New gig announcement and other news

 Here’s the latest The Birds of Play news. We’re still drying out and healing up as the result of last week’s storm. But it looks like we’ll be  practicing this Wednesday. Not sure what is on the agenda for the session but my guess is you’ll see work on songs like I Feel So Old, Solstice and Know Better.  From one bird to another, I hope you’re feeling better and that you can eat the frozen veggies soon.

 

In the interim,  James has secured us another gig at Sally O’Briens for Thursday, July 22. That comes about two months after our next gig, Thursday, May 27 at Sally O’Briens.

One thing we’ve talked about in the past is playing a month-long residency at Sally’s or a place like that (Bull McCabes, Precinct, etc.) Hopefully, the more gigs we play, the more songs we have to fill said residency.

Finally, our friend Jeremy sent along two new songs as part of the Verse Versus Chorus catalogue. VVC is The Birds of Play minus John and adding Jeremy. We had to give Jereremy the boot because he refused to grow a beard and he insisted on licking James and me on the elbow when we weren’t looking. Next time, ask. OK? Speaking of asking, I’ll try to gain permission to upload at least one of the songs so you folks can hear it.  

Tidying up a basement and an iPod

 

While two members of The Birds of Play were tidying up our practice space (aka. Melissa’s basement) after last weekend’s flood, another member of tBoP was tidying up his iPod while on toddler duty this afternoon. From this birds to the other two birds, thanks a lot for all your hard work today!

It took about an hour to import the album artwork for these 35 albums to my new iPod since for some reason itunes doesn’t recognized them. Strange that it hasn’t heard of Led Zeppelin IV, Electric Ladyland, Band on the Run, Exile on Main Street, A Love Supreme and Dark Side of The Moon. I guess they aren’t that important. My bad.

Kevin Crowley works a double, Kevin Crowley is God, Kevin plays with dolls

For months, I have been hearing this guy’s name over and over and over: Kevin Crowley. The first time was when I heard the song of the same name which was recorded as  part of James’ 52 Song Project for 2009. And when The Birds of Play was formed, the song was quickly pitched and accepted into our set list for our first gig. And why not? It’s a great song. One of the most rocking numbers we have and it gave me the chance to ram into James while we performed it live.  Leading up to the gig, we practiced it several times a week to the point where Kevin Crowley became more song than man.

Well, that all changed for me on St. Patrick’s Day when I finally met him. While some members of The Birds of Play know the genial Sally O’Briens bartender better than others, I had no idea what he looked it like. Well, that all changed on St. Patrick’s Day when I saw Kevin in action. 

In all seriousness, I can see why James would write a song about his bartending abilities. He’s pretty darn efficient and has a calming demeanor when he takes your drink order. He also made sure to point out my Stella when he served it and a similarly shaded Sam Adams for James at the same time.

 (Hey, Kevin. There’s an empty glass over in the corner!)

So raise your glasses to Kevin Crowley, the unofficial bartender of The Birds of Play!

Cute St. Patrick’s Day photos

Ok, so I admit it, we knew the folks at Sally O’Briens were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day on Wednesday. Well, everyone except Johnnycakes. But lets not tell him.

Anyways, here are a gallery of photos from the evening including one taken by James’ nephew, Brandon. Doesn’t he look like a cuter version of  Weezer’s lead singer,  Rivers Cuomo? Discuss!

Stayed tuned for another Sally O’s-inspired blog this weekend featuring one cute staff member whose name we hear OVER and OVER and OVER again!

The Birds of Play Website Coming Soon…

Look for an official launch of thebirdsofplay.com sometime in the month of March. Leave a comment with suggestions if you feel so inclined.

Autograph signing session a complete BUST!

 (this wasn’t taken by an adoring fan but by James’ nephew)

With black felt pens in pockets, the members of The Birds of Play arrived at Sally O’Briens last night to celebrate the one-month anniversary of our first gig,  ready to sign autographs for our adoring  fans. First to arrive was James Christensen who was accompanied by his nephew and girlfriend, fresh from their whirlwind tour of lovely Union Square. Next followed Dave Rogers who brought along his Nikon D70 to capture the exhilarating scene for posterity. Melissa Misicka arrived next wearing a shamrock green dress that eventually turned out to be more trouble that she had bargained for. Last to arrive was John McCarty who was accompanied by his wife, Lisa.

Things looked promising as the place was full of people (although there were more people at the gig) and they all seemed to be having a great time. For the most part, they were wearing green clothing and hats. Some even looked quite festive with battery powered glasses that lit up in different patterns. We found it especially touching that our fans would dress up just to meet us.

So with all The Birds of Play assembled, in the designated area we chose for the autograph session, we reached for our pens and waited to be overrun by our fans. A minute passed and the crowd seemed to be staying back. Perhaps, we thought, they were a little pensive about being the first in line. But as one minute turned to five and then 10, not one person stepped up to meet us. As the minutes continued to roll on, Melissa asked one of the bartenders that if all these people weren’t here to meet The Birds of Play, then why were they here.

The bartender replied that it was St. Patrick’s Day and folks were at Sally O’Briens to drink, laugh, dance, chat and listen to Josh Lederman and the CSARs.

Momentarily dejected we contemplated going home for the night but John then suggested we stick around and pretend that we were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day as well. So, one by one, we meandered into the sea of people and began drinking, laughing, dancing and listening to Josh Lederman and the CSARs.

By all accounts, we were able to blend in without problem and turn what started out being a disastrous night into a very grand one. Yay for us!

Dried up, in a good way…

It was a miraculous occurence to wake to subdued seas in the basement this morning. I felt frustrated that I had no strong photographic evidence of the struggles, so I paid a professional graphic artist to simulate the ordeal.

Here we see the grim, taxing effort of endless water-sweeping yesterday:

And here we see today’s more joyous celebration of a mostly-dry floor:

Carpets and rug pads alike shamelessly sunbathe in my backyard, exposed for all to see…

There you’ll also note my snazzy new galoshes (or, at least, a singular galosh). Why haven’t I had these in years? How useful they are! (Although I’d really need to tighten them to make them useful mid-storm, I suppose. Otherwise I’d just be walking in buckets of water–less useful.)

And finally, a shot to echo yesterday’s and to show the exciting overnight progress (as well as my exciting new wet/dry-vac!). This thing was clearly not intended for multi-inch water (as Jamesie and I rapidly learned in our fire-brigade style water-disposal routine (one severely hindered by the vac’s ability to run but 20 seconds before reaching capacity)). However, it held its own with today’s leftover puddles, and I’ve already seen my car interior eyeing it with a twinkle in its eye…

 

Practice tomorrow is still on hold as we solemnly raise a glass (or two) for the Irish, but hope holds firm that Sunday could be a day for a glorious rock return. (As long as all the equipment works…fingers crossed on that!)

Basement Birdbath

This weekend’s rainfest has put quite the damper on thoughts of practice in the near-term…

This is the only picture I’ve managed to get (approx 7PM Sunday evening, once we got to low tide) as I’ve been too preoccupied with sweeping and sucking and sumping to be snapping. (You can also tell this is an atypical situation as it’s my first first-person blog post. My wings are too tired for third-person today.)

It started innocently enough on Sunday when I checked out the basement around noon, just as we were debating whether or not to practice that day (final decision: no; final decision: ultimately disastrous?). With wry amusement I noted there was only the typical rain dampness in the usual suspect corners…with the exception of one large square where rain appeared to have fallen out of the 1st floor sky. It may not be of surprise to anyone where this one aberrant rainfall destination was located…can you guess? Did you guess “Directly over John’s keyboard stand?”? Did you? Did you? If you did, you were right! Ooops!

So my plan was to take a picture of that and write a funny blog denying that my basement could have been the cause of John’s keyboard destruction (Jeez, I was really out to get that one, wasn’t I? Feb 18th gig attendees can attest to this). Around 5:00 I thought to head back down and pursue such merriments, and maybe even a good drum smash or two, when I noticed a tipped-over wastebasket by the washer. Odd! Then I noticed a rug was levitating. A fleeting fantasy of owning a magic carpet (a whole new world!) was rapidly dashed once I realized the carpet was also shiny and damp. And floating. In about 3-4 inches of water. That spread all across the basement.

NOOOOOOO!!!

I called James, whose house I was about to head over to shortly, and left a frantic voicemail. In the interim, I tossed on the most “waterproof” footwear I could put my hands on: a pair of vinyl knee high boots with 4 inch heels back from 1998. (Note for future: not waterproof. Hope for future: boots not permanently ruined for when I want to be Poison Ivy for Halloween…for the 5th time).

In this stylish fashion, I rolled up my jeans and I descended into my new wading pool, hustling over to investigate the sump pump. It didn’t seem to be on. Perplexing! I looked up and saw some drops of water had splashed onto its GFCI outlet and noted that a red light was on. (Here’s where I also had a flash (flood) memory of my subconscious noting that the red light was on at noon, but not doing anything about it. Blast you, Oblivious Noontime Melissa!) One touch of Reset and the pump began rumbling promisingly…too promisingly, in fact, as the hose suddenly began spraying everywhere. Surprise! The hose had tiny cracks! For streams of water to gush from! Into my face!

So there I was, crouched on the floor in my saucy boots desperately clutching the hose with my too-bony hands attempting to block all the cracks, but instead managing to redirect all streams of water directly onto my person. I could hear James ringing the bell upstairs, and felt frozen with indecision (and really cold basement water).

With a flash of accidental brilliance, I realized the hose wouldn’t spray everywhere as much if I tucked it underwater. I was then able to greet James with my unbeknownst-to-me Clockwork Orange-mascara-eye face (thanks, Sumpy!) and together we got to the business elevating everything important and sweeping water as efficiently as Swedish curling Olympians.

Long story short, there’s still lingering water in the far corners of the basement, although the “band” area is mostly dry aside from the perimeter. The basement shower is backed up a bit and I continue to eye it with fear, as those liquids are more suspect than the floor liquids. Gloves, bleach, buckets, and a plastic grapes carton (for bailing) are buying me time on that front. I hear wind there may be a rented portable pump finding its way to my house tonight to help with the unsweepable waters. And I hear that some day, some blessed day, this rain might actually stop. I might be crazy, but I think that would be key to improving the situation. Then again, I also think that cheap knee-high vinyl boots have a chance of being waterproof, so perhaps I cannot be trusted.

On the happy front:

• I bought galoshes today. Boy are they handy, and fun to spell.
• I stayed home from work today. Fun in theory. Less fun when you spend most of the day sweeping water in the basement.
• I now have a legtimate and undeniable reason to throw away the hoarded cardboard boxes that I secretly wanted to ditch for months, but felt I should save. See ya, sog!
• And last but most definitely not least, James is really the finest of feathered friends! Thank you, Jamesie…the day would have been far more disastrous without you!

OK, time to go back to the basement… stay tuned for updates from the Birdbath!

Birds of turd

Crap, what happened to that extra hour? It’s already mid-morning. No matter, it will be worth it in the long run as it no longer will be getting dark by tea time.

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day in birdland. Word has it that James spent time working on some tunes in between trips to the laundromat and Sally O’Briens. Not sure how much he loved the ideas he was working on since in his Facebook profile he used the phrase “polishing a turd.”  That inspired one of his Facebook friends to post this link about a Japanese dude who actually polishes them. Who knew?!

Melissa wanted to blame something on the rain. That brought up bad memories of horrible 80s music but I think that was her intention. Thanks Melli. You’re the Scritti Politti.

John, no idea!

I had date night with the wifey. We went out to a nice romantic Italian restauant in downtown Salem followed by drinks at The Old Spot just down the block. I had three beers and I was nice and toasty. Lightweight!

Here’s photo:

Well, that’s it for now. Enjoy the extra hour of sunlight.  Too bad it’s been raining cats and airplanes.

The Birds of Play performing on Chatroulette?

 

Driving along the back roads  of Amesbury and Newton, N.H., I came upon a breakthrough: a revolutionary way of expanding our fan-base if not our name recognition: sign onto Chatroulette and let people watch us practice. Ok, I know what you’re thinking: lame-o. We’re going to get NEXTED so fast and so often that it’s going to be a complete bust. Well, admittedly, I don’t think you’ll see Melissa show her bust nor do I think one of the three bearded members will be showing their members. But the way I look at it, many of the Chatroulette crowd try to get a laugh by dressing up as Batman and dancing on the screen to the tune of “The Safety Dance.” We at least will be performing some actual music and maybe say a swear or two.

Anyways, I sent the word out about my idea to other members of tBoP and got nothing. I mean nada, zilch, dead air in terms of replies. Sigh!

[Editor's note: not surprising but someone else has beaten us to the punch in terms of marketing their band on chatroulette. The name of that band? Holy Fuck. Well, fu, Holy Fuck for stealing my idea!}