Lucy Kaplansky and I go way back

17 Apr
2012

Lucy Kaplansky at the Mucky Duck

Yesterday I drove to Houston to see Lucy Kaplansky play at the Mucky Duck.

Friends: “So…you have Sunday off from driving around for live music and you’re going to drive somewhere…for live music?”

Me: “Absolutely.”

Besides getting to go to a fun venue and hang out with Nancy Jane who has an iPod full of things I wish were on my iPod (I mean to say, we have the same taste, not that I stole her iPod), I absolutely had to see Lucy on her Texas tour.

Back when I was a wee high-schooler who listened to singer-songwriters a lot but had never seen one in the wild so to speak, I went to see Lucy at the Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque. Lucy is a fantastic live performer and it solidified several things for me:

– live music is fun
– having an “aggressive right hand” guitar style is awesome
– folk shows are great because you can talk to the artist at the show!

Not bad for an introduction to songwriters and live shows. I was hooked, and I actually had the luck of seeing Lucy two more times in college because I became a volunteer at the Outpost. Those were good times. I took that venue for granted because I kind of assumed every town had an Outpost where devoted music fans sat in a room with great sound and listened all night and ate cookies and drank coffee. This is not the case. The Outpost is awesome and Albuquerque is fortunate.  Go see things there.

Anyway, it’s been…at least 6 years since I have seen Lucy live, perhaps more. The show was awesome – there was the aggressive right hand guitar style! – and we got a few new songs from a soon to be released new album. The fits of nostalgia were strong but a pleasant added tone to the show for me.

I hope it won’t be so far between shows this time…the East Coast songwriters need not be scared of Texas!

Lucy Kaplansky at the Mucky Duck

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