Blue Frog Folks

Dave and I like Blue Frog Coffeehouse. The people are wonderful, the coffee is excellent, and Dave has a thing for the brownies. I have a thing for the free refill on in-house coffee.

The Frog is like my home-away-from-home in Cortland. I go there every Saturday and some days during the week. I recognize most of the people there (although I certainly don't *speak* to them. That would be against my nature) and am always happy to see Karina, the owner, and talk for a little while.

It's like if you mixed Jed's and Coffee Planet and put them in Cortland, or something like that. And with a free refill and a piano and a sound system, and blue frogs.

But, getting to the point, I was there on Wednesday, drinking coffee, and Karina asked if Dave and I would like to play at their summer "Lunch Tunes" series. She said they were all booked for their Tuesday slots, but had tons of openings for Thursdays (noon to 1PM). Unfortunately, professional that he is, Dave is currently unavailable at that time. I, however, am entirely free, save packing.

So, I said I would play by myself. Fun! I get to play new stuff Dave and I haven't figured out yet! And no pressure, right?

Well, it turned out there was a good audience outside (I played in the outdoor seating area) AND Dave came down to watch on his lunch break. So, I couldn't actually try out completely new stuff, but playing by myself did allow me to experiment a little which was fun.

I ended "Downtown" (which you won't have heard, of course) and "River" (mine, not Joni's) a little differently, and opened the set with "Other Side of the World" by KT Tunstall, which I haven't done in the past. As always, "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" (Dylan) was odd without Dave's solo, but also extra fun to play. And I didn't play "Winter Blue" at all. But I guess that's because "Other Side of the World" has a similar sound and therefore they've become connected in my mind, so I can't really play both in one set, and this show was only one set.

--End Run-on Sentence--

But yes, it was fun. And people came specifically to hear my play, which I was surprised by, considering it was a one-hour show, basically on a street-corner, in the middle of the day. They all clapped and everything, and thanked me afterward. Apparently I'm easily impressed by normal crowd behaviour when playing by myself. Or maybe i've just been playing on the Commons so much recently that any sort of crowd behaviour is exciting to me.

In any case, the response was overwhelmingly positive and I hope those in attendence will be back for our AUGUST 21st show at 8PM at Blue Frog. That will be a true AA performance. And I expect we will have a bunch of unfamiliar songs for those of you who haven't caught our last few appearances or my many busking adventures down in Ithaca.

And then. . . . I will do another solo Lunch Tunes show on SEPTEMBER 17th at NOON at Blue Frog.

During those performances I will be calling AA the Court-Date-Duo and myself the Small-Claims-Songstress. You see, August 21st we have to go prosecute some fools in Cortland City Court for violating a contract and then on Septemver 17th I have to attempt to reduce the insult being added to my June 1st car accident injury.

Hurrah!

That's really all I have to say, except that I expect to write another entry about relocating to Halfmoon as soon as I pack some boxes and drink some coffee and sing the Welsh song "Moliannwn"

-C