2023 blog

saturday, october 7th - house party - mansfield, ma

many thanks to dina and jim for inviting us to their fall party. we got to hear the "i want you" (jim's band) and a few other guests jam some tunes before it was our turn. we did a small 4 song set then headed out back to the fire pit to hang with friends. we were fully electric with jay playing jim's electric guitar and chris playing electronic drums. we had the acoustic and the kahone in the car but instead went with what was already set up.

saturday, august 5th - hop jam east- arlington, ma

year 3 of hop jam east. we are starting to make it a new old tradition all over again. we had a nice mix of friends and bands this year. it was the first year that we had mo's band (mr. bumps) play. good to bring in a new high school band so it's not just us old folks playing. as always, it's nice to hang with friends and neighbors. we are thankful arlington puts up with us!

saturday, june 17th - porch fest - arlington, ma

we played porch fest at gemma's house. our first time here. we had a weird weather weekend, and combine that with the impossibility of scheduling, we had ourselves a "the show must go on" type porchfest. it was a little rainy, but we couldn't move it to sunday. so it went on. luckily, gemma's family are sailors. they set up one of thier old sails and we had ourselves a nice shade and rain structure to play under. in the end, it was a perfect afternoon of music and hanging out.

saturday, may 20th - hugh o'neils - malden, ma

the 20 (some odd) anniversary of jeff's open mic! josh was there, so we got to see jeff and josh play together for the first time in many many years for us. also jeff's brother, dave, of air traffic controller was there too. so we caught a set of his tunes. over the years we've seen our share of air traffic controller shows (jay has photographed many of them). we saw some old and new friends there. we even ran into randy, who chris is already in a band with (and also with DJ). it was quite possibly the rainiest night we've had in a long time. luckily we were all indoors. :) we just played a single song because there were so many people that came by to celebrate. here's to another 20 years! (1 tall and 3 wide pictures)

wednesday, april 26th - hugh o'neils - malden, ma

boy. it has been a while since we played an open mic. we ran into jeff at the AHS battle of the bands and we got the crazy idea to pop by his open mic. it's hard to believe he's still hosting a wednesday night open mic in malden after all these years. they even had a drum box for chris to play. it's always good to get back out there and play. perhaps we'll keep popping by? he invited us to play his big anniversary show in may, so at the very least, we'll play that one! here's to many more.

friday, february 17th - union tavern - somerville, ma

a show in a bar! what a concept. we've been busy with lots of creative projects over the recent years, but it really has been an extremely long time since we've gigged in a bar. shockingly long. our friends, sand machine, invited us to play a night with them as well as letterik. we see sand machine at hop jam all the time, but it was so nice to hang out in somerville at the union tavern. we made some shakers the night before, put up a few fish on the walls and even brought give-aways. and of course, we broke a string, so the give-aways were perfect. one lucky winner walked away with crazy straw glasses and another got a mario pez dispenser. we played a few of the newer songs (oops i forgot and backwards), as well as dusted off an oldie (valentine's day) since valentine's was just this week. everyone was great and shook along the shakers with us. our days of being a studio band are behind us once again! many, many thanks to all that came out!