The Schizophrenic Coffee House

Just a quick one today. Lately my posts have dealt with music in culture or reviews or some such nonsense. There are a few reasons for this. Number one, I tend to get more random Google hits by talking about bands that people actually care about, which more often than not are not the bands that I play with. Number the second, I haven’t been playing that much lately. Critical Mass’ regular drummer is back from baby-hiatus, my audition with that other band still has to happen (got an email the other week assuring me that it will happen, perhaps not any time soon) and I haven’t had any calls from any of my other musical suitors.

This past Saturday, however, was officially one of the weirdest shows I ever played. The Runaway got asked to play a coffee house in Hamilton and asked me along, which I obliged. It was going to be a little more chill than usual so we put together more of a stripped down set: two songs with beats, one with guitar and one with djembe.

What made it bizarre was the other acts. I don’t know what the advisor’s concept of the evening would be, but here are the acts in the order I may or may not remember:

-- My friend Sara playing some folksy stuff, starting with a song about lemon meringue pie set to the tune of “Leavin’ On A Jet Plane”

-- A spoken word poet who did poems about, and backed by classical symphonies

-- A trio of Spanish youth singing songs in Spanish and “other historical Hispanic languages”

-- A stand up comedian who hated public transit

-- A woman singing songs in Serbian

-- A diminutive Asian tenor in a tuxedo singing opera in Italian

-- Another spoken word poet whose final piece centered on a pair of talking shoes that he owned

-- Us!

The show itself was decent. I absolutely maimed a few chords in one song, but got it back by the end.

OK, OK, enough of my meager musical existence. Something funny where I (something small) make fun of something in the music industry (something big) on Friday.