What an awesome night...

Lisa Dee and I went to see Evangenitals gift from the Lord and bassist (among a multitude of other instruments-player) Keith Lubow play with Deborah McColl at South Pasadena Music. Her tunes were sweet and deep and philosophical and heartbreaking and when she crooned "it's raining, it's raining, but we're connected now" my heart did in fact break open and the tears began to flow. It was such a beautiful set I had to water it like a flower. :-)

The next song, she announced, was co-written by her and her lover, soul mate, and guitarist of 15 years (Keith's dad, guitarist Patrick Lubow). They started the song a month before he died, and they finished it, together, she said, a month after he died. Gorgeous. Lovely. Love. Straight up Rumi and Shams. I dig it.

You can download the song "We're Connected" for free, here: We're Connected mp3.

Post-show, I went back to Keith's mom's house (she and Deborah are both huge fans and supporters of the Evangenitals) and we ended up having an impromptu all-requests Evangenitals hootenanny, with Keith and I on dueling guitars. I, of course, am no match for his ludicrous multi-instrumentalist abilities. It's awe-inspiring how many different things he can play: bass, guitar, mandolin, banjo, trumpet, trombone, ukulele, harmonica... and that's just what was available in the room! I'm sure there's more.

Accompanying us were violinist Andrea Baker (formerly of Evangenitals pal-band Shaped Like a Gun! Small world!) playing the mandolin, her husband (a composer who's name is totally escaping me) playing the uke, and James Graham, mandolin-player and vocalist for Deborah McColl, plucking around on the banjo. Nashville guitar genius Gary Talley of The Box Tops was in the room and listening... however, he was on to drinking wine and off of playing for the night.

We did a ton of Evangenitals songs, including a bad-ass version of The Hole with Keith on the Trumpet, and some really awesome covers of June Carter's "Tall Lover Man", Johnny Cash's "Long Black Veil" (with 4 part harmonies!), and Bob Dylan's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight". Good times, and such an honor to get to hang out and harmonize with such incredible musicians.

(FYI: There's actually a pretty dope video of Keith, myself, and Evangenitals drummer David Hurlin playing the new Klezmer-punk version of The Hole atop The 1 Second Film's Road to Oprah bus with iJustine and Brookers here: Evangenitals, iJustine, & The 1 Second Film.)

At 2:30am I sold an Evangenitals CD to a nice man visiting from Australia who said that my vocal stylings reminded him of one of his favorite Australian vocalizing twins, from the band "Johnny Cash Converters" in Melbourne, which is a clever play on words in Australia, where a "Cash Converter" is a sort of high-end thrift shop, he explained. The fact that I am the June Carter in the premier Johnny Cash tribute band Cash'd Out made the associations even more aligned. Then he showed me some Australian currency, which is beautiful, and it even has a little plastic see-through window in it. Transparency in Currency?!? Whaaaat?!?!

My Evangenitals heart was stretched all over the nation tonight, though, as guitarist Henry Bermudez was up in San Francisco playing with Unpopable (one of his many awesome bands) at the wedding of balloon artist Addi Somekh, and David Hurlin is in Fairfield, Iowa getting indoctrinated into a new job at the soon-to-be-launched awesome music site 3mix.com and playing some gigs, tonight's with the Jefferson County Green Band.

The gang will all be back together soon, however, for the Evangenitals Family Hootenanny at Molly Malones on Tuesday September 9th. Hopefully a bunch of folks will come out, as every show I get to play with this current collection of Evangenitals is a spiritual experience and I have a feeling the 9th is going to be a new height of sublimation. It's a feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeling.

In other news, I'm officially, thoroughly, and totally addicted to Twitter, so if you find yourself wondering what I'm doing just about every second of every day... I'm doing my damndest to share it. The MICRO-blogging is, I realize, having an effect on my MACRO-blogging, though. After giving mini-updates all day long via text message, sitting down and committing to a full testimonial of the day has proven rather difficult to muster the enthusiasm for. It seems, however, the trick is to have more ludicrously awesome nights like tonight which make me want to share the love and link every single person place and thing that I encountered for the world to see. I'll do my best to say yes to more of these experiences and keep the news a'flowing.

In the meantimes, however, you can totally follow me on Twitter. :-)

p.s.
You can follow David Hurlin on Twitter, too. :-)

p.p.s.
I love you. You know who you are. Yes... YOU! :-)