What Cheer, Netop?

ilyAIMY (which it turns out stands for 'i love you And I Miss You') updated their blog) and said:

Last night we played Ryan Fitsimmons' singer/songwriter showcase at AS220 in Providence and then stuck around for their open mic. The showcase had a great cross section of performers, with Ryan keeping his head down on one side of the stage (we've seen him play for REAL now, and though he played hard and sung out, we know now what he can REALLY do when he's play a Ryan show and not just playing host), Allison Calory (God knows if I'm spelling that right) singing sweet, fingerpicked tunes, and Jacob Holler performing bizarre country-esque tunes about a father being so proud of his budding Satanist daughter and drawling out fantasies about killer robots eating people's heads.

It was cool.

I must admit, I myself waxed poetic for a bit about Transformers. I even wore my Decepticon shirt to reprefuckingsent. Megatron wouldn't eat your brain, he would stomp you into jelly.

They also posted this picture (taken by Rob of ilyAIMY during the show:

This morning I had an idea for what to do for the song about 'Childhood Photographs' that I have to write for this coming Sunday (January 14)'s 'Songwriters in the Round' show at AS220 (which goes from 7 pm to 9 pm). I think it's supposed to get its debut performance at the show, but here's the first verse I've got at the moment so you can see where I'm going with it.

( first verse )

I'm also thinking about what other songs to play at the show. I think I'll just bring my guitar, so that eliminates some songs immediately.

I'll do a total of four songs, one of which is the new one. I'll probably make the final decision about what I want to do while I'm onstage and listening to what the other participants (Ryan Fitzsimmons who also organizes the Songwriters in the Round shows, ilyAIMY, and Allysen Callery) play, but it will probably be three of the following:

• Editors at War
• Hybrid Car Blues
• Kitten Knitting Blues
• Lady Luck
• Pickle Postcard
• "Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth"
• Watching Killer Robots Eat Your Head
• Worst Meal
• You're The Tea In My Teacup

This weekend Chris Monti had a large number of things he was playing in and I ended up going to a bunch of them. Today he was in a 'songwriters in the round' event which was part of a block party put on by the West Broadway Neighborhood Association, so I headed over and checked that out. At that time he mentioned that he was in another 'songwriters in the round' event that night at AS220, a monthly event organized by the Rhode Island Songwriters Association. The RISA event has a different theme every month, and each of the four participating songwriters is supposed to write a song on that theme. This month's theme was 'going swimming', and Chris said that he had started writing his song that morning, but that he thought it was pretty dumb, like a dirty limerick, and that he would only perform it once. He then asked me what it was called when a submarine took on ballast before diving, but I wasn't sure.

So the RISA event was tonight at 7:30 and, of course, I had to go. I got there a little early and was, for a little while, the only person in the audience; then I was joined by an incredibly drunk gentleman who spend four or five minutes blowing raspberries with his mouth, and then switched to croaking at irregular intervals. Ryan Fitzsimmons, who organized the event, looked a little worried, and asked croaking guy if he was doing that on purpose; the guy croaked and nodded. He then asked him if he was going to continue doing it while people were performing. Croaking guy thought about this briefly, then croaked and shook his head 'no'. Ryan suggested that if he could avoid doing it during the performances it would be greatly appreciated.

Ryan started his song (which wasn't the 'going swimming' song -- each songwriter got to do four songs, the third of which was the theme song) and, apart from one relatively subdued croak and a little kicking of the metal chairs in front of him, Croaking Guy more or less kept to his word. Then he left for a short while, and after retrieving a bottle of wine from somewhere he came back and sort of lay down on the floor behind me. Then after another couple of songs he left again.

The first round of songs was complete, and Chris's friend Bridget showed up. Croaking Guy showed up again and sat next to Bridget, giving her the full benefit of his unique odor. Then he left again, this time for good, although his scent remained for a bit. Anyway.

The third round of songs, which was the 'going swimming' songs, came. Everyone had little introductions to their songs, which I recognized from my days in a writing group as the obligatory 'this is why what I wrote sucks' segments. The songs were all pretty enjoyable, though. Chris's song was told in the first-person and was a song about a guy who goes to the beach checking out other guys in speedos. He suggested that the only way the song would be any good would be if all the other musicians also played, which they did, which was very nice and which I felt kind of subverted the 'songwriters in the round' paradigm a little.

After the theme songs were done, the theme for next month was chosen. The way it worked was this: Everyone in the audience (which was six people) wrote down a possible theme. Then four of the themes were chosen at random and given to the songwriters, each of which read one of them. Then everyone voted for which theme they liked. The proposed themes that were read were 'robots', 'riding on the subway', 'hurricanes', and 'surreptitiousness'. Guess which one was mine?

When the themes were read out, 'surreptitiousness' caused a lot of comment, because people seemed uncertain as to what it meant. The final vote count was: robots 5, surreptitiousness 4, riding on the subway 1, hurricanes 0, at which point there appeared to be quite a bit of consternation about the difficulty of the winning topic. This entertained me greatly.

Then they each did one final song and the evening was over.

After the show, I took Chris and Bridget to Trinity Brewhouse for drinks and a little food, and Chris recited the lyrics to his song again, providing a little commentary for Bridget and my benefit.. Then we went to the abandoned telephone booth by the old fire station nearby and Chris took out some matches and burned the only two copies of the lyrics to cinders.

It was a good night. I think it will be necessary for me to go back next month.