First Recording Session and On Stage WIth Garrison Keillor

Lots of news certainly today, and I may be far to tired to actually put it down in an intelligent and witty manner, it's all catching up with me, but I will do my best here.....Malena is currently on a plane back to LA and I am certain she will add her tired and sleepy bits once she gets home, if I forget anything of import.

Sooo...I went down to the Cities on Thursday night and practiced some with Adam Stemple, and met up again with the one and only Lojo Russo. Haven't been in the same town as her in months and we had wonderful fun. We had some fine time playing music and with the feeling of " You're never to old" took off for the Irish Clubs at about Midnight. Saw the Irish Brigade ( LOVE Mike Wallace!! ) and a suprise set from the Wild Colonial Boys , a band who everyone has been telling me I need to see, and I was NOT dissapointed, very fun stuff they are.

This puts us back to the house we were staying at , at about 3:00am and we were up at 5:00am to get the Malena from the airport. Lojo and Malena get on like they have known eachother for years ( Malena does that to people ) and we eat and go back for a long lovely sleep. ( ok, so we get back at 8:30 and need to be up by 10:00 )

11:00am in the Studio for the first day of recording...It's all about Lojo and she is magic. We have her two tracks down, tho sadly, not in a form we can MP3 here on the website, soon, soon....I wish I could say more but she came, she rocked, we recorded....

Sleep until Saturday.....On Stage with Garrison Keillor .This is where it starts to get interesting and I am not sure I can write about this expierence , doing it justice. Wonderful wonderful time! He is as lovely and cool in person as he is on the radio. Extreemly professionial, very on the ball, and seeing him perform is person , you realize just how very very good he is. We had a great time. We closed out the first half of the show with " The Tea Song " , " Sonnet in the Dark " and " With Someone Like You" and finished off the night in the second half with a Dan Bern song called " Marilyn " . Adam Stemple, of course, backed us up, with many thanks sent his way, and also to everyone who came to the show, friends and new fans alike, your support meant much to us. We had so much fun!!!

I am not sure if there are any pictures ( WHAT was our state of mind that we forgot to take PICTURES??? Go figure...) but , this is very exciting, my boss managed to, being very savy with the digital camera, get some footage of the us at the show! And as soon as we edit it down and figure out how to do it, it will be up on the website! This makes us very happy indeed....

It was a fine show for any show, let alone a first gig , and it went very well indeed, we are very happy with the way it all turned out. ( tho the phrase " A little trial by fire never hurt anyone " does come to mind, ) but I don't think we were overly nervous. We love to be on stage and enteraining people, and could not have had a better venue. Malena is an amazing performer and singer and it certainly does bode well for us as a band, I would go on stage ANYWHERE , anytime with that women!!!!! She has a knack for being in the right place at the right time and knowing what to do when, AND she has perfect pitch and timming, something I lack, which does us well , I adore her more today than yesterday ( which is REALLY saying something ...)

I will admit tho that on the way home from taking Malena to the airport tonight I was thinking over the show and recalling the encore, with everyone on stage , where we did Good Night Ladies, and I was remembering that Garrison took my hand and drew me up to the mic with him to sing, something which didn't phase me at the time. I thought, " oh, this is what we do now, " and I was only concerned with doing things right and taking cues correctly. I drew Malena up too and then everyone sang. It was only on the drive back today that it hit me......

-I- was on stage with Garrison Keillor, holding hands and singing???????

Sometimes life is Magic like that.

Magic Music and Gigs for All!

Lorraine