May 28, 2009
Hi all,
The peonies are popping which lets us know that June is right around the corner! But before we turn that corner, we have to tell you about a super cool special show this Saturday May 30 at the Guthrie Center in Stockbridge. The Guthrie Center is AKA Alice's Restaurant from the famed Arlo Guthrie recording circa 1967. Arlo Guthrie is instrumental to our being residents of Western MA. For some reason, while I was in college in New Haven I had a vision of my future in Western Massachusetts, fed only by the vague knowledge that Arlo lived here and made a happy musical family life in the hills of the Berkshires. So when we came of age, we showed up here, too, and I can't imagine a better place, allergies, mosquitoes, 8 months of winter and all. So come on down to the show. You can get anything you want...
Speaking of all that, I am missing my 20th college reunion this weekend. I just can't imagine it would be that fun to show up with a baby and a three year old, even though I know people who do that. They have better nervous systems than I do, or they're just more comfortable with chaos. I am going to spend my weekend instead remembering my college days fondly, seeing one old friend, taking my kids to our first CSA pickup (YAY!!!!) and doing this great gig. Hope to see you there.
June 2-Nerissa's BIRTHDAY! And the anniversary of the day Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the US. (Both occurred in 1967, as did "Alice's Restaurant." How cosmic!)
June 7-Appel Farm We are part of a really exciting day of music called With A Little Help From My Friends. In place of the usual festival, Appel Farm is hosting a benefit for scholarships to their Young Artist Camp. It's the coolest of line ups: Guy Davis, John Gorka, Vance Gilbert, Grey Eye Glances, Livingston Taylor, the Kennedys, Jeffrey Gaines and more... 2pm-6pm. I am quite sure there will be a lot of musical intermingling. I think this will be a remarkable show.
http://www.appelfarm.org/concerts/benefit/index.html
June 20-Nields Double Header! Cambridge/Watertown MA!! We are performing as part of SummersDay Revels in Watertown MA at 3pm and then doing our own show at Passim in Cambridge at 8pm that night. For those who don't know, Passim is second only to the Iron Horse as Most Favorite Gig, and Revels is one of the main reasons Katryna and I chose this gorgeous lively twisting road called Life As Folksinger. Revels "celebrates the seasons and cycles of human life through the arts, the songs and dances, and the stories from traditional cultures. Audiences recognize the events, desires, and dilemmas from another place and time as their own... A Revels production brings a volunteer chorus of children and adults and professional actors, musicians, designers, and directors into community. At each performance, this community invites the audience to join it. The audience always accepts the invitation, to make noises, to sing carols, to join hands with strangers and dance. Audience participation is the hallmark of Revels."
Hmmm. Sounds like a Nields show.*
* Amelia at age 4 coined the term, throwminating. Def. The act of including the audience in the play. Breaking down the fourth wall and bringing the play into the theater. I had not even taken her to a Revels event yet. I will this year. I have to. There's going to be Irish Step Dancing. That's her favorite.
June 24 Wednesday at 6:30 pm We will once again break all the rules and sing at the library. This time it is the M.N. Spear Library in Shutesbury, MA. We are responsible for kicking off the summer reading program with some singing. Full disclosure, we are actually singing behind Town Hall, but it sounds so cool to say that we are going to be singing in LOUD voices in the the library. You'll have to imagine that. This will be a family show with a mixture of songs for kids, grown ups and maybe even a bit of singing along. Dontcha know.
June 28 Greenfield Energy Park 10th Anniversary Celebration! We are on at 7pm. Greenfield Energy Park is a community greenspace featuring renewable energy exhibits, gardens, native arboretum, caboose museum, concerts, and public art in the heart of downtown Greenfield. Site of former train station. Headquartered at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA). What's better than supporting renewable energy on a beautiful summer night and listening to music at the same time?
Also, just a heads up, but we REALLY love to sing in libraries. Especially on Wednesdays. So look for us in Easthampton, MA at the library, in the morning, on July 1. We'll be the ones not using our indoor voices and telling you to spend the summer reading. Also we'll be singing.
Announcement: due to frustrating shoulder and back problems, Nerissa is in the market for a new guitar, which means I am also in the market to put two of my old guitars ON the market. One guitar is the jumbo John Ostoff I used for many tracks on This Town Is Wrong. It's a nice rich sounding beauty with Koa wood on the back and sides. The other is my Taylor which I play out almost everywhere I go, otherwise known as the "Hate Free Zone" guitar because it has that sticker on it.
If you want to buy one of these guitars, name a price and we'll talk. If you have a light guitar with onboard electronics that is just screaming my name to you, and you are dying to sell it, let me know. Ideally, I'd like a rich bassy sound AND a light body, but that might not be possible.
I am not blogging as often as I was in March and April because Katryna and I are hard at work on our book tentatively titled All Together Singing in the Kitchen, or The Musical Family. Stay tuned. But I still do blog, and my intention is to post once a week minimum.
Do not forget your favorite grad! Give them the gift of passive aggressive guidance by slipping a copy of How to Be an Adult into their post-grad travel bag.
Happy happy spring! Stop and smell them roses.
Love, Nerissa and Katryna
ps- note from Patty...My Birthday is June 8th. Nerissa thinks that if she does not mention it in the Newsletter, she does not have to get me a gift... she is wrong!
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