A Step Back

Ciao, Tutti!

Let's take a step back and look at all the exciting things that seem to be happening all around me, so fast and so wonderful!

1) West 10th Reading: Yesterday (April 3, 2010) I read an except of "A Fascinating Line" at the release for West 10th in front of a packed audience of about 50 (I'm sure it was a fire hazard...). Friends came, including friends I didn't expect. All in all it was a great success! I walked out with 10 copies for my family under my arm. Check out the front cover at the top of the post and the back cover below (with my name on it! One of only 6 fiction entries that were accepted!).


Click to enlarge

2) Flaming Fire at Glamdammit: Just after the reading I headed back to my crib (heh!), threw on an all-red outfit, my bass, and a cab to Don Hill's to play the first Flaming Fire gig since December at the happenin' all-night-long glam rock dance party Glamdammit. It was an emotional experience for me since I will probably have moved away from New York before the band plays another show, so I gave it my all. Drenched myself in sweat, tore up my fingers on the bass, jumped around the stage, rocked everyone's socks off. It was one of our best shows since I've joined. I'm glad I get to go out with a bang.

Our publicity photos from February are in, but since they haven't been released yet I can't post them. Instead, enjoy a picture of these variations on tea:



3) Onward to the future! My life was supposed to get easier after my recital. Less busy, more time for writing and submitting short stories, blah blah blah. Here's the exciting reality:

This Thursday, April 8, 2010, at 11:45 pm, Owl Eyes will play its first live show, a free concert at Goodbye Blue Monday in Brooklyn. We will add the lovely Rosie Glassman on the drum set. Let me tell you, she adds a whole new dimension to the music. I hope we can get her to sing a little, too, sometime in the future. If you can come you won't be disappointed! Cue the creepy and amazing flier drawn by Justina's roommate Daniel:



On April 9 at the Jazz School in Berkeley my old friend Peter Hargreaves is putting on a benefit concert for an educational organization in Guatemala (if that sounds vague it's because I'm not sure I understand it myself). He has written a bunch of music for the show, including a string quartet, but he also asked me and a few other friends - including the great Peter Apfelbaum - to write pieces. I'll be only 3,000 miles away, but the band will perform a jazz quartet piece of mine called "Insomnia." If you're in town you should check it out, and don't feel indulgent when you drop the $10: it's for a good cause.

Then, a week from this Wednesday (= on April 14, 2010), two great things happen. First, the Historian comes into existence, hot off the press. I hope I'll be able to attend the release event, but if not it's because I'll be playing at the Jazz Gallery with the NYU Ralph Alessi Ensemble at 8:00 pm. That's the second great thing. The Jazz Gallery is the best music venue in New York city, possibly the world, and they didn't pay me to say that. It's not free, but it's worth the 10 bucks.

In case you've forgotten about Owl Eyes in the course of the last paragraph, we have a second gig lined up for April 23 at the Sidewalk Cafe. I honestly don't know much about this venue - we're taking things one step at a time - but I do know it's free (once again), it's in Manhattan, and we'll be given enough time to play out our entire repertoire. Sweetness!

I will be playing a couple of recitals as well: Drummer Alex Kurland's on April 25 where I will do my best imitation of Gary Burton, and composer Leo Birenberg on April 28 where me and saxophonist Rob Jacoby will premier the second movement of a piece of Leo's I played at my recital entitled "Divertissement," assuming Leo ever gets me the music for it. If the second movement is as good as the first then that piece alone will be worth the price of admission. It's free, by the way.

I'm tired just thinking about all these things. What a life! And I still have a novel to edit, too. Man!

-Sam goldsmith

P.S. In case you didn't notice, I figured out how to use links in this post. I kinda went nuts doing it, too, so be a dear and click on one, okay?