Just Cyd.

it's always a delight to see performers who are friends, and who truly delight in their shared time on stage. Wes Collins and Jess Klein were such a duo tonight, sharing the stage, stories, and silliness.

The North Carolina Music Scene is one big, happy, if a little nutty, family. WNC (Asheville), Triad (Winston-Salem) and the Triangle (Chapel Hill/RDU) are all one big clan, and pretty much any show I attend sees reunions between all manner of musicians. Similar musical styles also means musicians run in the same circles and attend the same sorts of workshops and festivals and whatnot. It was at one of these that Jess proposed the idea of a song swap to Wes, and I think his answer was something like "well, duh!".

Eno House hosts a plethora of events, and even under the umbrella of musical offerings, I had not yet attended a true Song Swap. They did some promo stuff for it, they learned each other's songs, and when they hit the stage, it was pure magic. There were solo songs, harmonies on one another's songs, there was new stuff, and some way-back stuff. There was The Whale Joke, stories of how songs came about, and a shout-out to the person who read Jess's newsletter and left her a giant bag of Bugles on stage. Oh, and there was a shout-along song, just because.

The Eno House is BYOB and snacks (although they do have some snacks available for donation), but I leaned into that a little too hard, hauling in a Snackle Box robust enough to have fed at least have the audience. Oops.

I attempted to video this whole show, and got most of the way through before my battery died. I'll deal with that set list and stuff tomorrow.

2025: Trip #3, Concert #3 attended, Concert #4 planned

First concert of the year was last month! I should really write about it.

I drove to Hillsborough, NC to see Mike Garrigan at the Eno House Artists Den. He was the opener for his friends Nikki Meets the Hibachi, and they were both amazing!

On the accessibility front, the Eno House is an old boxy church with half a dozen steps to get inside. There is a ramp up the side, which I'm sure could be used if needed. Once inside, everything was on that one level (including restrooms), and the only issue with navigating would be once the place got packed full and extra chairs were brought out to accommodate everyone. Dunno if it was a sell-out, but it certainly was well-attended. My hopes of seeing other musicians, like Darren or Zach or Mike's former bandmates, were dashed, but there were a LOT of people there I didn't recognize who appeared to be part of the NC/Piedmont music scene, so that's cool.

The place was well-staffed, all with people in black "STAFF" tshirts. Very official. the building is a de-commissioned church, but loosly affiliated with a nearby church, and the money raised was going to help fund a literacy camp for the neighborhood kids. The building serves as a community center now, with all manner of things available. Kinda wish I lived closer so I could attend the weekly writers workshop.

The room was set up with small round tables up front with 4 chairs each, then a few rows of old pews, then tall bistro tables and stools behind that. I picked the table up front on the far right, opposite side of the place from the vintage Steinway. It was set up so Mike would be facing the same direction as me; I couldn't see his face, but I could see his hands. I also prefer to be out of the way and have a view of the whole room, even if I'm not near an exit. He was milling about, talking to people, looking very Corporate Dad. He did not make it over to me, and about 7:15 or so, he started to play. He had an actual set list on his phone, which he set on the piano. He opened with The Architect, which he wrote as an intro-to-a-set piece. He spoke a bit between songs, talking about the new ones and the old, how some of them came to be, etc. he had to turn quite a bit to see the full room. He was playing all of my faves (but let's face it, all of his songs are my faves right now), but he was pretty far in and had not yet played Dive.

You see, at the beginning of the year I signed up to be an annual supporter of his on Bandcamp. He made a post in the community sharing that he'd be recording all of his shows this year, and sharing the best of each, and if we had any requests to please let him know. A few people discussed what they'd like to hear in general. I posted that I would be at the Eno House show, and would like to hear Dive. He said he'd get it on the set list. I didn't know if he'd just play it, and that would be that, or if he would say it was a request and pitch Bandcamp, or what. Near the end of his set, he turned to the audience and asked "Was there someone flying? driving? in from Ohio for the show?" "yep! that's me" i piped up and shot up my hand. He had to turn quite far to see me, but did make eye contact. he turned back to the microphone and asked "and did you have a request you wanted me to play?" and did the huge fake winking thing at me. while people chuckled, he stage whispered "we worked this out in advance" to more laughter. I spoke up, quite clearly, and confirmed "yes, I would love it if you would play Dive" and then did my best to keep my shit together while he sang his heart out. as soon as the song was over, a guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder as he got up and said "good call on requesting Dive" and I thanked him.

As soon as Mike's set was over, he made a beeline over to me. one of his first questions was "so, do you know people down here...?" and was appropriately shocked when I said no. gave him the tl;dr version of living my life, and mentioned I'd be back for Tom Maxwell's book release. after a few minutes, he moved on, and the second band hit the stage.

Nikki Meets the Hibachi is yet another "wow, how did I not know about them???" gems. Elaine and John, on acoustic guitars, singing with harmonies. SOLD. and they are both just the nicest people you'll ever meet. It must be a requirement for NC musicians or something. They had some backing from Amy Ray to get an EP out a while back, but have been at this since the late 80s. there were some tech issues that i didn't really notice but had them fussing, and things ran a bit late ("I promised some people they'd be outta here by 9; some of us have to go to work tomorrow"), but it was just amazing. Got to talk to John Gillespie after the show, and he is also sweet as pie (and has really soft hands - how does a guitarist get soft hands?). mentioned to him and to the Eno House people that they need to get Darren Jessee to play there.