, I'd probably be singing krokey or trying out for Elderly Idol. Since he was in high school, Bill has always headed up a band, because he's a natural bandleader.

Just like he's a natural field trip leader, even with half his pants off.

Generally, Bill and I play a duo,

adding in musicians like master fiddler/violinist Jessie Munson or singer/guitarist Ernie Hoffert whenever we can. For most bird festivals, folky acoustic stuff works. This time, we tried something different. Fayetteville is only about 2 1/2 hours from The Swinging Orangutang's home base of Marietta, Ohio. We promised the boys in the band a great time (Jessica had another commitment, waah!) and they agreed to come down on Saturday afternoon for a real blowout that night. Bill and I have done a lot of festivals, but we've never seen a rock band and a private club atmosphere at a bird festival before. We wanted something completely different to honor the festival attendees, including the fun-loving Flock of bloggers.

The Meadow House at Opossum Creek Resort was transformed into a speakeasy.

Five-sixths of The Swinging Orangutangs: from left, Bill Thompson III, Clay Paschal, Andy Hall, JZ, and Vincenzo Mele. We're all missing Jessica Baldwin.

I admit to a touch of apprehension as we worked on the set list. Would birders cover their ears and flee if we really blew it out? OK, let's strike Brick House from the set list. Probably won't do Don't Fear the Reaper, either. Hmm. But there was plenty of material just this side of coo-coo that we thought birders would like. In the end, we wound up throwing in Blister in the Sun and Take Me to the River and Get Down Tonight, along with a couple of hours' worth of mixy favorites. Still wish we'd done Burning Down the House. Oh well. Next year.

As it turned out, it got coo-coo anyway. Bloggers know how to boogie. These people were up for a great time, having birded their brains out for an entire week. You can tell Susan's a blogger 'cuz she's got a beer in one hand...a camera in the other. I shudder to think what photos she captured that night. You'll have to go to Susan Gets Native and see. I believe that's Kathie of Sycamore Canyon in lavender. Laura from Somewhere in New Jersey and Lynne from Hasty Brook were partying, too. Nina from Nature Remains and Kathi from KatDoc's World and Beth from My Life With Birds and Kathleen from A Glorious Life and Barb from My Bird Tales and Jane from Jaylynn's Window on Nature ... Kathy (Denapple) from Life, Birding, Photos and Everything...really entrancing photography in those last three, and all of them wonderful people.. it just went on and on. Just keeping the Kath-people straight was a job in itself.

By my count, there were no less than 17 nature bloggers in attendance and snapping away at New River 2009. This will be the best-documented festival that has ever happened.

Huh-oh. We did Love Shack and it got even crazier, with guide and Orang alum drummer Steve McCarthy taking the male vocal lead. I'm doin' the Belinda Carlisle, serving it up oldschool with a shared mic. Mary's View gettin' DOWN with Jane of Wrennaissance Reflections. What a total thrill it was to meet them! And then to play for them all, really show them a good time.

Maybe that's an understatement. If the Solid Gold Bloggers had half as much fun as the Orangs did, it was a fabulous time.

News flash: The Bump did not die in 1978. It is alive and well with Tim (From the Faraway, Nearby) and Mary (Mary's View). Oh my goodness.

When he wasn't hangin' with his buddy Cameron, Liam was doin' the Schroeder on the dance floor. Our son has some truly fancy footwork.


The uproarious highlight of the evening was when Tim Ryan joined us to play cowbell on Low Rider. I doubt there was a person in the room who wasn't on their feet by then. Our beloved honorary Orangutang.

This group of bloggers is so generous--everyone showed up with arms overflowing with handmade gifts--pins and pottery and jewelry and bacon-flavored jellybeans and other Minnesota favorites from sweet Lynne at Hasty Brook--there was even a care package of handmade Peruvian crafts from Mel at Teach Me About Birdwatching, sent from South America, just because.

I didn't bring anything you could hold in your hand, but singing for our beloved friends felt just right.
Vincenzo Serafino charmed with his velvet voice and nimble guitar.


Jeff Gordon, fabulous trip leader and nature blogger, heated up the place with a dangerous rendition of Secret Agent Man. Too bad nature blogger and walking encyclopedia Jim McCormac wasn't there to see it, but after leading field trips in the first part of the week, he was getting the Ludlow Griscom award from the American Birding Association in Texas!


Many thanks to the incomparable Jen Sauter for grabbing my camera and documenting the night so splendidly. For she's a jolly good bombshell!

Many thanks to the people who know how to laugh and dance and live life large. You know who you are! Many thanks to Bill, for making it all happen, to Geoff Heeter and Keith Richardson of Opossum Creek, and to the Swinging Orangutangs for giving themselves to make Saturday, May 2, 2009 a night to remember, a delightful anomaly in the heretofore rather sedate world of nature festival entertainment.

And if it weren't enough...what about tomorrow?

art by Andy Hall, who is also our drummer, how lovely!

Schoolkids of Guyana

I’ve never been on a press trip that included stops at local elementary schools in the itinerary, but this US AID funded excursion was not a typical fam trip. We visited two schools in one day. We had been scheduled to visit the first one, Escuela Nueva in the AmerIndian village of Aranaputa, the day before, but rain messed up our plans and pushed everything aside. The children had been dressed in indigenous costumes and waiting all day, but we came the next day instead, when they had their regular school uniforms on.

From the moment the children opened their mouths to sing, they had me. If our elementary school choir teacher had been able to coax such angelic melodies out of my kids and their classmates, she’d probably faint on the spot. There was no pretending to sing, no too-cool-for-school inattention. These kids sang, really sang, and they melted my heart. They danced, telling of their traditional agriculture and hunting with their motions.
I was transfixed by the timeless beauty of their faces. They sang a song they’d written about their village, the beauty of the sun coming up over the mountains; brown-skinned Amerindians in every house, and tears started rolling down my cheeks. I thought about my kids standing in just such rows, singing Jingle Bells or Sleigh Ride, and wondered what might happen if they were asked to write and perform a song of gratitude to the place they live, the mountains and sky and community they enjoy. It's not that they couldn't do it, and do it well. Thing is, they've never been asked.

Kevin Loughlin wanted to give something back, because that’s the way he rolls. So he got up and showed them his special talent—playing a tune on his hands, squeezing little raspberry noises out of his palms in a recognizable and quite melodic series of tunes. The kids had never seen anyone do that before, and they cracked up.

Mike Weedon set up his scope for them to look through, and I sang them an Irish song, wishing I’d brought my pennywhistle.I'll never leave home without it from now on.

Very excited about a Swinging Orangutangs engagement this coming Friday (Ack! Tomorrow!) at the Marietta Brewing Company on Front Street here in Marietta, Ohio. Lots of friends coming, including Jimmy and Paula, and we're planning to coax Jimmy Clinton and his mandolin up on stage. We had a rehearsal last night, in which Vinnie came up with a bizarre German drinking song to which Jess added operatic trills and flourishes, and I laughed so much my stomach still aches. It ought to be a fit opener for the second set. Like my dad always said about raising kids: You gotta keep 'em thinking.

Old Bread Memories

Ithaca is gorges. It's waterfalls and snow, and for me it was also daffodils just peeking up through still-cold ground; phoebes just arrived and singing tentatively. I keep traveling north this spring, and I act like a big baby when I have to get my down parka and gloves back out. Looking at the bright side, it makes it all the more delicious to return to sun and warmth, such bits as we have. This is a view of the valley plowed out by the glacier that passed through what is now Ithaca. Winter keeps a grip on the place for a long, long time.

And yet...the first Ithaca Farmer's Market of the season was happening, and I joined my old friend Alan Poole for a visit to the land of hearty-looking breadladies and spun maple sugar. We got some white bean soup and braved the cold wind off the lake to enter the open-air barn that houses a very robust farmer's market. Oh, what wonderful things!We bought bread from this artisan stand. I bought a loaf of Amadama bread, a curious thing...it rolled around and around in my mind; I knew I'd baked it in the past; I knew I loved it, but I couldn't remember any more than that. Alan jogged my memory. "It was a recipe from the Tassajara Bread Book." Yes! Back in the late 70's I lived in a big old house in Petersham, MA, where we baked breads from that collection of monastery recipes. So I bought the loaf and brought it home--so sweet and brown and good. Here's what I've found about it on the Web, from a Los Angeles Times article from 1922:

"Amadama Bread--One pint of boiling water poured slowly over one-half cup of
Indian (fine corn) meal, stirring all the time. When cool, add one bread spoon of lard,
one-half cup of molasses, one dessert spoon of salt, one-half yeast cake
dissolved in one-half cup of luke-warm water, and flour to make a stiff batter.
Knead well and rise in again, let rise in the pans till almost double in bulk,
and bake."
...
The name "Amadama" is a curious one. It is almost impossible to find anyone
who can explain its origin convincingly. Perhaps the most feasible story
regarding it is the following:
...
When Mrs. John Johnston of Gloucester, MA first introduced the bread, she called
it "Epidemic Bread,"which name was mispronounced by an ignorant maid in one
customer's home, who called it "amadama" housewives clamored for it and it became
most popular. For this reason Mr. Johnston called it "Epidemic Bread," which name was
mispronounced by an ignorant maid in one customer's home, who called it "amadama"
bread (instead of "epidemic.") From that time on many customers, who heard of
the maid's mispronunciation, called it "madama" in fun--which name became a fixture.

I'm doubting that these women have lard anywhere near their kitchen, so perhaps butter would suffice. As you know, lard is a staple in my kitchen, if only for Zick dough. The amadama bread is the toasty looking loaf at the very bottom margin of the photo. I was to regret my purchase upon climbing on the scales back home. Bread and pasta are now struck once again from my diet. Sigh. Travel eating is the worst. Somehow, you think it won't count, until you get home. Why do carbs have to taste soooo good? Begone. No more.

I always get a kick out of kids in college communities like Ithaca. They all look like fortune-tellers.

There were some mighty thrifty looking winter carrots and taters, too. Alan says the carrots are incredible.

Later, Alan and I went to the Johnson Museum of Art, where there happened to be an Easter egg hunt and celebration going on. I was amazed at the biomass of mini-people crammed into the lobby. In my college days in Cambridge, children were an anomaly, evoking double-takes on campus. Things have changed. Graduate students and professors now reproduce. I was also amazed at the fortitude of this single stalwart folksinger, armed only with a gut-stringed guitar, who was belting out "Puff, the Magic Dragon" without benefit of mic or amp to what felt like several thousand chattering kids.
This would, for me, define the Gig from Hell. Give the man a Pignose.

Our Swinging Orangutangs gig at the Whipple Tavern last Friday night was anything but. We had a steady full house and the most marvelous time, and our tips plus the spaghetti dinner hosted by the tavern brought in over $500 for pocket money for the sixth grade class trip to Pittsburgh. We played a mini-set of songs from "Boogie Nights" that I'm fairly certain have never been played in that space, including "Best of My Love," with screaming female vocal harmonies between me and Jess; "Jungle Boogie," sung by Bill of the Birds, "Get Down Tonight," sung by JZ, "Brick House," by BOTB (he does a real nasty job on that one.) Jess does an amazing job on the vocal and antic keyboard of Chaka Khan's "Tell Me Something Good." Yes, it was something completely different. It was such fun that we looked up and it was 12:30.

More Ithaca anon.

A Raven Comes to Call

We live in Appalachian Ohio, but just in the foothills. What we have are hills, not mountains. The common raven nests at high elevations in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, but there may be but one pair nesting in all of Ohio, as we are short of mountains. Nevertheless, in the last five years, we've had four records of common ravens flying over our yard. As our eloquent friend and Ohio Rare Bird Records Committee poobah Jim McCormac put it, that makes us "the only Ohio backyard with multiple records of this jumbo croaker."
This is Liam's willow, planted the summer of his birth. Just to show you that it's indeed in our backyard.

The first record came on March 15, 2003, when my artist friend Cindy House and I were standing in our backyard. Bill was inside playing the guitar. Groop groop groop groop! croaked a raven. Cindy heard it and didn't give it a second thought, since she was visiting from Vermont where common raven was a yard bird for her. I heard it and started jumping up and down and flapping my arms and hollering for Bill. We saw the bird flying over the orchard, croaking all the way, but by the time I got Bill out, it was gone. Arrrgh. Anyway, it was #180 for our yard list. It was headed southwest.

On September 29, 2005, our friend Wezil Walraven, a professional bird guide, contender for Funniest Man on the Planet and all around sharpie, was lying out in a chaise in our front yard, skywatching, when a common raven flew over, croaking, and disappeared headed north. He figured it might be a good record, even though he was visiting from Arizona, so he mentioned it at lunch. I jumped up and down and flapped my arms again.

On April 7, 2008, while I was in Ithaca, Bill heard what sounded like a common raven flying over, but then a bunch of crows started cawing and he wondered if perhaps it was just an odd vocalization from a crow.

On April 9, 2008, Bill and I were preparing to take a birdwalk around the yard. "I'm going to leave my camera inside," he said, and I said, "OK, I'll take my long lens, in case we see something good that needs its picture taken." We had just rounded the corner of the house when we heard the unmistakable groop groop groop of a honking common raven. Our eyes bugged out and we shouted, "RAVEN!" at the same moment. The bird was huge, coming low over our driveway and the roof of our house, hollering all the way. It landed on our roof and croaked some more. This may have had something to do with the fact that Bill and I were croaking like ravens for all we were worth, trying to get the bird to linger long enough to be immortalized by my Canon. While flipping out that a raven was sitting on our roof, I was frantically trying to get my autofocus to listen to me. "Get it, Zick! Get it!" Bill urged, which helped a lot. My autofocus ground away fruitlessly, focusing on everything but the bird, so I switched to manual focus and managed to fire a couple of shots, to document common raven in our backyard at long last. Like the March '03 raven, it was headed southwest. A phalanx of crows came out to harrass it. I felt sorry for the raven, just croaking away, looking for one of its own kind. Bill realized that his bird two days earlier was probably being harrassed by crows as well.
The tail was a bit molty as you can see. The heavy bill and eagle-like wings are typical of common ravens. Man, it's nice to have a picture, however dull.

I've had a bit of friendly static from people who want to hear all about Ithaca and the Lab of Ornithology. The problem is that there is too much going on right now to carve out the time to write it up and edit all the photos. I've been working like a mule, reclaiming the yard from the grip of winter, tilling and planting, mowing (thanks Bill!) and weeding. I cleaned the pond, bleccch. Sucked up about ten billion toad eggs and then they laid ten billion more. Beats sucking up tadpoles, I figure. The peas and lettuce I planted April 9 are coming up! Meanwhile, both kids have softball practices two nights a week, which means I have to magically produce dinner by 5 pm and drive them to different fields for a four-hour block of time. Whee! While rehearsing for a Swinging Orangs gig tomorrow night. Here's the poster that Andy Hall, our awesome drummer/designer made.

Something about it makes me belly laugh. We are very much looking forward to playing for other parents from the school, and to making lots of tips which we'll donate to Phoebe's class trip to Pittsburgh. I have no idea what to wear, but it will not be cropped pants, nor will it be hula pants, nor a purple squall jacket. It will be something in between, or perhaps beyond. Purple cropped hula pants?

Have a wonderful weekend. We will!

Trixie Comes to Stay!

Bill, Phoebe, Liam, Chet Baker, Charlie and I were extremely pleased to play host to Tricia of Trixie's View, her mom Mary, and impossibly adorable five-year-old daughter Vivi this weekend. The allure of a Swinging Orangutangs gig proved too much for Tricia, and she, Mary and Vivi drove from Cincinnati, where she was visiting relatives, to attend. We're pretty sure that's the first and last time anyone's come from Alaska to hear the Orangutangs. Sure would have been nice to have the other Cinci area bloggrrls--but life intervenes. Bawww.

I'd had my head in a blender all week, having gotten back from Guatemala/Nebraska late Sunday, put in three super-intense rehearsals for the gig, unpacked, tackled correspondence, done laundry, bla bla bla bla. By the time the gig started at about 9 Saturday night I was pretty much fried crispy. But with the help of some MSG from Chinese takeout and a thermos of hot rooibos tea, we made our way through about 4 hours worth of material, about half of it brand new, with me marveling afresh at the skill and musicianship of the other Orangs.

Tricia (or Trixie, as we wound up calling her) was there for the whole gig, stayed until the last dog was hanged, yakked with our friends, danced up a storm, and just generally fit in beautifully. My sweet impulsive friend Martha made my night when I stopped to admire a grocery-store cymbidium orchid she'd bought to dress the party space up a bit...then sent her husband Tony out to buy me one just like it. Ohhhh, yeah. I need a big cymbidium like I need another parrot, but it is ridiculously beautiful and lights up my living room! Thank you, Martha and Tony. You rock the hardest.

Let's see who kills hers first. My neighbor Beth rushed over and got one, too, and I alerted a couple of other master gardener/horticulturist friends to their presence, so I'm pretty sure they all found good homes. How anyone grows a 3' tall cymbidum with 50 flowers on it to sell at Kroger for $21.00 is a mystery to me. When I got mine home I ripped off the cheesy foil, plunked it into a tall, Asian-inspired green cachepot, and had something worthy of Smith and Hawken.

Sunday afternoon and evening, after loading and hauling our music equipment back from town, we all sat around the kitchen table watching Kid TV. Namely, a fashion show starring Vivi, Phoebe and Liam. Liam was dressed as Captain Underpants complete with flowing red cape and Cars undies, but he wouldn't let me post any of those photos. They are hilarious, but I must bow to his desire for privacy. Here he is as Venom, with Phoebe in pink and Vivi in Renaissance green. Nope, she couldn't be any cuter, or she might implode. Looks just like her mama.
Not long after this photo was taken, a very small Spiderbaby appeared, striking muscular poses. We laughed ourselves silly. Vivi ripped off the mask, Scooby-Doo style, to reveal her true identity. YAAAHHHH!
Stew was consumed, cornbread and fruit salad was consumed. Pie was consumed. Chet Baker begged shamelessly. He kept springing up into Tricia's lap, like a sudden kitty.
I hope you have put out eight plates. Portmeirion will be fine for me.

Today, we walked The Loop, still all bundled up against unaccustomed late March cold. It just will not warm up here. But we found the first tiny "Tete-a-tete" daffodil abloom in my south-facing garden, with some crocuses.
This, pathetically, is the only photo I got of Trixie, who is just as cute as Vivi, just grown up. I apologized profusely for the drab weather and colorless woods, but we had fun anyway. I know Alaska has us all beat for scenery, and was wishing we could at least have offered up some warmth to thaw these snowbound Ohio expatriates. But I did manage to find some pileated woodpecker poo under a tree with fresh workings, and dissect it to show Vivi and Trix the carpenter ant bones and skulls in it. They liked that. Who wouldn't?
I'll leave you with the first mourning cloak of spring, a hibernator out for a brief bask in the sun March 14. You can see from the slight wear on his forewings and tattered borders that he was born last year, and has spent the winter in a bark crevice. Another miracle. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

That Was the Party that Was

It's 6 PM, New Year's Day. I have the gas logs going, and all the other lights are off. Baker was sleeping at my elbow and I was all cuddled down ready to post when both kids appeared and wanted to look at all last night's photos. So it became a jiggly, jostly, not-so-quiet family affair.

My first bird of the day was a junco, I think; there were titmice and juncoes and chickadees at the feeder, and I didn't think to notice which one I saw first. In among the juncoes was pretty Snowflake, the leucistic female. A good sign, I think. I slept in today until 10:30, something that never happens unless I'm knocked cold by exertion. My first artist of the day on XM Radio was Ryan Adams. Another good sign. Bill didn't get up until 2:30 PM, another record. I wasn't even sure he was still alive. I had made homemade hot and sour soup for his wakeup lunch, then sighed and put it in the refrigerator when he didn't emerge. He shuffled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, and said, "I woke up wide awake at 8 AM..."

"And what happened between 8 and 2:30 PM?" I asked.

"I wrote War and Peace."

Life with Guitarzan.

Last night was the most fun I've ever had on New Year's Eve. It was also the most fun I've ever had playing music, and that's saying something. Lots of people came to the party, and most of them were saying it was the most fun they'd ever had, too. Everybody listened to the music and everybody danced like crazy. Margaret and Zane and Tony and Martha worked like Trojans turning the brick-walled loft into a party zone. Lighting is everything. The big green square in the picture below is one of our sheets, on which swirling iTunes shapes were projected. Here's Margaret, dancing. She looked like some kind of goddess last night. We had three digital projectors going full blast projecting abstract images onto sheets. So light and color were dancing across us as we played. It was like visual alcohol. We started playing around 9 p.m. At 11:57, Tony projected the obligatory Times Square ball drop onto a sheet, but we only gave it three minutes, just so we'd know when to raise a toast and look for someone to kiss, and then it was back to real life and live music. We played until 1:45, running through about 40 songs, almost half of them new.

The Cajuns have a term, "fais do-do." It means, literally, "Put the babies to bed." They bring their kids to their dances, and they bring pads and blankies and put them to sleep in an adjoining room. So the music seeps into the children's souls, and they stay up as late as they can, but they have a place to go when it all gets to be too much. Phoebe and Liam were in charge of keeping Sophia and Oona happy in a carpeted room on the third floor, and making sure their mothers knew if they woke up after they went to sleep. Oona loves Liam so much that he had to leave the room or she wouldn't go to sleep.Phoebe loved having a real babysitting job at last. She's going to be a terrific babysitter. She also partied down with us, and stayed up until 3:30 without a single complaint. Wow. Liam konked around 11, came down to ring in the New Year with us, and crawled back into his sleeping bag. We always have our kids with us at New Year's, no matter what.
Jess and me singing. Singing with Jess is amazing. It's like having a booster rocket behind me. Just singing backup with her is a blast. This may have been "Breakdown," by Tom Petty. We were a two-person choir behind Bill of the Birds. Baby, baby breakDOWN OOOOOwoooooOOOOOO.........

One of the most fun songs of the night was "I'll Take You There" by the Staples Singers. Jess took the lead and the rest of us got to sing backup. Oh, it was heavenly, just like her voice. I'm blown away by how fast she's learned the keyboard parts to all these songs, most of which she's never played before. She's got a terrific ear. Everybody was buzzing about our new Orang.
Shila, who has taken several photography classes and actually reads her camera manuals, took all these band pictures with my camera. I can safely say that I'd have gotten nothing in those conditions--dark, with spots of colored light. But she knew to set it to AV, open the aperture all the way to 3.5, and use the flash. This did a couple of interesting things. First, the flash captured the subject she focused on, in sharp relief. But the shutter proceeded to stay open for almost four seconds, thanks to the extremely low light, so everything but the subject at the moment of the flash was blurred with motion. The results come as close to being there as a photograph could. I LOVE these pictures. A million thank yous, Shila. What a gift to give us! Now go work on your web site so I can link to your art, for crying out loud.Perhaps the coolest picture of Clay ever taken. His solos, particularly on "Burning Down the House" and "Take Me to the River," were ossum. Man, he's fun to play with. When I called her today, attempting to describe the experience of playing in this band, my 86-year-old mom commented, "A good bass player can make a band." How true. Wish she could have been there to hear it.

William H. Thompson III played and sang like a shaggy demon last night. He's a very engaging, funny and fun-to-watch performer. There are a lot of people who play well, but many aren't particularly fun to watch. Bill's got it all going on, and he talks and jokes with the audience in a way that makes them feel like part of the fun. He traded guitar licks with Vinnie, and we even had some vaguely Bostonesque harmony guitar parts going on. Wooo! Bill makes sure all the musicians are watching him; he conducts us with his eyebrows and little nods of his head as he plays. So we all start together, we all end together, and nobody steps on anyone's solos, because everyone's keeping an eye on Bill, who's keeping track of where we are in the song, and who solos and who sings, and when. It's vital to keeping a band tight--no different from conducting an orchestra, and yet, in my experience, it's comparatively rare to have a strong leader and skilled frontman in a garage band like ours. And it makes all the difference to the audience, to have someone to watch and feel connected to. Patter matters. It was hard to pick a favorite moment, but during one of my songs ( I can't remember which), Vinnie, aided by an extra-long cord, pranced out into the dancing crowd while playing a solo on his Strat, and Bill came out to meet him, and they both did power slides, running a few steps, then falling to their knees while playing. This hurts more than you might think. See below. Oh, my goodness. Bill's laughing too hard here as Vinnie dares him to slide. He took the challenge.

Andy Hall played his butt off last night, with a tiny fedora to boot. I kept peeking back to see his Buddha-like smile behind flying sticks. I don't know how drummers do it. I can't play more than one percussion instrument at a time. Andy's doing something different with each hand and both feet. He flips me out, and he's sooo solid. Bill, Andy and Clay got a crazy arena-rock thing going during "Gold Dust Woman," a Stevie Nicks song that I love to sing. I was moved by the sheer magesty of their rawk to power-slide out on the dance floor, and bashed the crap out of the tops of my feet on the wood floor. I did slide for at least ten feet, however, and witnesses told me that I looked like I knew what I was doing. Perhaps they were being kind; friends are like that. I know one thing--I'm not gonna do that again, at least not without socks on. All this on one glass of wine. I was chugging hot rooibos tea all night, trying to keep my battered vocal cords going. Today, I couldn't hit a high note if you held a gun to my head--it's gone. I sound like Demi Moore today, and not in a nice, sexy way. More in a cronelike way. A power-sliding cronelike way. I should stick to a more sedate performance style at my age. I love Fred Rogers and am absolutely not making fun of him here. He is my hero. I just couldn't resist.

Vinnie, AKA Sparkle, was on fire last night. His version of "Boom Boom Boom" got everybody shaking. Beneath the giddy exterior is a rock-solid musician of great range and versatility. The sartorial excellence was provided by Bandleader Bill, who went on a shopping spree at Kohl's, finding matching black pinstriped wide-collared shirts, with colorful mod daisy ties--a different color for each guy. The boys looked so fine. I love the extra effort Bill puts into making us a band, and making us look like one.
Group hug at 2 AM. It felt so good to show so many people such a good time. But I'm sure nobody had more fun than we did. We were working too hard to talk to anyone, but we communicated just the same. Tonight, cracked voice, bashed feet and all, I feel like the luckiest woman in the world, to have this music and these people in my life.
All band photos by Shila Wilson, our personal Annie Liebowitz.

Make a Joyful Noise

As you know, this tends not to be a timely blog. You're in the clutches of a blog ant, who stores up posts like wheat, writing when moved to write, and taking food out of the pantry when not. So it feels like an event for me when I've got any news, and actually get it together to do a post about it the next day.

The Swinging Orangutangs have done a bit of a phoenix trick, with a new lineup and a bunch of new material. Bill and I sat down at breakfast this morning and made a list of all the people we've played with in this band in the past 14 years. We've had five different drummers, six bass players, and four instrumentalist/vocalists in addition to the core members (Bill and me).

Bands are like gardens. Some years, certain things grow really well, and other years, other kinds of plants take over. Some incarnations of the Orangutangs have emphasized original music, such as was written and performed by Bill's talented brother Andy. Others have been dance/cover tune oriented. Some have been folkier. Others have been a little more kick-butt rawk.

Back in October '07 we needed to put some people together to play a benefit for the Colony Theater's renovation. Bill went to movies in the beautiful Colony Theater when he was a kid, but since then it's closed and fallen into peely, spooky, Phantom-of the-Opera style disrepair. So we've played music for ColonyFest for several years running to help raise money to resurrect it. We asked Clay Paschal, who's recently moved here from Indiana, to play bass...a growing buzz was out on him already in the local music community.
I can use only one word that accurately sums up his bass and rhythm talents: MONSTER. A tasty, melodic, unfailingly in-the-pocket monster. Last night at practice, I was playing "Empty Pockets," a fairly obscure fiddle tune, on my pennywhistle, and Clay began to whistle it, and then revealed that he plays whistle, fife, and has taught low brass (trombone and the like) in schools. Oh. One of THOSE people, those Stevie Wonder kind of people who can walk into a music store and pull anything off the wall and play it. Oh, and he's got a warped sense of humor, too.

Speaking of those people, here's Vinnie Mele, who has come out from behind the keyboard to play a guitar lead. He also plays sax and sings beautifully, like a crazy bird. Hilariously funny and ridiculously talented, Vincenzo brings a sparkle and dimension to our band that's addictive. And behind him is another natural wonder, Jessica Baldwin. Jess is a classically-trained voice teacher and pianist who teaches voice and directs choirs in a large local church. She has always wanted to branch out into pop and rock, but has never had an opportunity until now. Speaking of unleashing a monster...we're getting some four-part harmonies with Bill, me, Vinnie and Jess that literally bring me to tears. Jess has a lot to teach me about singing, and she's debuting Chaka Khan's "Tell Me Something Good..." singing while playing its quirky, offbeat keyboard part. She brought The Weepies' "Gotta Have You" to our repertoire, and we're tremendously excited about the dimension and vocal beauty she adds. Warped sense of humor, check. It's kind of hard to see here, but she's got her hair wadded into two Mickey Mouse ears for last night's on-site rehearsal. Chet Baker LOVES Jess, and he spends most of our rehearsal time here at home sitting on her lap as she plays keyboard, his ears pasted back in doggie joy, gently farting into our airspace. He has become our band mascot, a role he embraces with zest. There is NOTHING Chet Baker loves more than band rehearsals. He hangs with us like the white on rice, going between my and Jess' laps, roo-rooing at Clay and Andy, playing tag with Vinnie, and pestering Bill, but mostly just digging the music. He is one music-loving doggeh.
Andy Hall is an incredibly tasty, artful, creative drummer, and it's a privilege to play with him. I have to use the M-word on Andy, too. Monster. He brings a world beat savvy to our music. Complexity is his friend, but not his overlord. He spans genres like most of us walk across sidewalk cracks. My favorite memory of Andy was about a decade ago, when we went to a bar in West Virginia to hear him play with a band called Pole. As blood began to seep from our ears, we grabbed napkins, tore them up and made little ear-tampons, which barely helped. At the break, Andy came out to greet us. We complimented him on his work, which was stunning. And ventured an opinion that it might be just a teeny bit loud. Andy looked thoughtful, smiled, rocked back on his heels, and nodded. "Pole's a loud band."I'm happy to say that the Swinging Orangutangs is not a loud band. For my fifth and final monster, I present band leader Guillermo "Guitarzan" Thompson. He's in a special kind of heaven right now, playing songs he's always wanted to play with a dream lineup. With Vinnie helping on rhythm and leads, Bill's freed to sing more and soar on his Strat, Creamy Delight. Ryan Adams, Wilco, Tom Petty, Talking Heads, and a bunch of crazy 70's disco stuff; we've fattened the repertoire by about 15 songs, and more keep flowing. There is a sense of energy and possibility about it all that is heady and intoxicating. Bill burns CD's for everyone, calls practice in our basement music room, makes chili, keeps the cold beers coming, and the band rolls along like a well-oiled monster truck. We have a New Year's Eve gig tonight, with tons of our friends coming. A team of friends has transformed a downtown building into Party Central. We've got three digital projectors and some kind of fourth gizmo throwing swirly psychedelic shapes on the walls, every Indian tapestry we own hanging up, strange fiber-optic lighting gadgets, food and bev's. Me, I'm a pig in mud. I looooove harmony singing, and I love having another woman to balance the testosterone swirling through our lineup. I haven't laughed this much in a year. Tonight, I'm taking a mirror with me, because I have to stand directly in front of Jess, Andy and Clay. You can't be turning your back on an audience, so I'm going to hold up the mirror and grin and make faces at them. We're going to rawk....so hard. Every photo in this post was taken by our band photographer, Phoebe Linnea Thompson. She was fighting some bad odds--poor lighting and the tendency of musicians to block each other thanks to being crammed together with a bunch of homely equipment. Thank you, Phoebs.

Phoebe has been taking photographs and writing for a couple of years now, with increasing success. She usually works with a small Canon Powershot point-and-shoot, but she prefers my Rebel XTi (naturally). More and more, I lean on her for off-the-cuff photography assignments. It's wonderful to watch her blossom. Speaking of blossoming...Phoebe has a blog now! She's got mad blogging skilz, born of posting for me and Daddy when we're indisposed, and spending lots of time getting Macs to do what they were made to do, without her mother's fear of failure. I can guarantee lots of Chetfixes on Phoebe's blog, since those two are rarely found far apart. I told Phoebs she needed to do five good posts before I'd link to her, and she did five in one day. Acorn don't fall far from the tree. Go check it out, and give her a twinkle in the comments section!