Are You Dave?

Well, I think I tallied everything up correctly. If I count Fuzzy Lemons concerts and private shows (24), birthday parties (34), concerts with friends and by myself (8), and all of my Music Together classes (474), I get a total of 540 hours. Divide that by 365 days and it comes out to 1.48 hours, or about 89 minutes per day spent singing for kids. I’m down a minute from last year, mainly because I taught 13 classes per semester in the second half of the year, rather than 14. Darn this economic downturn!

Also, this number doesn’t include rehearsals, workshops, and the many fun hours we spent in the studio recording To The Moon.

Bottom line: I’m still averaging an hour and a half every day singing for kids, and I’m still super proud of that number.

Back in October when we played at the Barnes and Noble, we made the acquaintance of a very nice woman named Ellen Jacobs, who (as it turns out) books bands at the Knitting Factory out in Brooklyn. She’s interested in getting family-oriented entertainment and events going on a regular basis, so she was thrilled to host a series of Fuzzy Fridays out there.

And once Kipley and Brandon made the trek out to view the room and all of its marvelous technology (digital mixing board! 64 channels! lights and cameras!) the Lemons were eager to play. So we worked out a deal, ticket sales, the whole nine yards, and booked three Fridays in December.

So once again we were on an out-of-town adventure. Brooklyn, home of Dan Zanes, is a ripe environment for The Fuzzy Lemons. There are many Hoboken-like neighborhoods, full of young hip families. Williamsburg is not quite one of those neighborhoods, but it’s close to many of them. We did our best to plaster the area with flyers, and I tried to hype the show with my friend Pete in Park Slope so that he’d spread the word to his Music Together families.

We never did get a huge crowd, but other than than we have no complaints! Ellen has been a sweetheart and is eager to have us back, and the crew at the Knit was super, very friendly and professional. We looked at the three gigs as an opportunity to get on the road and try out our new in-ear monitors. As an added bonus, we were interviewed by a local filmmaker who is making a documentary abut children’s music! More news on that as it develops.

~ Dave

My annual set with Howie at the Museum is always a nice change of pace from the rock-n-roll lifestyle I normally lead. We get to kick back and play winter favorites, from Hanukah songs to “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.” We’ve done the show a few times now, and we’re at the point where we slip easily into the pocket and have a good time jamming. This year featured an exciting new addition to our set: Howard’s son Avery got up and played and sang on two songs! It made me itch for the day when my own offspring is old enough to shove me out of the way and grab the mic.

Woohoo! The new CD is here, and it’s worthy of a grand launch! So we threw a huge party at Mile Square Theatre, a simply marvelous performance space on Hoboken’s west side. We went all-out for this one, gathering door prizes from a huge list of donors (we gave away classes! Toys! Meals! A guitar!) and performing the entire album in order for the first time ever.

The show was sold out in advance, which is always a great feeling. Hoboken has always supported the Fuzzy Lemons in a HUGE way, and I think people were genuinely eager to hear the new CD. And I think I can honestly say we didn’t disappoint them!

I won’t go into the technical stuff about the show, I’m sure you’re tired of reading about our issues with sound quality by now. Suffice to say, we encountered some issues, we’ll learn from them for next time. The important thing is, we had a blast and the audience did too! THANK YOU HOBOKEN!

Dana drove down to south NJ today to pick up our CDs from DiskMakers! THANKS DANA! The disk looks great and sounds fantastic. Now, we just need to SELL ‘em! So get on over to the band’s site and order yours today!