All entries filed under Dave Fry Gigs

Wednesday, March 8^th, 2017

Back in the schools this week – Fountain Hill afterschool

The second gig on Tuesday was the first of four visits to Fountain Hill ES for a songwriting residency. Eventually we’ll try to write a song about one of the Seven Healthy Habits that the school district is promoting. But, today was our getting-to-know each other session. The music teacher and two middle school kids joined in with myself and about 10 2nd and 3rd graders, most fairly energetic and creative kids. They were familiar with The Cat Came Back from music class, so we sang that one. We’ll write a verse for that one in the coming weeks. I also introduced We Gave Names to the Animals and proceeded to write a verse about the Lorax, the Dr. Suess character. So, we were off and running on our songwriting adventure.

They were familiar with The Bear Hunt, so we added a couple of excursions to that one as well. This will be a good group of writers and explorers as well. We’ll have some good material to share with the school later on in spring.

I hit one snag while I was getting the kids up and moving. One very shy boy, Mason, didn’t get up to join in with the other exuberant kids, and I insisted that he should. He immediately broke down into tears. Ooops. I apologized and the teacher quickly applied Kleenex and TLC while I tried to continue on with the others. The teacher whispered to me that he was musically interested but painfully shy. (Different learning abilities). He eventually gained control and, though I avoided direct eye contact, I noticed that he was smiling and participating on a very low keyed level. The teacher said that it was good that he didn’t leave and stuck it out. I now have to figure out how to incorporate him in the discussions and workshop without being a threat. This will be one of the challenges and I look forward in learning how to do this.

We opened up some good avenues for creative writing, movement and active participation, well on the way to a good songwriting residency. Though I’m still at 80%, it was good to be in my element.

Wednesday, March 8^th, 2017

Back in the schools this week – Easton Learning Center

I’ve landed a couple of residencies that will bring me into a school weekly for visits. I particularly enjoy using these situations as a laboratory, to get to know the kids better over time, gauge the progress of the kids, and force myself to be able to bring new experiences for the kids and myself. It’s quite a bit different than the once-and-done assemblies where I use my tried-and-true material.

Tuesday morning was the first visit to the Learning Center at the Third Street Alliance for Women and Children in the old YWCA building in downtown Easton. I’m signed up for seven weeks of weekly visits with the preschool kids. One of the teachers remembers me from my PASELA work eight years ago in Bethlehem. The first visit usually features my standard pre-school material as I get a grip on the kids abilities and the opportunity to have some fun.

When I came in, one comment popped up, “He’s old!” I said, “Yes, I’m 146 years old!” I love the opportunity to warm up the kids with humor, facial expressions and silliness, and it sets the stage for the rest of visit. This age still doesn’t quite know what rhyming is all about. Down By the Bay is an example. What sounds like “cat” immediately is translated as ‘meow’, and not a rhyme for the word cat. But that’s why I’m here.

I eventually broke out the instruments and we worked on my 1, 2, 3 system of 1 (silence), 2 (beat) and 3 (sizzle or shake). The kids picked up right away and it’s a good technique in controlling the potential chaos of everyone playing all at the same time. It worked well, even at this age.

It was my first school gig after my operation, the first of two for the day. A good start.

Tuesday, March 7^th, 2017

Lehigh Valley Music Awards on Sunday

I was looking forward to catching up with many of my fellow performers at this large event at SteelStacks. I was going to present some awards with Dina Hall later on in the festivities, and I was up for several awards myself.

Last year I received a Lifetime Achievement Award and gave a speech for that, as well as having my kids Jaimie and Rosalie on hand as well, so I was quite a bit more relaxed on Sunday. The first award I received was the Community Radio Personality, one that I was quite shocked to get last year. It was a mild surprise, especially when I consider my rather minor presence on the air with Live from Godfreys and Sunday Folk. I strolled up and got the award and didn’t make a speech.

The second award was for Outstanding Children’s Performer, one that I am proud of. This year, as I strolled up, they played ‘The Cat Came Back’ through the speakers (sounding really fat!) and as I got up to the podium, I led the crowd in singing the chorus. That was a nice touch. I thanked the folks and mentioned that Kira and Robbi, the other performers nominated, that I respected them tremendously and that they knew what they were doing.

The last award was for Outstanding Folk Solo/Band and, again, I was proud to get this one, just so that folks would know that I’m still performing at the top of my game. I do wish there was some more ‘merit’ involved with the process, since I would have enjoyed my friend Anne Hills receiving this award.

I do have a strong local reputation, and that’s why I receive the notice, but I’m also quite aware that these are niche awards in a small market. Running Godfreys and doing radio, I know where I am in the big picture, especially with friends like John Gorka, et al. But I am gratified that I get recognition in front of my peers in the music industry in my home town.

Tuesday, March 7^th, 2017

Friday’s Homegrown Series.

It was a First Friday on the SouthSide, and I put together a round robin with my friends Bill Schachter and Pete Gustavsen (Scapegrace). Again, a significantly small crowd, but I particularly enjoy passing tunes around with friends. Peter is a solid songwriter with a Ray Orbison voice and quirky pop tunes and Bill possesses and equally quirky sense of humor. We enjoyed each other’s company and the time passed quickly.

Thursday, February 23^rd, 2017

Swing Guitar – Dave’s Night Out with Wendi Bourne

I had been looking forward to sharing the stage with my good friend and long-time recording colleague Wendi Bourne for a Dave’s Night Out. We set out to concentrate on the Art of Swing Rhythm Guitar, an aspect that Wendi is particularly adept at, beyond her wonderful vocal chops.

Again, it was a very small crowd, but one quite interested in the music. (This whole series is vastly under-appreciated in our dear Lehigh Valley). We traded a few songs, talked about our heroes (Ted Bogan, Bucky Pizzarelli, Freddie Green, etc.), the joy of being part of a larger groove and band. We share thoughts on basic block chords, some Artie Traum three note chords, damping the chords, creativity up and down the fretboard and more.

We were lucky that our friend and maestro Rolly Brown was in the audience, and we invited him up for some of his licks and observations. As usual, the quality of the conversation was at a college level and our apparent respect for each other palpable.

One gentleman brought his teenage son to the show, and I asked him what he had learned. It was hard for him to put his thoughts into word, quite understandable, but I asked him to share those thoughts with his dad on the way home. Another friend, a fellow radio programmer mentioned that he learned a lot, even though he didn’t play guitar. He went on FB to comment further that Godfreys is the best place in the Valley to spend an evening.

I was bushed at the end, but satisfied that we given our all, created some good music, and passed on some of the knowledge that we often take for granted as musicians. And how important it is to have good friends like Wendi and Rolly in our circle of creative artists.

Thursday, February 23^rd, 2017

Dave Fry Trio (plus one) at Godfreys

It’s always a special night when I get to play Godfreys’ stage, and tonight was one of them. Playing with my respected friends and musicians Ed McKendry, Kris Kehr and Dina Hall, performing the best of my ‘adult’ repertoire in a world-wide respected venue, on Concert Window, and being recorded by my pal Bill Hall is all that I could ask for. A bigger house would have been nice, but that is a constant disappointment here in my home town. But, such is my fate: hometown hero with very little following.

I had come down with an, as yet undiagnosed, stomach problem, so I opted for doing a nice, long single set. And we set out cruising through my material. I am glad that I have a stack of good material, so new songs and folks by my side to render them with class. And a stack of material that will be on the album-in-progress.

During the set, I premiered my new mandocello, an amazing instrument that actually makes my Martin’s sound soft. I had worked up Satisfied Mind on it, presented it to the band before the gig, and was able to posit it. I think everyone was astounded by the richness and depth of this instrument. It rocked the joint

New stuff: Ten Men, The Blues Got the World, False From True, Smokin’ Babies, Giant, Rosie is a Friend of Mine along with some older ones: Nadine, These Days, Black Jack County Chain, It’ll Be Me, Ireland, Rocket Launcher, Pay Bo Diddley, How Legends are Made and my own Lessons from Pete.

We all had our antennae up, the creativity was flowing, very few mistakes (even on my part) and it felt great to be part of this ensemble on stage tonight. I had to drop some songs from the set list, but the good stuff got played.

Kris is one of my really dependable friends, dating back to Pavlov’s Dawgs times, and I can always count on his bass linking with my acoustic rhythm that becomes more than the sum of its parts, giving me the opportunity to concentrate on delivering the vocals and lyrics at a high performance value. Ed seamlessly adds great, spontaneous leads and keeps his head in the game, knows when I need his leads and never over-plays. Dina has taken on the job of adding “atmospherix” on percussion, adding appropriate and varied sounds and rhythms around the edges. She has come a long way as a stage performer, even outside of her fronting her own music. She said that she appreciates my trust. Trust on all our parts make this endeavor quite satisfying .

As we came close to finishing out the show, I thanked those in the audience for trusting in us to deliver a Godfreys quality show (no small thing), but also saying that, even if they hadn’t shown up, we would have played anyway. We do play for our own pleasure, perhaps primarily, but appreciate those who take a chance on us. I could feel I was close to my limit physically and we closed out the hour and a half set.

I packed up and apologized to my mates and sound crew for bailing out and headed upstairs in retreat. The music and my friends got me through quite remarkably. The recording will come out pretty nice and I look forward to having it on hand to share in various ways. My daughter Rosalie watched the mandocello part from her home in Italy.

Thursday, February 16^th, 2017

Boyertown Jam

I’ve enlisted myself to run Amy Forsyth’s Jam at the Old Farm place in Boyertown. It’s been one of my favorite jams, thanks to Amy’s gentle guidance, and is worth the time and effort to keep alive. Tonight’s jam featured some old friends from past jams, Bonnie, Nick, Cliff, LA, Greg, but tonight was defined by a fiddling mom and her two fiddling daughters. They knew a few tunes but were shy and unsure of this jam situation. I worked on incorporating them into this musical community. They obviously had some chops and had been in bluegrass sessions before. But I wanted to help them assert themselves tonight. I leaned on them to come up with tunes they wanted to play (not their mom’s) and, at one point, asked them to play the tune while smiling. That was a precious moment. They did, and then the whole circle smiled as well.

Afterwards, the mom came up and thanked me for my presence and said that one of the girls, the ‘serious’ one, said that it was hard to hold the fiddle to her jaw when she tried to play and smile. Life lesson.

It’s a lot of work to pass the music around, with different abilities, from virtuoso harmonica to shy beginner. But I enjoy being open to the opportunity to create community. I get to play some standards as well as some of my obscure (but simple) tunes from my repertoire.

Made some laundry money for tomorrow.

Thursday, December 8^th, 2016

Mad Dash to CT and the Space

Another mad dash to CT and back for $70.31 (and worth every dime). The Space, the Outer Space and the Space Ballroom are three pieces of an incredible music scene in an industrial park in Hamden. Steve Rodgers has put together a place for a vast spectrum of young and old folks to gather and socialize and, perhaps, catch a variety of music.

I was the feature set at the regular Wednesday Open Mic, a small ‘listening’ room next to a small bar. It turns out to be a fairly noisy scene, leaning on the folks trying to play on stage, including some of my good CT musicians who came out to support me. (I found out that a contingent of my friends opted for the Rosanne Cash concert in Fairfield. Who can blame them?).

Frank was handed the job of doing sound and emceeing, but was presented with an overused sound board that gave us problems that affected the evening. A mysterious boooom, mike stands that seem glued or slippery, etc. Noisy neighbors.

Rick Johnson led off with his fine picking and good songs and, later, Ron Anthony and Denny Collin did a very fine 4 song set before I came on. My buds.

It was a very small and scattered crowd to begin with, so I played to my friends with “Don’t Call Me Early”, “Santa Assassin” and “Zat You, Santa Claus”, with minor attention from the crowd in the next room. Then, for some reason, folks filtered into the room and sat at tables, and the focus shifted to new (and inebriated) crowd I now had to deal with. I did Giant, Rosie (two strong songs, but now in a barroom situation) and then went for the Irish a cappella – Tom Lehrer “The Irish Ballad”. The crowd reactive positively, and, though I screwed up a couple of verses, I managed to keep it short and nailed it in the end.

I followed with Kent’s “Giants”, complete with Thunder Tubes with two loose dudes at the table to my right. What followed was some pretty good theater, with humorous jibes tossed in. It worked really well. I had to call up my bar skills for this one.

I did “Smoking Babies”, “Lessons from Pete” to a diminishing audience, and broke a G string on the last tune (nature’s way of telling you to get off stage), and I wound it up. It was a strong set and I received some nice compliments from people I care for.

I played pissed, and that made a difference. The noise from the bar area and the quasi-sound system made for a really challenging performance situation. I was not amused. So, I aimed at my friends who were listening and then went into bar mode and used a different set of skills. (One earlier performer, a comedian, came up afterwards and shook my hand. He said he appreciated my humor chops. I responded that you just have to talk with them, something Gamble Rogers also shared with me.)

The evening was an amalgam of the good, the bad and the ugly. I enjoy the diversity and the challenge.

I headed out after the gig, thanking my friends for coming out to hear me play, and counted on the adrenalin boost to sent me home. Thanks to a really nice mix CD I made in April, a little Little Feat music and a gorgeous half moon low in the western sky, the drive home was spectacular and fast.

Monday, November 21^st, 2016

Christkindlemarkt on Sunday

I have a yearly set at the large Christmas Village event sponsored by Artsquest (Musikfest) and I usually work up my seasonal songs in advance. My catalogue has developed into a nice mixture of bluesy Christmas tunes, arrangements of carols and my favorite Louis Armstrong jazz tunes. I had assigned this week to break them out and polish them up. It’s particularly strange to be playing these songs a week before Thanksgiving.

I was working on the computer this Sunday when I got a call at 11:15 from the Market, wondering where I was for my 11:30 set. I had it written down on my calendar for next Sunday. Fool! I said I’d be right over. I grabbed my guitar and mandolin, my folder of Christmas songs and high-tailed it to the site just five minutes from home. I hastily set up, got a sound check and started in at 11:35. I apologized to the sound man and thanked him for alerting the manager. He said that he knew I usually get there ahead of time and that I either forgot or was ill.

It was the first set of the day at this stage and there were only a few folks in the area, but it included a young family with a boy who was excited to see me. So were the parents and grandparents… I was glad I had some folks to play off of. I felt bad that I didn’t have my bag of instruments with me to have him play along.

I opened up my folder of tunes and started to pick out some songs I hadn’t prepared for, but, over time, have become fairly natural to play. The DNA of the songs kicked in, and I performed them well. It was only an hour set, and I was glad I had enough tunes to fill the time. I finished up at 12:30, got the check and took a stroll around the market to catch up with some artisans and other folks I knew wandering around.

I am embarrassed that I almost blew this one, that I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been, that I put the wrong date in my book, didn’t check the contract and all those things that a true professional should have done. It all turned out okay, but I am uncomfortable that I made such a mistake. I take away from this kerfuffle to double-check the ole contract as I write it in the book. Phew…

Friday, November 4^th, 2016

Calypso residency on Wednesday. Part III

I did some hard traveling today in order to work towards the goal of a Calypso school song for its centennial. I’m led to connecting these kids with kids who have gone to school here over the years. I did some work with old playground games and today brought up lunch experiences. We haven’t got to school learning yet.

I am welcomed with “Hey, Dave Fry”, silent waves and smiles, thumbs up and other ways of saying “Hi, Artist”. We head up to the room and dig in. I start off with Giants with Thunder Tubes and it loosened things up immediately, without having to sing the Cat Came Back. (A few murmurs of disgruntlement).

We started on a rhyme with Calypso and settled on Hey, Ho, Calypso, something we can repeat, and the kids got it. They are invested!

Chorus:

Hey, ho, Calypso,
Miles of smiles that shimmer and glow.
Every day, we all grow,
Ho, ho,ho,…. we refined this to a chuckle.

Verses, after some pretty good connections, and some sweat on my part.

Out on the playground, we skip and run,
Red Rover, Dodgeball , super fun,
A hundred years of kids’ tag games.
Jump rope, hopscotch , we’re just the same.

The morning starts with the school bell ring,
Learn math, reading and science things,
Time for lunch, Hey, what’s to eat?
Sandwich, an apple and a sweet treat.

We finished off with some dancing, knock-knock jokes and tomfoolery to end the session in movement, performance, recitations, singing, and more good stuff. This is a pretty rich learning environment. I’m learning new stuff all the time.

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