It was Mad Agnes’s first real road trip since 2011! (Party icons, disco dance emojis, and sparkly hearts)
And you know it’s never just like that, right?
But it always starts like this:
Packing? What is this packing of which you speak? And where is the Camry of old, that is twice as big inside as it is outside? No matter.
Back from their ten-year lunch break, Mad Agnes is once again cruising the broken line, bringing love and really choice harmonies to the hearts of a hurting world. Fulfilling the mission. Embracing the unknown. Facing it all…together.
Well, I forgot to bring my boots, and we were heading into some pretty snowy weather. Fortunately, Margo had a spare pair that fit me.
NOW we’re ready to roll. Our pared-down setup involves a couple fewer guitars, smaller keyboard, and not nearly as much sound equipment. I didn’t even have to bring my guitar this time. Feeling light and bright. Snacks, check. Podcasts, check. Six hours to Rochester. Off we go.
Half an hour later, Margo’s face does a double salchow.
“What? Did we forget the CDs? Keyboard cable? Charger?”
“I forgot my purse.”
Ah, the purse. The one that she left at the train station in New York, that was turned in to the lost and found later, sans cash, and mailed back to her.
But, technology! All the credit cards go on the phone now. It’s a beautiful thing. So we’re really still okay.
We arrived in Rochester with smiles and stiff necks, and checked into our hotel. The promoter had booked us two rooms — we’re living large! The receptionist was very funny and took no guff. She handed out the first keycard. I picked it up and looked at the room number. It was odd. My spidey senses tingled. Should I hold out for an even number? Would that be a better stay for me? Would it, in fact, make my entire life better from this point forward? But I had committed to this keycard. It would look weird to reject it now. People might learn of my little, weird, spidey sense relationship with numbers. That would never do, and I had to suck it up.
The next keycard came out. It was an even number. Margo took it and we headed to the elevator. I suppressed the tiniest, illogical pang of misgiving. Logic brain, engage. Lizard brain, take a nap.
I settled into Oddville and popped round to Eventown to check it out. Theirs was rather nicer. More spacious, better arranged. I was glad. Two people need more room than one. So that worked out right.
We had about an hour and a half before having to leave for the venue. Yeah, speaking of naps! I had a lovely little lie-down on a comfy bed with comfy pillows. I did decide not to report the ever so small, really almost invisible unless you’re me, light streaks of what appeared to be blood from what must have been a little cut on the hand of whomever had turned the beds. It really didn’t affect me; I didn’t come into contact with it, I didn’t want to uproot myself to go to another room, and everything else was fine. So I had the nap and a nice shower.
Things weren’t so smooth in Eventown. So far as I know, there were no biohazard incidents there, but rather a chain of unfortunate events. First it took an army and an act of will to get onto the wifi. Tech support, workarounds, and fiddling. Finally sorted, Mark popped into the shower, grabbing two of the sample bottles kindly provided by the hotel. Mid-song, he discovered they were both conditioner. He stepped out to grab the one remaining bottle, which was also conditioner.
One must have shampoo. Margo stepped into the bathroom at his call, soaking her fresh socks on the newly bedewed floor. Down to the lobby in wet socks to summon shampoo. Mission accomplished, Mark went to dry his hair with the handy dryer provided with the room.
It didn’t work. The outlets were tight; someone had clearly mashed the dryer plug into one of them so hard that one prong disappeared into the housing and would not come out. Margo popped round to Oddville to borrow mine.
After all that kerfuffle, Mark went to make a cup of coffee… and both sets of coffee accoutrement contained decaf.
And, well, the coffee maker didn’t work.
I don’t want anybody coming to me saying any of this is my fault for being number-stitious. We’re all just doing the best we can out here. It’s not my fault I was bitten by a radioactive numeral and I KNOW things.
(Humor aside though, I just want to say this. We are all finding our way back into the world, post-Covid. You, me, all of us. The service industry has been pummeled, between safety concerns, staffing issues, lost revenue. Hotel employees work jobs that are challenging on the best day, and they have to deal with the unpredictable on an hourly basis. Management and staff were super nice and dealt with everything lickety split.)
So, down to the lobby for a replacement coffee maker and some high-test. By departure time, everything had been sorted.
Anyway, the Golden Link Folksinging Society is simply lovely. We chose to wear clothes in the colors of the Ukranian flag, which exactly matched the banner they have. You can find more about them at www.goldenlink.org.
Meanwhile, here are some photos they took of us:
But wait, there’s more! We are ridiculously thrilled to have received SWAG from Golden Link. Check out the 50th Anniversary t-shirt, posed very professionally among some other gig-related paraphernalia:
By evening the snow was coming down. We weren’t sure what to expect the next day in Oswego. We needn’t have worried. Those New York folks, they know how to do snow. Also the storm was over by the time we rolled in, so all we had to deal with was wind.
Big wind.
Checked into hotel and rested a bit. The heater didn’t work in M&M’s room so they had to change rooms. In their second room they set the heat to 65°. When they got back from the gig it was 83°. Also there was no bathmat. I had nothing to do with any of this, even though I got a keycard with an odd room number on it.
I recalled a conversation with Margo the night before, about how we would go to the Mexican restaurant and then go directly to the venue, so wear your gig clothes to dinner.
Shortly before leave time, Margo texted me and said, the restaurant is so close, we’re just going to walk. So I did my hair, put on my makeup, fancy boots, and gig clothes, and met them downstairs, where they blinked at me wordlessly for a few seconds.
“Oh! You’re already dressed.”
“…”
“Well, let’s go.”
Remember what I said a minute ago about Big Wind? We’re on the edge of Lake Ontario. It’s still Winter, and a storm just came through. It’s the kind of wind that, if you open both doors, it will clean out your car for you.
Margo recalled talking with a guy in the lobby who had just walked across the bridge. “I had to hold onto the railing with both hands,” he said gleefully, “so that I wouldn’t be blown one way into the water, or the other way into traffic!”
That kind of wind. The restaurant wasn’t really that close. It was a few blocks, I didn’t have hat or hoodie, I was wearing my not-warm clothes, and yelling in an irritated way for most of the time. Like when you regret going on the ride at the carnival, you think you might die and the only way to take your mind off it is to yell.
It was better indoors. After dinner Mark kindly fetched the car so we wouldn’t have to walk back. Whew! The hard part of the evening was over.
We thought.
(Oddly, although she knew nothing of my Spidey senses, Margo later said when I came outside in my thin little yellow leggings, she thought I looked like Spiderman, suited up too early to fight crime.)
Quick turnaround at the hotel, then off to the Oswego Music Hall!
I instantly remembered this as the place where I lost my keys, years ago. We had every volunteer searching for 20 minutes at the end of the night. Finally someone picked up my jacket and shook it. The keys had fallen through a hole in the pocket and were hiding in the lining.
Ah, fun memories! I was all ready to have a smoother night this time. So we started setting up. Here’s the view out the window:
The lake was choppy and beautiful. Still quite cold, so the heater blowers were on in the venue. Kind of loud, but they said they would shut off when the huge, drafty space came to temp. We integrated our one-mic setup with their sound system and started sound check.
Pretty soon several things didn’t work, and we thought it may have been too cold in the clamshell on the car roof overnight. We always bring our guitars in, of course, but we figured metal bits were resilient and wouldn’t mind the freeze. They said it was probably leprechauns, it being near St. Paddy’s Day. I can neither confirm nor deny.
My guitar monitor amp popped and gurgled. Margo’s keyboard speaker wouldn’t work. Things were charged, cables were switched. Batteries were replaced. They had trouble ringing out the room. Mark set up our DBX Feedback Suppressor to augment. We asked them to turn off the heat blowers for a while. They were quite patient and flexible with all the ruffles. People filtered in. We finally got things to an acceptable place, and hit the greenroom to get centered and warmed up.
Time! They gave us a big introduction and fanfare! We trotted onstage, Mark said hello into the mic, and…
It was all distorted. The ONE thing we absolutely had to have. Mark worked with it for what seemed like ten minutes, with funny bits to cover the chagrin, and finally it worked. Don’t touch it. Don’t even look at it. Margo said, should we just start over?
We ran offstage, they introduced us again with the big, “And now please welcome… MAD AGNES!” Thunderous applause and laughter, all troubles forgotten, music and tomfoolery and improv and sweetness and all the reasons we came.
Mostly things worked from that point. And we have now built redundancy into our equipment in case anything decides to go south in our (oh-so-simple) setup.
Party icons, disco dance emojis, and sparkly hearts. We are grateful.
It’s what you make it.
Thank you to everyone who came out to hear us in New York state! Thank you for buying our limited-run Live at Chudleigh CDs to help us fund the new album in progress. Thank you for sharing this newsletter and generally spreading the word to people who want to follow us, but don’t know it yet!
Do go to www.patreon.com/adriennejones to see what I’m up to, in and out of Mad Agnes, and to take part in the evolution of Art, Music and Outrageous Endeavors with me.
Love,
Adrienne (for MeMargoMark)
Road Haiku, NY, March 2022
the grace of two crows
landing on snow-flurried limbs
black on grey on grey (aj)
two free rooms tonight!
no shampoo, bathmat, dryer
hidden costs incurred (ms)
“your music is like
the big breath you had us take
and then sigh back out.” (aj)