New York, 2008

  New York City, New York, United States
Monday, March 24, 2008

I have returned from the big apple, and I have a few stories to share!
Since I took so many pictures, I have decided to move my stories along with the photos. So if you get lost, my apologies!

The Ticket

I booked my flight via usair, printed my ticket out, and left for NY on March 8th 2008. When I arrived to the airport, the trip got off to a bit of a false start since all of the flights had been delayed into NY due to weather. It was raining like cats and dogs in NY the day I decided to head up there. After a two hour delay, I began to feel a bit of relief as we boarded the plane. However, I was exhaling all to soon as I heard the captain come over the speaker announcing that the Laguardia Airport had closed the runway until further notice, and the next update time wouldn't be for another two hours. My neighbor kept falling asleep and almost falling on me, and then he'd jerk himself awake just as I thought he was about to fall on top of me, it was actually kind of amusing. However, after a while, that amusement got a little boring. So in my boredom, I began messing with my phone, text messaging people, checking emails, and taking pictures of my view from the plane window...PHOTO_ID_R=3xthedelayview.jpg] Finally, four hours, after our original departure time, The captain came back over the speaker and announced we were go for take off! FINALLY!

Lift Off Finally!

Sky High

Sky Highway

As we climbed higher and higher, the clouds got cooler and cooler since it was a bit of a stormy day along the eastern coast. So I took a few more picture of the clouds up high. They looked pillowy and beautiful as you can see...

More Clouds

As we descended, it was extremely cloudy , I was looking out the window and I saw a big bunch of red balloons fly past! Then just like that, there's the water, and NY...I got nervous for a split second because I forgot the runway was right along the water. But then I could see the runway, and I was relieved. We had a smooth landing, into a very rainy and chilly NY.
I was planning on meeting my boyfriend Jonathan up in NY being that it was his spring break and he had decided to come up to NY and spend it with moi. I arrived on usair, he was arriving on delta. Our flights were supposed to be arriving right around the same time, and had both been delayed due to weather. So I claimed my bags and began to wait alone, as the baggage claim area cleared out pretty quickly.

Waiting...

After about 30 min. of waiting, I got a call from Jonathan! He explained that they had circled the city, waiting for clearance to land, and finally had to land in RICHMOND VIRGINIA! I couldn't believe it! On top of all that, they told all of the passengers that their flight in to new york wouldn't be arriving until the following day at 6pm, arriving into JFK, which was a completely different airport than originally planned! To make matters worse, they wouldn't even give any of the passengers a complementary room, or rental car, and basically told them all to just deal with it. Crazy! So, my boyfriend, being the social charmer that he is, had somehow scored a ride into the city with an older couple he was sitting with on the flight! So I went ahead and headed over to my friend/producer/keys player, Aaron Price's apartment so that we could go out a get a bite to eat in the meantime. Aaron's place was in the Upper West Side right off of Broadway and within walking distance to the subway, so it was very convenient. He was doing a house swap with a friend, so there wasn't much room, since it was really a single room apartment, but it was cozy and free! So I was just fine with the size.

Ap's Place

Ap's Place 2

So, after arriving and unloading all of my stuff, we hopped on the smelly subway and went down to this little Latino restaurant in the east village, and it was SO good and affordable. On our way there, the subway had all sorts of music and performers about, and most of them were actually very good. It was a sweet little slice of the culture to kick off the trip I suppose. 
So after we ate, we buzzed about the East Village checking different venues out. Aaron brought me to some of the staple venues that were the "hot spots" for my style of music. He first brought over to The Living Room, which is also said to be one of the clubs Norah Jones likes to hang out. (Aaron in fact met her one night while he was hanging out there as well!) We went upstairs to see the venue I was scheduled for at the end of the month which was called Googies Lounge. It was a bit smaller, but a quaint little room.
After The Living Room, we went right next door to Pianos which used to be a Used Piano Store, and whenever it closed down, the new owners just kept the old sign up, thus the name. It seemed to be a very popular little place as well, with lost of people swarming inside and outside of it.
We next ventured over to a place called Rockwood Music Hall. It was tiny, and packed, but apparently, I hadn't seen it packed yet. After those three, we were just wondering around and these two Austrian sounding guys stopped us and told us to come into their club because it was "all about the music". They said, there's no cover, just great music, and good drinks, come in, come in. The place was called The National Underground which had a cool vibe to it. Before I walked in though, I got the feeling that it was going to be lame since the door guys approached us as if they had lotion for us to sample like at the mall.(you know those guys I'm talking about? Always trying to stop you as you walk past their kiosk of 500 different lotion scents) However, I was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere. The band playing was a group of older men, and they were doing all old Johnny Cash songs and stuff like that, but they were pretty good. I later found out that the National Underground is owned by Gavin DeGraw for those of you who are familiar with that artist. Around that same time, we realized it was about time for Jonathan to be arriving into New York! So we jumped back on the subway and started to head back to Aaron's place. About 30 min. after we got back, Jonathan arrives right to the front door thanks to the extremely generous couple who gave him a ride. My boyfriend has been on this goofy mission to grow as crazy of a beard as possible for the past year now. However, since it's been a couple months since I saw him last, I had forgotten all about it, so when I saw him, I had to take a picture of the madness!!!

Jon Arrives!

The next morning, all Jonathan and I wanted to do was sleep since he had arrived at around 3am that morning, but Aaron had made it very clear to us before we all fell asleep that he fully expected us to make it to his church service in Harlem by 10am. And since Aaron was kind enough to let us crash at his place for free while we were in town, we didn't want to disappoint! So we woke up at around what we thought was 9am, but it was actually 10am because of the time change! Oh no! So we raced as fast as we could to a cab, and down to the church service! We made it in 20 min. and were greeted by a slew of friendly faces that were all very happy to have us there. So the positive side was that we made it before the service had actually started, but the down side was, we missed most of the music! Which is exactly what Aaron is responsible for as their new music director! We did get to hear a couple of tunes though, so it was all good, and Aaron  was pleased we made it. The associate pastor for the church is a former NY Giants Running Back, and delivered the sermon that day. In addition, he sang one of the songs, and shared his gift of singing! I snapped a picture of AP as he packed up afterwards...

Ap at Work

Apollo Theatre

As we were waiting to leave, I noticed that we were literally just around the corner from the Apollo Theatre! As we jumped in the cab to head back, we all made note of the fact that we were starving! So we stopped for some delicious NY pizza. It's the one thing that no one can match here in Asheville. We need a good NY pizza joint. Marco's is the closest I've found, and yet they're still no where near as good. The pizza got was so good that day, of course, the slices are ridiculous and I could barely finish mine.

Ny Pizza! yummm

Yummmmm!

The next day we stopped in at a diner in AP's neighborhood and had another specialty in NY, which are the bagels! So good! As we ate, Jon and I discussed his beard further as I preceded to tell him to cut his zz top beard...and he declined my request promptly. 

Diner Lunch...

Cut your beard

No!

Later that day we decided to hit Times Square and be touristy. Jonathan and I stopped in the Hershey's chocolate store, and got free samples, which made us want to set out on a mission to see just how many free samples we could score in Times Square. Before setting out on our adventure though, I had to have my picture taken with my other boyfriend...Hershey Bar. Love! And with that, the search began...

Hersheys!

Statue of M&Merty

First there was the M&M store...sadly, no samples, but we did get to do our M&M color mood...Jon's was ELECTRIC GREEN, I didn't do mine because all the kids discovered the machine around the same time Jonathan did, and I didn't want to actually wait in line to find out my m&m mood.
So we headed to the ToysRus store and had fun looking at all the toys, but alas, no samples. Our last attempt was in the Godiva Chocolate Store. I was sure that of all the places, that Godiva wouldn't have a thing, but to my surprise, THEY DID! They gave us dark chocolate covered almonds. After that, we came across one of my favorite shoe stores, Aerosals! I made Jonathan stop and I bought a pair of shoes for $20. I was extremely proud, and he was of course, extremely bored. So afterwards we got a coffee and almond chocolate pastry of some sort and called it a wrap for Times Square. That place is overwhelming! Talk about ADD to the maximum. That night however, we rested up and met up with one of Jon's old friends, Dave at a weird Pirate Bar that I can't remember the name of that was in Greenwhich Village. After that, we headed over to the East village to meet some of AP's friends at this bar called The Edge. We met Jake, who is an amazing singer/songwriter performer, and bears a bit of a resemblance to Amos Lee at a glance, and his roomate, Jen who is a great artist and graphic designer. Jen works for Girls Scouts of America as one of the main Graphic Designers for their newsletters etc. She also enjoys playing music and supporting other artists as well. Jake has been performing since he was very young in different cover bands and such. It wasn't until about 5 years ago that he decided to start focusing more on his own original work, which, go figure, is pretty great. We played darts and chatted it up, and then Jon and I headed back to AP's place to catch some Z's.  

My Crepe

Jon's French Toast

AP's Crepe

Tuesday, we ate breakfast at a wonderful crepe place. I had some sort of mushroom and pepper crepe (I should have ordered a sweet one), Jon ordered French Toast, and Aaron ordered a salty crepe as well. They were pretty good. Afterwards, we headed over to a beautiful church where Jonathan and I decided to explore through.

The Brooklyn Bridge

Later that same day, I had a show in Brooklyn at a place called Vox Pop. We made the mistake of taking a cab, which was around $40!!! Didn't make that mistake on our way back! It was a cool little coffee shop located in a random part of Brooklyn, but it was a chill little place, with a good sound system, and delicious vegan chocolate cupcakes!yum.

Vox Pop

Aaron and I performed songs from the album, and at the end of our set, Jonathan even got on stage with me and did a townes van zandt tune. I sold a CD or two, and had a pretty good response. It was a good warm up show for all the others to come in NY in the coming weeks.

Dollar Bill Blues

Wednesday, Jonathan and I went for a stroll through Central Park and over to the Met. We started trying to name all of the movies shot in central park, but couldn't remember half of them.

Central Park Stroll

Central Park

When we finally arrived at the Met, we started out with a huge salad in the cafe, and then started making our way through the museum. We found some really beautiful aceint instruments and paintings inside the met. There was one painting in particular that was very interesting to me, it was a French piece called Laurent de La Hyre meaning Allegory of Music. It read that the bird on her shoulder symbolized natural music. And her exposed breast gave the piece a sense of freedom. I felt very moved by it.

Allegory of Music

The mutent guitar...

Freaky Horn

one of the earliest guitars

Geez...

Friday I had another show in Brooklyn at a place called, Stain Bar. It had a very minimal sound system, which kind of made it hard to get the levels right. Aaron was playing a parlor piano, and I didn't have my guitar plugged in and my voice sounded like I was singing into a megaphone. It was so silly. So at one point in the show, Aaron turns and says to me, "I'm gonna go pee". Which sealed the deal in my mind that it was time to stop trying to sing through the mic. So I walked out into the audience and sat on a bar stool and finished my concert in the audience. Because the truth be told, I just wasn't bonding with that mic., much less the set up of the stage. Once I came out into the audience, people moved around me and gathered in, and I realized, I had a much bigger audience than I had originally thought! So that was nice. Everyone enjoyed the set so much that I ended up selling 5 CD's which I didn't expect at all. I know 5 doesn't sound like a lot, but for the small crowd that was there, I felt good about selling any!
Later that night, we talked Jonathan into singing on the subway.

Getting ready...

To Sing on the Subway

It was hilarious, he hammed it up and pretended to be a burnt out folk singer. The girl beside him was acting like she wasn't into it, but she was totally tapping her foot and even started bobbing her head back and forth. At the end of his performance, he look at her and said, was that the worst thing you've ever heard, and she was like, "it was aight...a little to country fa me, but it was aight..." I was actually kind of proud of Jon for getting the guts up to do something like that though. I don't think I could have done it. The people on the subway were so straight faced the whole time...it was classic.

Ride the blue wind, high and free...

She'll lead you down thru misery...

JC, Subway folk star 2008

Saturday, Jonathan had to leave to head back down to Florida State for the rest of his semester.(he's so close to graduation!) So after he left, I started getting ready for my full band set at The Baggot Inn in Greenwhich Village. It was a beautiful day Sat. and it was rather warm out, so there were tons of people running around town and such. I went to a rehearsal space first with my band which was made up of some of the best musicians in New York. Eric Kalb played drums, Jon Price played Bass, and Aaron played the keys of course. Our session got cut a little short and so only got to practice about 5 songs. But once we arrived to the venue, and played our set, you'd never have known that they didn't know what they were playing on half of the tunes.
It was a relief to have such professionals up there with me! They were really great. I ended up having an amazing turn out too! I was so surprised! I sold around 6-8 CD's that night, and made a little $ off the door as well. It was great. I was really missing Jonathan, but it was a great gig, and it ended up being a lot of fun none the less. Amie Ray, who is my dear friend Burke's sister in law, came to the show that night and took some great pictures. You can view more at my website as well...
(thanks Amie!)
Wed. night Amos Lee gave a surprise concert at the Rockwood Music Hall, so I went down to try catching part of the show and to see if it was all a hoax, and sure enough, there he was on stage with the band! I tried to go inside, but it was literally so jam packed full of people that I could barely fit my head in. So I watched from the window for a few, and finally gave up and went to have coffee with my old childhood friend Anna next door. Anna and I go way back, all the way to pre-school in fact! Anna's been living in NY for the past 5 years or so, so we had a lot of catching up to do for sure. It was really nice to see her and a few other old friends while I was up in NY.
The following week, I was trying to rest a bit after my highly productive first week in New York. My friend Amos Lee hooked me up with a gig in Philly at a great venue called The Tin Angel opening for Mutlu(who is also amazing,check him out). More on that in my other blog.

Tin Angel, Philly PA

Friday night, I had a show in the east village in New York at a very exclusive New York club called The Living Room. I played in the upstairs part of the club, and had a smaller, but appreciative crowd. It was all in all a great trip to NY, and I made a lot of great new fans, and supporters. Which is exactly what I had set out to do in the first place! So...MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
I was set to play two other shows this week, but I had some important health stuff to attend to down south, so it I had to reschedule my last two shows, which is for the better anyhow! But I will be back very soon, so if you live in NY or know anyone up there, be sure and tell them to keep an ear and eye out for me next time around!
In closing, I must say that overall, my highlight up in NY was probably when I finally started to get a hang of the subway system, and all the unintentional exercise you end up doing during the day! Of course, I didn't end up actually catching on to the subway system until the end of the trip, but hey, at least I caught on! But to be honest, I'm pretty happy to be back to my own means of transportation!
It was a great trip, with lots of colorful people along the way.