Author: Joey deVilla

I’m just trying to carve out enought time to write those entries. Work has to take precedence as my landlord, the utilities companies and a number of stores in the market have formed a “Coalition of the Billing”.

Morgan and Vinyl Demon both pointed me to this CNN story that begins with this line:

After two run-ins with police for playing his accordion on the village’s streets, Jacob Kouwe has been cleared to polka.

The aptly-named town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio is a suburb of Cleveland (which, contrary to what Drew Carey will tell you, does not rock in the very least). The sixteen-year-old accordion player started busking in the downtown area of Chagrin Falls in December, playing polkas and hymns on his accordion. His playing drew two complaints to the police: one from a busybody nothing-better-to-do Starbucks employee who claimed that he was “soliciting” and another from a resident who complained that his playing was “tacky”. The police looked into the possibility that Jacob was disturbing the peace by breaking a 1935 law prohibiting the loud playing of musical instruments.

I respectfully suggest that the Starbucks employee get a life. As for the other complainant: anyone who lives in Cleveland is automatically disqualified from calling anything “tacky”; this goes triple for anyone who lives in a suburb of Cleveland.

It worked out in the end: the village council (I can’t help imagining a group of elders carrying torches and dropping black or white balls into the preserved skull of the town founder) ruled that his performances do not disturb the peace. Jacob said the following to the council:

I admit street performances are not the polished, perfected, album-quality fare served up by formal concert venues. However, my street performances are from the heart.

Truer words were never spoken. Well done, Jacob!

Here’s an entry I wrote about two weeks ago but never got a chance to post. About two weeks ago, Paul and I played the open mike night at Graffiti’s and had a great time. If you’re in the Kensington Market area tonight at around 11-ish, drop by and hear us play the guitar-and-accordion rock that the government doesn’t want you to hear.

I do believe that The Girl will be dropping by, and if I recall correctly, she promised to throw her underwear at me, a la Tom Jones’ fans. Rock!

Immediately after the gathering with Doc Searls, I hopped a cab and made my way to Graffiti’s in Kensington Market. Graffiti’s has an open mike night on Mondays and Thursdays, and its popularity is growing.

Paul and I have been doing the Open Mike circuit more often. We’ve been performing his new songs and they’ve been pretty well received (I’ll have to pen a magnificent rock opus or two myself). He used to hate the chaos that’s sometimes associated with these nights. “Why are these things so random?!” he’d complain, to which I’d reply “because they’re run by neo-hippies.” He’s also now more comfortable in front of a crowd, enjoying the rush that comes with public performance and learning to handle the randomness that plagues events run by indie rock/folkie set.

Graffiti’s has a glass-and-aluminum garage door as their front window. This is quite nice in the summer, as they often roll it up to let some air in. However, in the winter, it’s a poorly-insulated wall that lets in a lot of cold air. Inside, it was cold enough to see your breath. Apparently the heater wasn’t working that night.

We sat near the stage (which also meant we were in the coldest part of the room) and started talking to the people beside us — Derek and Maggie — who’d driven in all the way from Oakville (Oakville is to Toronto as Newark is to New York City. Sort of.). Maggie had never performed in front of an audience before; this was going to be her big debut.

“Don’t worry too much,” said Paul, “never take it seriously.”

“In fact,” I added, “never take anything seriously.”

It was a pretty nice open mike night. There was considerably more variety than what you’d hear at the Free Times Cafe (supposedly the open mike venue here in Accordion City), but it’s always been a bit grating. Too many skinny self-pitying waifs and naifs performing the same damned “nobody loves me” song on their Takamine guitars. Does Takamine have some kind of “unrequited love”, “just got dumped” or “forgot to take my meds” discount? Paul ended up having a conversation with someone who remarked “The Free Times?! That’s just a clique that’s been going on for the past twelve years!”

Early in the evening, one of the performers asked if there was someone in the crowd who was drunk enough to try playing backup piano on a song they’d never heard before.

“I’m not drunk,” I said immediately, “but I’ll do it.”

“Cool,” he said, “and hey, I love your hat.”

I’m going to have to buy another one of these the next time I’m in Vegas.

Sweat-of-the-pants stuff like this keeps me sharp. The song was a simple I-IV-V in the key of G with a very mellow tempo, so it was pretty easy to follow him. By the second cycle of chords, I’d managed to get a lock on its “shape”. By the end, I’d managed to expand the comping and throw in some nice transition chords to boot. I love improvising.

When I returned to my seat after the song, I told Maggie that I like doing that sort of impromptu thing.

“I get a rush from getting thrown into things like that,” I said.

“You didn’t get thrown in, you jumped in.”

“Good point.”

But really, why live on the sidelines when there’s a whole playing field out there?

…the increasingly rabid Indymedia for this vicious posting:

The grenade attack that took place today in Kuwait is alleged to be committed by another AMERICAN SOLIDER. Repeat. The Grenade attack today was an example of Fragging–not a terrorist attack. This shows that RESISTANCE and REBELLION ARE ON THE RISE! Watch the American Free Press downplay and try to bury this incident. Support our Troops–but only those who Frag their commanding officer.

This is disgusting. It’s one thing to say that you don’t agree with the war, but this is something completely different. These people have pretty much turned in their running shoes and left the human race. They’re no better than some of the commenters on the Little Green Footballs blog.

According to this test, I’m some guy named “Barbecue”. I used to watch the TV show after school, but I’ve never heard of this guy:

You’re Barbecue, the firefighter of the team! You come from a long line of firefighters, and you’re willing to do anything it takes if you know you can save someone’s life from a fire. Off-duty, though, you’re a notorious party animal, known to open beer bottles with your teeth! Wow!

Party animal, si! Opening beer bottles with teeth, no! I’m a contract programmer and don’t have a fancy-schmancy dental plan like the G.I. Joe team members.

The sun is up, the sky is almost completely cloudless, and it’s about 10 degrees C (that about 50 degrees F for my American friends).

If you’re somewhere inside this lovely weather bubble (or anything like it), see if you can’t squeeze at least fifteen minutes out of your day, step outside and enjoy this.

Anita Rowland was the first to comment on a typo I made in the entry about my recording session:

I wanked Doug and Sean through the different accordion reed settings.

Heh.