Chiara Giovando and Daniel Higgs

Last night was the first real night of sum­mer for me. Filled with music, famil­iar faces and late-burn­ing eye­balls. Aster­isk Gallery had a fair­ly impromp­tu show fea­tur­ing Chiara Gio­van­do and Daniel Hig­gs [lead singer of Lung­fish]. Ha Ha La was the first act, a sort of Daniel John­ston with a dash of Sig­ur Ros and [when-used] Jesus and Mary Chain gui­tar. Ted Fly­nn played next, a bit more stan­dard­ized root­sy sort of set. I took some video. My bro Was­co played next, his Scarci­ty impro­vi­sa­tion­al exper­i­ments remain intense. Here’s his entire set, split in two for YouTube. Part 1, Part 2.

Andrew Klimek was next, and he did things with bal­loons and gui­tars that are like­ly ille­gal in sev­er­al coun­tries. Chiara Gio­van­do and Daniel Hig­gs were last, and hope­ful­ly enough dona­tions were giv­en to help them on their way to Pitts­burgh. The duo was mind­blow­ing. I would have tak­en video but my cam­era was­n’t up to record­ing in the dim light. Ban­jo, vio­lin, a capel­la, mouth harp and what I think was a spring drum gave a world-folk vibe to their set, but this retro-hip­pie-ness was dis­tinct­ly jux­ta­posed with lyrics that showed a def­i­nite punk edge. It end­ed up being more mature than both, an affir­ma­tion of love in con­test with world­ly expe­ri­enced cyn­ic­sim.

There were cam­eras [includ­ing mine] all over this show. Some­times I won­der if peo­ple are more inter­est­ed in imi­tat­ing Lou Muenz [includ­ing me] than watch­ing the show.

I hitched a ride over to Duck Island to see Seers and made it home close to 2, I think. I saw just about every per­son that I care to see in the Cleve­land music scene last night. We’re all anx­ious to get out and be some rock, I think. Maybe I’m just pro­ject­ing.