About Me

My photo
What I am: Complicated. A mom. A wife. A thinker. A seeker. A 'musician'. One of the volunteer executive directors of a niche music festival. An administrative business owner who set up shop in a senior's condo. Oh the stories!

Saturday 17 March 2012

Live Music Goes Underground

After much anticipation, Thursday had arrived!  Thursday was house concert day.  Our friends from the band, Oh My Darling were leaving Winnipeg to kick off their western tour with a Saskatoon show.  Soon, 50 people would gather at our house to hear these Old Timey beauties.

In my mind, I prepared endlessly.  I would make punch (punch! What a great name, no?)... I would bake homemade treats, I would prepare dips from scratch, using local ingredients and reveal how a house concert hostess could truly set the bar.  "Yes, please help yourself to what I call my 'Pulse Crop Dip'.  You may note a hint of wild chamomile.  Not an accident!  I gathered it myself from a nearby ditch and dried it for this very occasion!"

Reality saw me driving a shopping cart with undue care and attention down the aisles of Costco, erratically grabbing industrial-sized containers of Godknowswhat, made in Godknowswhere because let's face it,  I couldn't possibly have my Act Together for this shindig.  We still had to clean the Godforsaken basement!! The thought of cleaning the basement makes me want to fold myself in half and throw down a hissy, much like a toddler who does not want to take a nap.  Were it not for the help of my girlfriend, Lorie, we would have probably been vaccuuming around people as they were getting seated for the concert...'Scuze me...pardon me...watch your wine glass...'

I'm not sure why basements exist.  I hate them.  Why not go up in the air instead of under the ground when building a house?  Up in the air just seems to have more light and...air.  I suppose basements are good for a couple reasons.  They are a good place to store things, such as your teenagers, for example.  Studies have shown that teenagers, when stored properly, can emerge from the basement in their early 20s as fully formed humans.  They slowly become aware of their surroundings and begin to learn new skills, such as how to pick up a wet towel off the floor, and how to avoid licking the knife before putting it back in the peanut butter jar.

The basement is also a great place for those boxes I've labelled, "Can't Display It; Can't Throw it Away".  Do you have boxes of such delights?  My Ice Carnival 3rd Princess trophy, and my husband's IGA 1988 Beef Roundup plaque, for example.  Can't seem to part with those!  And of course I cannot throw out my album of wedding candids.  I can't bring myself to look at it either, as it is a grim and painful reminder of what I forced my poor, trusting bridesmaids to wear.  I'm convinced they now believe Hell is a place slipcovered in magenta taffeta. 

They say basements are also good places to hang out in the event of a tornado. That tells you something right there, correct?  Only in anticipation of an impending natural disaster should you descend into the basement.  Growing up, the basement was a dark, windowless place where the ghosts and monsters hung out.  It was the most scary-ass place I could think of.  I'd rather have taken a 3 a.m. stroll down Elm Street than go and get a jar of pickled beets from the cold room. In addition, basements are a place where people gather to watch televised sports.  I also hate sports, televised or otherwise, but that will be another story altogether.

Alas, I should be very grateful for our basement.  In our house, the basement is the place we can seat a ton of people and still have room for a live 4 piece band to blow us away, which is exactly what happened on Thursday night.  If you were there, you know what I'm talking about.  If you need information on supporting live music and hosting a house concert of your own, leave me a comment and I'd be glad to help.  If not, for Godsakes leave me a comment anyway!!  

   http://www.ohmydarling.ca/home    Rosalyn - Fiddle, Vanessa - Guitar, Marie-Josee - Bass, Allison - Banjo



9 comments:

  1. Great band + great hosts + great basement = A Great Time! Hope you're doing it again soon!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Gord. Hopefully you and Sheila can both make it next time so you're not forced to date Jamie ;)

      Delete
  2. That's me! I'm the Lorie!
    The concert was awesome and Godknowswhat snakes were sublime ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes! It's you! I blame myself for not giving you the opportunity to serve my Pulse Crop Dip...
      Thanks again, though!

      Delete
  3. Congrats on your house concert going well Tracy : ) We couldn't swing it this time around...but maybe we'll have a house concert in the coming months and meet some neighbours. We'll see if they want to cooperate with the fence building first lol

    I totally hear you about basements when I was a kid! OMG.. I swear that up until maybe 10 years ago, I'd still run up the stairs quickly thinking a ghost or something was chasing me! I think I'm finally over that...and besides...I normally don't "run" anywhere and for sure not stairs! If there were a ghost I think I'd just give in and say "fine...you got me finally" before I'd run!

    Keep writing...love it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha! My brother tells the story about locking me in the cold room and then running away, but then he says I passed him as he was trying to run up the stairs! Frightful place...

      Delete
  4. Great reading as always...and now I have an odd desire to start collecting vintage IGA memorabilia!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sounds like a fun night! My basement is the creepiest thing, like ever, and I only go down every three months to do a gas/water meter reading. Yikes! As a side note, I'm a fellow sports hater as well. All that sweating!

    ReplyDelete

Tell me what you think!