Are You Dave?

Here’s my latest schedule:

• March 1: TFL at Cabin Fever - our official first anniversary gig!
• March 6: Solo gig at J.C. Fridays, at Made with Love Organics in Jersey City
• March 9: Gordys purim show at the synagogue
• March 15: TFL Family Beach Party at “Shades,” 720 Monroe
• March 21: TFL at Liberty Science Center in the IMAX theater!
• April 24: TFL at All Saints’ spring bash
• May 1: TFL at HOPES (tentative)
• May 30: TFL at the Waterfront Museum
• June 14: TFL at Kiddiepalooza on Pier A
• June 4: Pete Seeger 90th Birthday tribute featuring some of Hoboken’s top musicians!
• June 7: TFL at the OLG Fun Fest at Church Square Park (tentative)
• June 14: TFL at Kiddiepalooza on Pier A
• July 28: Music Together at the Shipyard 
• August 4 : TFL at the Shipyard
• August 6: The Gordys at Sinatra Park 
• December 6: Annual holiday show with Howie at the Hoboken Historical Museum.

I’m especially excited about the Pete Seeger thing; I’ll be sharing the stage with some of Hoboken’s top musicians, including the amazing Boo Reiners and Elena Skye (the Demolition String Band), The Cucumbers, Abbe Rivers, and Jim Mastro of the Guitar Bar. Jim has agreed to do “Turn, Turn, Turn” with me! I’m utterly psyched. 

Notice also the end-of-summer crunch: Music Together, Fuzzy Lemons and Gordys shows, all within a two-week span. I LOVE it when that happens! LOVE IT!!!!!

Photo by Craig Dale

Friend and neighbor Craig Dale did a quick 10-minute shoot with us at the Monroe Center, right before we did our first Family Beach Party. Everyone seems to like the above shot, which is one of the sillier ones taken that day.

This one is pretty good, too:

Photo by Craig Dale

I like this one, ‘cept my head got cut off a little…

Photo by Craig Dale

For our first public gig of 2009 (and our First Anniversary celebration), we added a new twist: In addition to 45-minutes of incomparably cool music, we added a bunch of party events and made the whole thing the first Fuzzy Lemons Family Beach Party! Dana did temporary tattoos, Justin manned the Fish Toss, Kipley took photos at our surfin’ monkey photo booth, Brandon led some kid-sized percussion and I did some parachute games. [All photos courtesy of Colleen Castle]

Dana inks her kids

Brandon bangs the drums

Dave Shoots the ’Chute

Then, when everyone was good and riled up, we launched into a high-energy set, including some beachy covers (we opened with “Hawaii 5-0,” a challenge for my guitar skills and a big crowd-pleaser). We even played “Limbo Rock” and Dana led a Limbo contest:

Do de Leembo!

Reggae Dave

I think it went well, and we can take the Family Beach Party on the road. Big ups to Dina, our hostess at Monroe Movement, and to Nancy and Colleen, our bouncers/merchandise crew/photographers.

The only bad thing happened after the set, when Brandon dropped his bass drum and cracked part of it. He writes “The good news is that the hoop is repairable, and should only cost one small third world country instead of seven or eight.”

Also, it was Valentine’s day. The Fuzzy Lemons love you!
Dave

Note: this was actually our third gig of 2009 but the first two were private parties; I’m not posting about them here to respect the privacy of the families who booked us. But I will say we had a lot of fun!

Another sign that the Fuzzy Lemons have arrived: Not only have we sold out today’s show, but people are posting on Hoboken bulletin boards, asking for tickets!

This was posted on Hoboken Moms today:

If anyone has extra Fuzzy Lemons tickets for today, we will be happy to buy them from you (1, 2 or 3 tix). Call 551-xxx-xxxx. we can pick them up at your apt/house.

Ok, so I’m just out-and-out bragging at this point. But it’s nice to be wanted!

Happy Valentine’s Day,

Dave

First one of the year! The Fuzzy Lemons have been e-mailing with a local dad about the Waterfront Museum, which will be docked in Hoboken later this spring. It’s fun to play down on the waterfront; it’s be even more fun to play on a barge on the water! According to the web site: “Over the years, a variety of performers have graced the Barge deck, including rockabilly legend Sleepy LaBeef, former Saturday Night Live band leader G.E. Smith, “Hot Rod Lincoln” Bill Kirchen, and many more!”

Tonight, the dad in question cycled past me, stopped, and asked “Are you Dave?”

He’s meeting with Geri Fallo and the City Hall folks tomorrow, then he and I will hook up afterwards to talk about the possibility of an event or two.

On an unrelated note, I gave a Fuzzy Lemons Demo CD to a woman I met tonight who works at EMI, in their T.V. division.

I recently posted that things are quiet. That’s no longer true. Here’s how my gig calendar is already filling up for 2009 [updated 2/17/09]:

http://www.jossip.com/occasions-for-barack-to-use-his-bad-boy-voice-20090206/

As you can tell from the blog, things have been quiet. It doesn’t help that today I have an enormous sinus headache and sore throat. Not much new has been happening. The Fuzzy Lemons have been rehearsing, and we’ve played two private birthday parties so far. Our calendar is starting to fill up, both with self-booked shows and with bookings at some of the local schools, as well as the upcoming summer concerts in Hoboken.
I’m feeling bad that I haven’t done more to advance any other business opportunities beyond the Lemons, but it’s never too late to start, I guess. I’ll tackle some new projects once this headache goes away. Right now I can’t bear the thought.
I am pretty proud of a song I am writing, it’s a post-Obama song called “Yes I Can.” Listen for it soon in campaign commercials everywhere.