Off The Cuff

Spring Valley woods in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, NY
Spring Valley woods in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, NY

Margaret Explosion started back at the Little Theater Cafe last night. We’ll be there every Wednesday until the new year so you have some time to see what all the fuss is about. We had a good night and the place was packed. Those two things don’t always go together. Our best song of the evening is usually the first one when there is hardly anyone there. We had emailed people that we were playing all new material which is true but it implies that we worked on new songs when in fact we hadn’t even seen each other all summer except for the two art openings we played. A few people told us how much they liked the new stuff and one even thought we were going in an electronica direction. Jame Nichols sat in on piano in the second set. He said he would have been there earlier but he was teaching a Mexican history class at RIT.

Each night is different and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We perform songs that have not been written or predetermined. We spontaneously compose them and if we try to go back to a song, it never sounds as good as it did the first time. As Paul McCartney once said, “You can’t reheat a soufle”. We are best off going out on a limb every night and that can be intense or it can be mundane.

I’m happy that most people don’t see it for what it is because we are doing our best to make them sound like songs and not jams. As we packed up Peggi was talking to a young kid who who also played sax and an old couple came up to tell Bob and I how much they enjoyed the music. They were such a cute couple I felt like I was looking at a Grant Wood painting and I could hardly digest what they were saying. Before heading to the door the man asked, “Is your music off the cuff?” I was more than happy to fess up.

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