Doughty @ The Loft, 10/27

I saw Mike Doughty perform with a backing band at The Loft in Atlanta last week. The other times I’ve seen him perform, he’s been an opening act, and it’s just been him and his acoustic guitar. I kind of think his vocals were mixed a little low this time, they had a hard time competing with the band. I knew almost all the songs already, so Mike’s artisanal wordsmithing wasn’t lost on me, but if I didn’t know the words I would’ve found it hard to discern a lot of them. So I was a little disappointed on behalf of the friend I had brought with me to the show, but he assures me he enjoyed it too.

I sang along a lot, which always feels good. There were a couple of moments where Mike got mixed up on the verses and somehow I made the same mistakes along with him in real time. It was kind of uncanny. I felt very present, if that makes sense.

The opening band was an act called Moon Hooch, who claimed to have been plucked from the streets of New York by Mr. Doughty and invited to tour with him on the spot. They were two sax players and a drummer; their whole performance was instrumental, but their pure musicianship was mesmerizing to watch. These guys can BLOW.

It was great to get out, even on a Thursday night. I need to commune with sound more often, it’s so therapeutic.

A Busy Saturday Morning

I brought Dwight (my accordion) to our Music Together class yesterday. I had worked up simple arrangements of three songs from the current songbook, and accompanied the class while they sang and danced. (I sang along where possible too, but was thinking too hard most of the time.) It was so much fun, I’m looking forward to doing it again sometime. I also want to bring the uke in at some point.

After class we went to Verizon Wireless to look at the new Droid, which Laura went ahead and bought. (I’m officially jealous. I love my Samsung Flipshot, but man is that thing sexy.) The kids entertained the sales guys by pretending to talk on the dummy model phones throughout the store. One of the guys went in back and got a couple of discontinued models, and gave them to the kids as toys. They were so proud. They’ve been making pretend phonecalls on them ever since.

Then, next door to Verizon is a Tae Kwon Do school, and they were celebrating their fourth anniversary with free food, demonstrations, a bounce house, and cake. The kids had a ball and wore themselves out. Riley was imitating the demonstrators, kicking and shouting an approximation of “hyah!” We got to thinking about how martial arts would teach a lot of the things that Riley needs most: confidence, discipline, focus. We spoke with the manager, and she was very supportive, saying they work with special needs kids all the time. She set Riley up with an instructor — a teenage boy who surprised us by being really good with Riley. We signed Riley up for classes. He seems excited about it, we’re hopeful he’ll participate well.

(Of course, as I typed this he was screaming his lungs out, in protest of being sent to “quiet time” for having screamed about having to wear non-preferred underwear because he wet his Spongebob ones. So we shall see. Rome wasn’t built in a day and so on.)

Real Conversation with a Seven-Year-Old

Other Guy: So your job is to stay at home with these two?
Me (spinning Lydia in the air): Yup.
7-year-old: Your job is to stay with them? That just sounds like a dad.
Me: Well, I am their dad.
7yo: That’s not a job, what’s your other job?
Me: I don’t have one right now–
7yo: You lost your job?
Me: No, I left it so I could take care of them at home.
7yo: That was a dumb idea.
Me: …
7yo: You could be making… a hundred dollars a week!
Me: *visualizes him doing Dr. Evil pinky gesture, chuckles inwardly*

(Other topics included Bakugan and the Coca-Cola museum.)