SF Bay Area!

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Elaine Romanelli

Final stop on the west coast tour: the San Francisco Bay Area. Home! (one of them.)

Peri’s was the first show of the tour (thanks, Spirit Vibrations booking!). Cool dive-y bar in a decidedly not dive-y town in the North Bay. I played with the band Blisses B:

my new zombie band

One of the great joys of playing in the Bay Area every year is seeing friends – La Fabulosa and the Biscuit, my darling Coyote and her sis, and many other friends with equally adorable nicknames. I got no decent photos at the SF show, so thanks to Ryan for this:

me and the love dumplings

 

Friday night I had the pleasure of playing a house concert in the East Bay (thanks to Anne and Harriet). The audience was a roomful of excellent musicians of all kinds — no pressure at all, no siree — so it helped that I got to play a beautiful grand piano.

le piano!

 

The tour ended Saturday with a house concert at the home of the amazing Heidi, packed to the gills with all her wonderful peoples. The evening had started with a sprint to the music store to replace my broken sustain peddle (Heidi is a superb getaway driver as well as a top shelf hostess). I thought it might jinx the night, but au contraire! The event was warm and wonderful, the wine flowed, the new peddle worked beautifully through a two-set show  AND four encores.

The night ended the next morning, shortly after dawn, when the stalwart remaining realized we’d talked through the night. A highlight of the year. And it’s only February!

Part of my heart is indeed in San Francisco. ‘Til the next time, everyone.

 

 

 

 

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Portland, part deux

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Elaine Romanelli

Back to Portland from Seattle (I know: weird. Worked, though.)

Digression, before I forget: Portlandia! Have you seen it? Totally true, in its way.

What the What, you say?
I say, watch ‘Ordering the Chicken’, and then you will Understand.

 

At any rate. Back to le tour…
Got to play at a super cool music store called Music Millennium. The performers play up on the balcony and the audience kind of loiters downstairs and gazes upwards. (Friends who came out for the show, thank you!)

The place is hard to capture, but I tried.

Music Millennium was Monday (say that fast five times) so I didn’t get much more time to love on Portland before heading south. But it stayed sunny and charming, the whole time.

I think it likes me. Chickens and all.

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Seattle, Part all

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Elaine Romanelli

Totally unfair, pacific northwest. You have been rocking some serious sunshine, as if it’s always like this. You sunny, blue-skied liar.

Listen: I’ve asked around. I know you’re true colors are grey and green. And yet, this…

Seattle from the ferry

downtown Seattle from the ferry

Got to play a cool show in Renton and then roam the city
on a stunning weekend in February.

Friends from the Renton show.
(Attractive bunch, no?)

Sunday was Eat and Wander Day, with a couplea friends who also love food.
This, for instance, was breakfast:

Not your father’s mushroom omelette

And this was dinner…
(Warning: vegetarians, cover your eyes.)
(Pork-a-tarians, fly to Seattle and order the pork belly at Serafina.)

Crispy melty warm pig part happiness

And check out this sweet nighttime treat…
Also got to meet an adorable baby with awesome hair, and her sweet parents (and faux sibling, the dog), and cavort briefly at a cool wine store. All in all: wonderful weekend!

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Portland! Part I

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Elaine Romanelli

Well, I got the behemoth duffel bag packed – barely! – and wended my way to Portland.

Driving around, I noted immediately one downside of traveling solo.
Hard to shoot photos and drive at the same time.

Look! There’s Powells! Look! Mount Hood! Oh, cool building, I wonder what THAT is?
Didn’t capture any of that.

I did try. I have several photos that look like this:

I managed to get at least one photo of Portland finery…

Patisserie treat from someplace on Division, devoured thanks to Almost Birthday Girl.

On the music side I got to kick off the tour at the fabulous Artichoke Music open mic. Met a slew of lovely people, including a musician who happens to be good friends with one of my neighbors in NYC. (What are the odds of that?)  Look! Proof!

me and Andy Anderson at Artichoke

Then I ambled south to wine country and played a couple sets at a cool eatery there. (Terrific staff, generous patrons, good food and wine, excellent home-made salt caramels.)

Portland does rock as much as they say it does – it’s charming, environmentally conscious, there are good eats everywhere, and it’s filled with suspiciously nice people.

I give it a hearty two thumbs up. : )

 

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Packing for tour

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Elaine Romanelli

Tour tomorrow! And packing is going… well it’s almost… well frankly it’s not anywhere NEAR done, but I did accomplish one feat:

Does it look a bit bloated about the middle to you? That’s because the stand is in there as well. Yes! Magic. (It was very much like zipping up too-small jeans, with lots of hopping about and starting over. Woe betide us all if they want to see inside at airport security.)

Unfortunately, the main suitcase still looks like this:

So there’s some progress still to be made.
Something to which to look forward.

 

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Hoopy Holidays!

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Elaine Romanelli

And a merry whatever to you all.

(Yep. That happened. : ) There’s even a recording you can download for free, if you’d like to have a copy of your very own.)

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Serendipity!

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Elaine Romanelli

Quick happy note:

Remember, you who have read the second-ever post on this blog, the story about my favorite childhood candy?

Well, recently I had the pleasure of spending time with parents of dear childhood friends. Now, growing up they didn’t know about my attachment to that most excellent candy, the Cherry Mash. But they’d heard tell from their kids recently.

And they live in the area where the Cherry Mash grows wild and abundantly.

So guess what they brought me? An ENTIRE BAG OF CHERRY MASH’s! I know!

Which came in this:

Which henceforth shall be called, The Churkey.

I suspect The Churkey is magical, and re-fills endlessly with Cherry Mash’s. I haven’t quite tested the theory yet – I suppose Step One is to offer a Cherry Mash to each local-dwelling friend and see what happens.

I’ll get right on that. Starting next week.

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This Life

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Elaine Romanelli

I suppose some of you might idly wonder what it’s like to be a full-time musician.

This could be a seventy-billion part series. (There would, of course, be High Drama, a la the original Dallas series. Also big hats. Also, conversations where everyone faces away from one another.)

My thought for today is this: this life is Great. And also really, really, really hard.

On the one hand: freedom to create, to express, and most importantly to connect with other people, in the hopes that, just when they feel isolated, or weird, or lonely, your song will reach them, and they will know at least one other person has *been there*.

What a privilege!

Doesn’t it feel so… oh, it’s a relief, isn’t it, to be understood? To read or hear something that makes your soul say Yes, that is how it is for me. So then what a grace to be the creator of that thing.

But then the downsides… they are legion. Mostly, what wears us all down is the grain of sand in the shoe, which for many of us is the constant subjugating of the artist part in service of the everything-else-that-is-necessary work.

In today’s world the expectation is that an artist will, fairly close to literally, do everything his or herself. There are only so many life hours to go around, my friends, and there is only so much one person can be good at. And to be Really Good at something, one must put a lot of focused time into it.

So… choose to be Really Good at social networking? or Really Good at writing songs and playing them? What about recording, sound engineering, photo editing, video making, website creating? You’ll need all those too.

What if you’re not There yet? How will you earn money while you are building all those skills, growing your following, honing your craft, improving your playing? Would you like also to exercise, and sleep enough, and have healthy relationships? (Let’s not get greedy.)

I wish I knew how it was done. What I do know is this: there is no sure path, no merit-based pay increase, no tick upwards for hard work. Some rise, and some labor in poverty. There is no correlation between high quality and financial remuneration.

When I step back and look, I want to stop.

For today, I just…won’t look.

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What’s with all the food, Elaine?

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Elaine Romanelli

Listen: I do think about things besides food (and music.) Some things. Sometimes.

But also, in my very first, extremely burger-centric post, I promised deliciousness for the non-animal-eating crowd. So here you go:

vegan salad (spinach, mushrooms, avocado, balsamic vinegar)

and for the vegetarians, a fete of feta…

Wilted spinach, feta, sauteed scallions, dill, olive oil. And the merest dusting of cocaine. (I assume that’s what makes it taste so good.)

I eat omnivorously, but I cook mostly vegetarian-ily. The reason is simple: guilt.

Unless I know I will cook meat that very night, I won’t buy it. I feel bad enough if veggies go to waste, and between my schedule and my cooking style (let’s call it ‘spontaneous’ rather than ‘chaotic’) I’m not at the stove every night like clockwork.

So you may see more photos like these.

And also photos of chocolate.

And perhaps something about world peace, or books. Fashion? Something besides food.

 

 

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Childhood candy

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Elaine Romanelli

Continuing the Memorial Day food-a-thon, here is my favorite candy from my childhood:

The Majestic Cherry Mash

(No actual cherries were harmed in the making of this candy.)

I think it was my favorite because it was scarce; as I recall, we could only find it in the town where my grandmother lived, three hours away.

So it was a special treat to espy it on the food-a-thon trip, in a wee little town in Nebraska, where my great-aunt once taught piano.

There has even been innovation! Look — two sizes!

The Majestic Mash and its Mini Me

And sugar addicts: behold the delicious interior…

Needless to say, I bought the store’s entire supply, enough to share with all my friends… but – tragically! –  they got smashed in transit.

And one cannot give out smashed candy as a gift! The horror!

No. One must dispose of it oneself. It’s the honorable thing to do.

 

 

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