Another Tuesday Night At The Abbey Pub Open Mic

Another Tuesday night at the Abbey Pub open mic. The glorious redhead Erin O’Toole made an appearance and lent her mischievous magic and winsome voice to the proceedings. Rick Wells, Greg Steele, Jay Reynolds, Herbie Gaines—lots of regulars out. Rhiannon was in from Fort Wayne. She told stories of being a democratic poll watcher in a Red State, real front lines stuff. A good night of music making. I spent the end of the evening doing a run through of a new song by Kris Nichols called “Guantanamo”; a powerful, powerful song. It is gratifying to hear someone making a penetrating statement of artistic self-expression as the political sickness we are infested with runs its bloody course. An excerpt:

”…and we did not believe in torture
and we still believed in hope
but we just sang along on Sundays
as they built Guantanamo”

Yes, that is totally new stuff. Kris is mulling over debuting the piece next week at the Abbie. We want to get togther and finalize and arrangement. The entire song is quite compelling and sincere. We are looking to record the piece.

If anything is to save us on our present wild trajectory, it is voices such as this that will help affirm our inhumanity—humanity apparently dulled and seemingly dim-witted at present. It is heartening to know that sentient individuals are trying to put into music the truth laid bare about our condition. Art is compelled to respond with force to such provocation as Guantanamo.
If too many people feel little or nothing, than tragedy is not only probable, it becomes mundane. On one small corner in Chicago, we are fighting the fight once a week on Tuesdays. And if the occasional song gets mangled in the process, so be it.