an epic night in tremont

Last night, Jen O'Leary and I performed original and favorite songs to a good crowd at Visible Voice Books, an excellent bookstore in Tremont. After schlepping several loads of gear up two flights of stairs to this upstairs book nook, it was good to perform in this lovely (and cool) space. Some of the highlights included performing new original songs like "Sympathy for the Brute" and "Red House," older ones like "When I Was a Train" and "Lucky," and showcasing Jen's harmonies on "Don't Go Back to Rockville" and "Long Black Veil" and her lead on "Hey Jack Kerouac." We took a break midway through the performance and sang happy birthday to the fabulous Katherine Readey. At the end of the night, many glasses of wine and beer had been drunk, we'd nearly destroyed The Destroyer, Crust Pizza's epic-sized pizza, and the birthday cake was mostly gone (especially the flower, which 4.5 year old Jonathan was insistent about eating because it contained the most frosting). More friends joined the birthday bandwagon at Bourbon Barrel Room down the street for drinks and appetizers, and the night ended with so-bad-it's-good karaoke at Tina's Niteclub, aka Cinderblock Heaven. Katherine can thank me later that when a friend handed her a shot of whiskey, I took it away and told her to go back to drinking beer. We had such a great time hanging with friends, and are grateful for our community in CLE as well as epic babysitters Tuni and Lee Chilcote.