MassMOCA, Mark Mulcahy, and M&Ms

On Saturday, I played a show with Mark Mulcahy at MassMOCA in North Adams, MA. I have had nothing but wonderful experiences as a performer at MassMOCA. It's like a tiny paradise.

I was there a little while ago for a multi-day stay when we did The Rosenbach Company and it was all brilliant. This stay was perhaps even better. The weather was outstanding which may have actually had a lot to do with the wonder of the weekend. North Adams is nestled. There are mountains on all sides and with the striking blue sky and all of that new-summer green, it's hard not to be charmed. Now take those two colors and add in brick and you've got the blur of the two days.

Everything at MassMOCA screams to be photographed. I don't know if it is just because art is on the brain or what, but every direction I looked seemed like a framed, carefully crafted, photograph.

The venue in which we were playing was an outdoor sort of bar/cafe with tables and chairs and boldly colored billowing tarps for a ceiling. The MassMOCA crew was splendid as always. Friendly and embarrassingly accommodating, they bustled around enthusiastically setting up the stage and the sounds and the lights and making sure we were comfortable and had snacks and anything else that we needed. Mark had brought along his own soung-guy Myles and so we were in competent hands. It's so so so nice to play a show where all you really need to do is worry about playing music. It's rare for me and I was eating up every second of it.

The show itself was good fun. We set up the stage in a diamond shape with Ken Maiuri on stage left with drums, keyboard, accordion, and clarinet. I was center and in the back at my keyboard, also with bass guitar, glockenspiel, slide-whistle, and melodica. To my right was Dave Trenholm, playing guitar, bass, clarinet, saxophone, flute, and melodica. Up in the front center was Mark Mulcahy with his electric guitar, harmonica, and trumpet. The first song was just Mark, the second was Mark and Ken, and on the third Dave and I were to enter half-way through. The two of us were backstage (one flight up in an expansive empty wing of the museum) with a stage manager with a walky-talkie. She was receiving reports from the backstage manager, eventually he said, "third song has begun" and Dave and I walked down an old enclosed rickety metal staircase and waited just off stage for our entrance. Sneaky.

We breezed through a diverse set of old and new songs. It was chilly outside, but still felt summery. The stage was lit by nice colored lights and a long meandering swath of neon-flex. Behind the audience, a huge letter M was projected against an outdoor movie screen. Mark was hilarious between songs and enchanting during each, his voice crisply came through my monitor speaker, soaring and diving in that Mulcahy way. Ken was heroically playing drums with one hand and two feet and keyboard with his other hand. Dave was switching between sax and flute and guitar with frantic ease.

The audience was wonderful, warm and appreciative in the chilly breeze, calling for an encore which turned out to be a crazy song-backed monologue of nearly twenty minutes.

Afterwards, the night took us to the local (like right across the street local) pub and then back to the ultra-swank overnight digs. The next morning we dined on breakfast with friends and then perused the exhibits in the museum with our "visiting artist" badges swaying from our necks. What's a better word than pleasant? I'm not sure there is one.

Thank you, MassMOCA and Mark Mulcahy and all double m'ed names. (We even had M&Ms in the green room. MMM.)