Yeah, no subway activity today, folks; a good friend of my stepdaughter's was giving his senior recital this evening in his hometown of Berkeley Springs, W.Va., so we came down to hear him. He was great. He's going off in the fall to UNC School of the Arts as a singer and has a big future ahead of him.
After the show, we hung out with his family at a very cool local restaurant called the Earth Dog Cafe. There was a "live music tonight" sign outside, which is always good.
Inside, there were two women setting up - a keyboard player/singer and a drummer, and when they kicked off they were totally in the groove. They were called The Bad Bitches of the Blues - a band name way too awesome for such a small town - and they had that good musician's sense of humor.
Their third song was "Free Bird". Third song? After which the keyboard player announced that their guitarist hadn't shown up tonight.
As it turned out, the restaurant manager told me that one of the guys on staff at the bar often sits in with them but he was still working so he couldn't come out and play yet.
She also told me that one of the band had been in the photograph for the 'Woodstock' movie poster, sitting on a VW camper van rolling a joint.
Whether that's true or not, for an unconventional blues duo, they were just terrific. When you feel it inside, good music is all around if we're open to hearing it. Especially after a few beers.
* Update on Saturday morning: so, apparently after we left the bar last night, the fun started. From the accounts we heard there was something of a brawl, which either started off or ended up - does it matter? - with some guy removing his pants in front of the band.
** And talking of awesome band names, we had breakfast at a hotel in town before we left, where these guys were playing. Kinda wish we'd stuck around...
Small towns often have awesome musicians!
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