The year was ending with a thud, then the universe provided an alternate ending.
Station 18, which was becoming Two Eyes' Seattle home base announced that they were closing in October. Our remaining bookings were cancelled, of course and with bandmates' other bookings and holiday travel, it looked like our year came to a premature and abrupt end.
But, instead an opportunity came up to plan and play a holiday themed show at The Traveling Goat, which is a favorite spot. It's a very good vibes neighborhood bar with food so insanely good that I actually think it could be a restaurant with a bar instead of the other way around. It'll just be Masha, Jon, and I with perhaps a special guest or two and we're frantically arranging off-the-beaten path Christmas songs to supplement our standard repertoire. But we're very excited about it and it feels like a perfect way to wrap the year. Please join us if you can!
Most of the year, I was hustling hard, going to a couple of jam sessions a week, taking whatever free lance and casual work came my way, composing, and booking what I could for Two Eyes and DeadWax and I feeling pretty hard on myself because I wanted to do more, play better, be busier. But in retrospect, it was a good year.
Jon and I still can't really deal with the open drum seat in DeadWax, but we have found some peace in playing in Wayne's shadow. We agree that we want to get the trio working in earnest again and we'll add a permanent 3rd when it seems right, but in the mean time, it's an opportunity to play with the line up.
Two Eyes…ah Two Eyes…I can see what tremendous potential this project has and I think it's starting to become evident to other people as well. I spent most of the year feeling like we weren't doing enough and we did have a setback and a quiet period, but also, we really became a band this year. We have the equivalent of an entire album's worth of original material and have built a really good not-too-standards repertoire. We're playing well together and getting responses from audiences and venues. I've realized that I need to ease up and be happy with that progress for 2023 and be prepared to go bigger in 2024…and we've got a plan!
I hope both of the people who read my blog =^) have a great holiday doing whatever it is that you love with whoever it is that you love and that we all share good time and share some music in the new year!
