Chris Trapper Club Passim 5-31-12

Eons ago in a galaxy far far away (Providence, RI to be exact),
a small group of friends ventured from thier home port of Boston to see Chris Trapper perform.
   We had heard of his pervious band The Push Stars and enjoyed that music well enough but would never have traveled quite so far on a 'school night' (a night where one of us, me in fact, had to work early the next day) if not for the fact that another friend had happened to mention on the board for another band that she had at some point in space and time baked fresh cookies for The Push Stars.
   
      Good music on CD is one thing but musicians so spectacular that they inspire a woman to bake fresh cookies?!? That's a musician you travel over state lines on a 'school night' to see.

    So we get there and the place is familiar, (I forget the name of it but we had seen Black47 there before, another band well worth travelling to see but I digress...) we're comfortable enough, order drinks, order food and enjoy the opener imensely (Jim's Big Ego).

    We enjoy ourselves enough that T shirts are purchaced. Good times indeed.
  
 Eventually the main event comes on and he's just delightful in a charming "Aw shucks" kind of way, like he's just some guy playing songs he wrote in his spare time and not a world class songwriter far too skilled in his trade to be playing a Providence, RI basement to a weak crowd on a weeknight.
   The songs are wonderful and the music is well executed but it's getting later and later and I know I still have quite a bit of driving to do and no matter how good the music is, I have to be up at 6am to work a whole state and at least 3 metropolitan areas away early the next day. I stay til the last possible minute that I can possibly stay and then inform my friends that it is time to go, now.
   Good buddies that they are,
      all rise and follow me out to the street where I am duely chastised for behaving in an incomprehensibly rude and down right dasterdly manner. The worst sting comes from my friend George who is a musician (yes, a drummer counts),
    "I can't believe we did that! That was so rude! You do not just up and leave in the middle of a song!!!"
   To which everyone else replied,
    "Yeah, did you see how everyone else there glared at us?"
        The answer being, no. Actually I did not.
 But I have very easily imagined the horrified looks of indignation every time I have enjoyed a Push Stars and/or Chris Trapper tune and have felt wicked bad about it ever since.
     So much so that when informed through facebook by Mr. Trapper himself (what a smart marketing/promoting cookie he is!) that he would be performing in Cambridge at Club Passim this week (5-31-12) I thought,
    "Here's a great opportunity to wash my karma and hang it up to dry as well! I can go enjoy this show and clap myself silly to make up for my past indiscression!"
    Probably make an *ss of myself in the process but who cares? Clean karma trumps all embarassment in my book!
   Alas!
     I work far to much (having been told this by many, and having far to little time for the things I really like to do, I am now inclined to actually believe it) and am unable to make this awesome show (2 in fact on the same night, one at 7pm-ish and one at 9pm-ish) but I did buy the lastest album so singing along in the car on my way to work is a consolation prize that I look forward to.
      I also sent a long rambling note to Mr. Trapper who very graciously replied that even tho he had no idea just what on earth I was rambling on about, all was forgiven, so my karma is clean and when the new disk arrives at my house I can enjoy it with a clean concience.
   Delightful.
        : )
     Anyhoo....
           The whole point of this ramble is that this super nice guy who happens to write absolutely amazing songs is totally worth getting out to see this coming Thurs night in Cambridge at Club Passim, if you possibly can.
    If my driving to RI on the eve of a long work day and the fact that some chick somewhere was so moved by this mans music to bake him fresh cookies doesn't move ya, I don't know what will....

Perhaps a little hometown pride might be just the ticket :


Chris Trapper - Boston Girls


Seriously, go see this dude and/or visit his website and buy a disk, he'll folk rock yer socks off.

Old Essex T stop and surrounding construction.

This old unused T stop is located a block or so from where I work.

I was surprised to stumble across it a couple of weeks ago as I never knew it was there.

 I'm not sure when this stop was discontinued but I can't recall ever seeing it until recently

 and I certainly never remember it being in use... 

Link to Forgotten-Boston.com, other great pics of the Essex stop and other Chinatown area T stops.