Good Things Come...

In our household this fall, Sunday nights are typically reserved for watching The Amazing Race. It's a special treat for the kids, that even on a school night they get to stay up until 9pm, root on their favourite teams, decide which challenges they would or wouldn't do, and plan for the time that they're old enough to get on the show themselves.

All that being said, it didn't happen tonight - thank goodness our friend TiVo was ready and willing to step up for us. Instead, some friends watched the kids while Stephen and I headed over to the Tractor Tavern for a CD release party for a singer/songwriter we both like very much - Karen Pernick, whose new album is called Two Kinds of Weather.

Her first CD, Apartment 12 was on constant rotation for quite a while after its release in 1996. Yes, you read that right - 10 years, we've waited for a new one. I liked her first so much, I e-mailed Karen, who had no web site (remember, it was 1996 and very few people did), and asked her if she wanted one. She wrote back and said yes so I put together the very first iteration of karenpernick.com, then met her for dinner when she played a Six String Concerts show in '97. I didn't get a chance to talk with her tonight after the show, but maybe I'll drop her another note sometime to see if she remembers me. :)

Anyway, the show was great. Karen is as lovely as ever, her voice is like buttah, and the new songs are terrific. She was joined onstage by the musicians she worked with on the album, no-name slackers like Wayne Horvitz (who also produced the record) and Robin Holcomb. It was also nice to see Julie Wolf come up onstage to do some backing vocals on "Apartment 12."

One funny thing... we ended up getting to the Tractor about 45 minutes early, while Karen and the band were still sound checking. So we queued up in the rain (under the awning, luckily), waiting until they opened the doors. This is funny only because this used to be what Stephen and I would do before every general admission show we attended... we always liked to be there to have our pick of seats or standing room near the stage. It's been several years and two kids since we've been early enough to do that. Made me feel all twenty-something again.