When traveling through Charlotte, NC, I met Pat of The New Familiars who recommended I get in touch with Matt Morelock at WDVX. WDVX is a community radio station in Knoxville that hosts singers, songwriters, bands and traveling musicians on weekdays during the lunch hour for a live performance. So today I played at the station, which was a lot of fun. I can now say I've played on the same stage as Nickel Creek and Bela Fleck (though not at the same time). Here's some footage of Knoxville, one of my songs and Matt and Jon Ladeau who played after me.
So moving right along, I left Charlie Jones and the Peculiar People in Greensboro and set off for Charlotte. An uneventful drive, and along the way I stopped to visit my friend Doug, who is a project manager (IT/website) at a packaging solutions company.
Doug was a project manager for Samaritan's Purse in Afghanistan when I interned with them in the summer of 2004. He was responsible for the drenching welcome I received when I arrived (buckets of water from the roof now greet all new arrivals to the Afghanistan office). He worked with SP for a few years after that in Indonesia, Uganda, and now is married and lives in Charlotte. A really cool guy that I haven't seen in a few years. It was good to see him.
Doug put me in touch with his sister, and she and her husband Tom had an extra room I could spend the night in. So I hung out with them for the afternoon (great conversations about the work their church is doing in Sierra Leone and internet marketing techniques), and then took off to the open mic night at the Evening Muse here in Charlotte.
My goal for playing at the Evening Muse was to meet some of the local musicians and share some of my music. You can see bits and pieces of the evening below. I gave out some cards, made some cool connections, and generally enjoyed myself. A couple cool bands/groups I discovered/met in the folk/rock (softer) genres: The New Familiars and Elonzo. If you live in Charlotte or near where they'll be playing, you should definitely check them out.
