Are You Dave?

We finished two lightning-quick nights “in the box” at Garden Street Music…. here are some photos by my friend Guy Patton!

Justin and Vanessa in the studio

Here we are! Photo by Guy Patton

Dana at the Mic! Photo by Guy Patton

Chris pauses for input from producer Dan McLoughlin. Photo by Guy Patton.

Last month’s Neil Young night was such a blast that everyone decided to do another one! Keith, in particular, is a rabid fan, and very quickly produced a set list that was every bit as awesome as the first, without a single repeat. I claimed “Helpless” (in fact, during the February Neil Young show I texted Jim that I wanted to do “Helpless” at the next one), imagining those rich backing harmonies in my head.

Over the next few weeks I felt pretty full of myself, and booked “Roll Another Number for the Road” and “Needle and the Damage Done” as well. In addition, Keith asked me to sing “Union Man” and even to play bass(!) on two tunes, “C’mon Baby Let’s Go Downtown” and “Bite the Bullet.” I was a little intimidated, but Jim encouraged me. “A monkey can play the bass,” he’s fond of saying. I borrowed Justin’s acoustic bass and practiced whenever I could. That’s the great thing about these shows, they’ve got me practicing again. I’m pushing myself to play better, to rise to the level of these other cats.

As usual, it was a fun night, with cold beer and hot tunes. Everything came off seamlessly, everyone sounded fantastic (though I mumbled a couple of lines of “Needle”). Joff, in particular, sounded great, playing gentle pedal-steel with me on “Needle.” I invited him to come to Howard’s annual birthday jam at the end of the month, I think he’d fit in nicely.

Anyway, we raised over $650, not bad for passing the hat in a wee pub.

Keith wrote everyone afterwards: “I’d like to thank everyone for doing a great job last night, especially with regard to keeping things moving along by following the setlist and being ready to play. I thought it was one of the smoother running shows we’ve done. The theme for the next show will be: ‘Songs of 1969′.”

Can’t wait!
~ Dave

The Hoboken Family Alliance has been hosting their groovy “Cabin Fever” event at the Hoboken High School gym for a couple of years now, and not a moment too soon! The event had long since outgrown the Elks club. In a twist, however, I was barely involved this year, and the Lemons weren’t there at all! I did a half hour of ukulele songs to advertise for Guitar Bar, Jr., and that was it. I did get to visit with Daniel from the Rockdoves, and Michael of Preschool of Rock, and you know how much I enjoy networking. The Rockdoves (along with Erin Lee & the Up Past Bedtime Band and some others) are working with the Lemons to get a family concert series going in NYC, watch this space for details.

Dana, Vanessa and Dave rocked a birthday party today with our friends at Garden Street Music. They’ve got a great new space upstairs where they teach dance classes and throw parties. We’ll be back at GSM in a month or two to record, hooray, but in the meantime it was nice to drop in and visit.

It’s been a while! With so much competition in town (Music for Aardvarks, Preschool of Rock, Kidville, etc.) my name apparently hasn’t been circulating as much as it used to. So it was nice to hear, even though the lady got my name wrong at first.

The setup: Sitting down for lunch at Anthony David’s, our local hangout. To my right sat a bunch of moms, neighbors of ours and alumni of Music Together, having a chat. Behind me was a table full of new mommies, cradling infants and eating their salads one-handed. One of the Alumni Moms stops at the New Mommy table on her way out, and says “you guys need to take music class with this guy, he’s great.” Sweet, and a little embarrassing. So then I turn around and explain that I teach Music Together, and one of the moms asks “Oh, are you… Dan?”

Oh well. Close enough.

Our first full-band gig of 2012 took place right here in our beloved hometown of Hoboken, NJ. We’ve deliberately kept our schedule light this winter so we could focus on getting new material together for a new album, but we couldn’t pass up Justin’s suggestion* to help raise money for our friends at TRUE Mentors. Plans for the “Winter FUN-Raiser” were put together and executed in just about a month, proving once again that the Lemons are a Lean Mean Music Machine (also, that our loyal and wonderful fans in Hoboken are the greatest in the world).

We warmed up the crowd with some parachute games before launching into two full sets of high-energy rock. Our neighbor Kathy Zucker blogged about it here; seems like she and her kids had fun, and she even got some cool cell-phone video!

Special thanks to the redoubtable Mark Glindmeyer for running our sound board. At the end of the day we raised well over $1,000 for TRUE Mentors, making it a worthy afternoon indeed.
~ Dave

* Pronounced “sugg-Justin”

Dana and I went over to the Brandt school in Hoboken today, at the request of a mom who is lamenting the lack of music in her child’s classroom. I won’t go into detail because it was a private event, but I will say that they took a lot of photos and made a fun collage of our visit afterwards!

Hats off to Jerry Needel, a fellow PSU alum who lives here in Hoboken. In the wake of the awful scandal at Penn State this fall, he gave the world his vision of the largest alumni philanthropy in the world, in support of victims of abuse. More here. Support RAINN! I’ve ordered my shirt, have you?