Weekend Update

Updated to add: Just added a new show to the calendar page, where Jeremy and I and many sweet friends will be backing up our friend Emily Thomas at the Oak and the Ax this coming Thursday.

Who here has been to the Frontier Cafe in Brunswick? Such a gorgeous spot, right on the water, with huge windows, and a sweet little menu. We (Plains) played an early show with Arborea, in a little theater with long tables off of the main room, to a wonderful crowd. I get chills whenever I see Arborea. They are about to go on tour for three months, all they way across the country, so please, if they come through your area, GO SEE THEM. They are enchanting folks. Such a great evening. If you get the chance to see a movie or some live music, or just want to go and have a meal, GO. Brunswick also has a pretty great downtown, which I had never noticed before--the only place I've really been to in Brunswick is the massive flea market in the same mill building as the Frontier. Check this place out! I can't wait to spend some more time up there.

On Friday, Jeremy played (and was joined by our friend and Plains band mate Pat Corrigan) a solo show as Drab Pony. The evening also featured wonderful sets by Manners, Aleric Nez, and Nuda Veritas (all the way from Burlington, VT). The set that Jeremy and Pat played was largely improvised, and instrumentation included drums, a grand piano, and a metal detector, on top of Jeremy's normal set-up of various loop pedals, SK-1 Casio keyboard, and guitar. He inserted a small mic into the piano and was able to loop it, which sounded incredible. In a particularly intense moment, Jeremy actually struck the keys with various body parts, such as a knee or his rear end. We in the audience lovingly referred to this maneuver as "Butt Piano". Drab Pony was called back twice for encores, and we are all hoping that they play together more often.

Pat waves the metal detector over various objects to make a lovely electronic pulse.

If you look closely, you can see the microphone coming out of the piano.

Rebecca setting up

Nuda Veritas, otherwise known as Rebecca Kopycinski, is touring on a new album. Go here to read an interview with her before the show. She used pre-recorded and live loops to create rhythms and gorgeous layered harmonies, just with her voice. Her instrumentation included a small harp, guitar, and a keyboard.

One of my favorite graphics at the Apohadion. Drawing by Pat Corrigan. (Sorry it was dark in there!)

In other news, I present to you...Bayarri:

The seaming of the sleeves went better than I expected, as it was my first time seaming the sleeve first, then sewing the sleeve into the body of the sweater. As time goes on (this is the third sweater for me this year, which is the most I've ever made for myself, ever, after deciding I needed to spice up my wardrobe), I've become more and more intrigued and delighted in the process of finishing a sweater, and not just loving the knitting part and dreading the making up part. Sample knitting and working through the Master Hand Knitting course (more about that later) has really ramped up the quality of my knitting, though I've now been a knitter for 15 years. It's a slow and amazing journey. Sometimes I wish I had a machine.

Anyway, I seem to get an awful lot done when I have two days off in a row. Yesterday was one of the laziest days of the whole summer, where I spent many hours watching movies and knitting up swatches of one of the new yarns that have yet to be released by Knit One, Crochet Too. Well I guess that was pretty productive. Perhaps a crafter who can do things while watching Netflix can never be unproductive. (Unless wine is included in the mix, in which case that is possible, for sure.)