I went to see live bluegrass music last night. It was a definite experience in surrealism, this few hours at "Bluegrass night" (or "Country night" – not sure) at a bar in (or near) Montreal's hip Plateau district.

Here's where I confess something a little embarrassing: I used to get chills up my spine as a kid when I heard Flatt & Scruggs play the banjo-laden theme song to "The Beverly Hillbillies." Same thing for the Dueling Banjos thing in Clockwork Orange (is that the right movie?). In fact, I still do.

Anyway, last night, we walked into this hole of a dive of a place peppered with what looked like regulars sitting at the bar, and we grabbed a table up close to the stage area (not that there was any actual stage, per se). Over the following hour, musicians, some of whom were actually the aforementioned "regulars at the bar," walked in with guitars, mandos, banjos, a fiddle, a stand-up bass and proceeded to set up shop. It was all done very casually, and finally one guitarist started playing a little riff by himself, only to be joined after a few minutes by others, turning what sounded like an aimless noodle into a real song.

We watched for the rest of the night as musicians with varying degrees of ability took turns playing. Some of them were really good, too; much better than I'll ever be, as a guitarist. They laughed and cracked jokes and made fun of each other while making it look easy. It was great.

Apparently they meet for subdued acoustic sessions at downtown bar Monday nights, so Marv and I may check it out tonight.

*********
In other news, we've finished recording the Celtic demo. Now we just have to mix it down. Oh, and then we have to figure out a way to burn it onto CD, as apparently it's been recorded at the wrong sample rate or something...

*********
And yeah, there was a party over a week ago that ended rather sullenly. It was preceded by just about the worst karma you can bring in to a party. Pinky was under undue stress due to school, and she had said something to me earlier that day that I misunderstood and really let bother me. Basically she said "I don't think I could live this way all the time, with you working fulltime *and* recording music at night," which I took to mean, "I won't be a part of your life should you ever make a career change that would render you unavailable most nights." Now, the odds of me ever making such a career change are pretty damned slim, but nonetheless I was hoping for a response more along the lines of "no matter what you do, we'll deal with it," which in fact I think is how she feels, in the end. At least I hope so. (And for the record, I feel the same way about her.)

So anyway, the party: a series of misunderstandings involving her, her brother, mystie and myself, ended up with Pinky screaming at me for the actions of someone else. As I stood there in stunned silence, her bro dragged her out of the room before I could gather my thoughts and try to fix it, or even just give her a hug. Then on the way home we brought up the whole career-issue thing, which I *hadn't* wanted to bring up 'cause I knew she was stressed about other matters.

Ugh. I *hate* fighting. I'm glad it's over.

In the meantime, I have to remind myself that she's under a lot of stress, and sometimes I need to be a little better at communicating. Why can't we all just be perfect, eh? ;-)

*********
Yesterday I spend the day running errands and making spaghetti. Mmm, spaghetti... I can still taste the sauce...

*********
ADDENDUM: The late, great kaf has pointed out to me that Dueling Banjos is actually from Deliverance, not C. Orange, both of which I've not seen... *bows head in shame*

<bla bla>