I sort of disappeared there for a bit—I was up in Burlington Vermont for 5 weeks, working at a French language immersion program with 90-some American teenagers, and a very cool staff (all of whom pretty much spoke better French than me, but I learned a lot in 5 weeks).
The program was housed at St. Michael’s College, a small Catholic liberal arts college with a really lovely campus.
Since “Brad” isn’t a very French name, I was “Thibault.” I led singing (kids learned about 20 songs or so while there), and helped to organize activities and other program-related things. It was very fun, and CRAZY STRESSFUL. So, readjusting has taken a little longer than expected. But, I’m glad to be back, and I do have a new French song, j’ai vidé mon cœur (I emptied my heart) to show for it. The kids sang it, and also an older one, Une Fois, which I wrote while working in a similar program about 10 years back.
Will I do it again next summer? Not sure, but it was pretty cool.
Duo Video Online…
I just re-found some video online from a couple of shows Jason and I played in December of 2006, in Ithaca NY (at the Smart Monkey Cafe, and Schenectady Night Sky Cafe. They were recorded & edited by Jason’s father, John. You can watch live versions of 7 songs.
Bethel Park H.S. Residency=New Song
There was a Post-Gazette article (in the South edition) about my residency April 14-18 at Bethel Park High School. I worked with 3 different groups of students, and they wrote songs and poems, which they performed on Friday during an all-day coffee house-type event at which each student performed their original work 4 or 5 times for different groups of their peers.
As last year (when I set the e.e. cummings poem to music which I still perform), I wrote a new song during the week, the lyrics to which came out of a writing exercise that I did with the students, who really did some great work and came up with very creative things.
Thanks to: Julia, Andy, Andrew, Laruen, Robert, Zach, Zach, Joe, Sarah, Ashley, Jordan, Max, Brennan, Jess, Emma, Ashley, Blair, Vickie, Valerie, Jayna, Florence, Laurel, Andrea, Alyssa, Kerry, Cameron (apologies for misspelling any names), and also to Mr. Youngs for making it happen!
Eat More Kale, Folks…
I’ve been going down to the Monday night open mic at Club Cafe(and then heading over the equally fine, later open mic at the Rex Theatre.) Lots of folks are taking pictures of performers at Club Cafe, and KS was kind enough to e-mail me some good ones, including this one of me playing “Something Good,” (the song of that title, not just any good song), and wearing a nifty Eat More Kale t-shirt I got at last year’s Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.
Mostly, this last paragraph is great practice linking things to other pages! :]
Kudos From Dave Potts…
Dave Potts is a terrific songwriter-performer from Alabama, and someone I’ve heard play, and had the honor to play in-the-round with, at NERFA—for “best 2007 discovery” and one of his two “best CDs of 2007.” You can read that blog entry here.
Thanks, Dave!
2 Online Videos…
I recently played at the Inspiration Café in Washington, PA, and Harry Funk from the Observer-Reporter came out and shot some videotape. Video of “One Excuse,” as well as audio of “Local Band” are posted online on the Observer-Reporter’s “Sound & Vision” blog. Thanks, Harry!
I played the Gristmill at St. Vincent College on Sun. evening, Jan. 27th. Eamon shot some video (as a work study project-good work, if you can get it!), and put together a pretty cool little video, which you can check out on the St. Vincent College site.
Thanks, Eamon!