Jane Brock: Calendar

Okay, I've now found another GREAT venue in Nashville--I love Cafe Coco! What a great crowd we had last night. Thanks to everyone who came out and supported my and Andrew's sets. We had a great time playing for you and meeting you all. And a special thanks goes out to the big table of friends from the Nashville Ballet! Thanks for diggin' our music! They told us they'd heard us on WRVU-FM the night before and decided to come out and see us play--thanks so much! And I don't want to forget all those crazy happy Harpeth students--you rock, kids!! Carol Jane at Cafe Coco set up the stage and ran the sound for us and did a fabulous amount of work for us--thank you, Carol Jane! Can't wait to play Cafe Coco's Back Stage again!

Kudos to Gary Hays of Songwriters Anonymous! Not only has he graciously booked me several times at The Crescent Cafe's "Voodoo Room", but when I told him Andrew James was coming back from England to play in Nashville again, he delivered once again by giving us a great time slot to share. The show rocked as we had The Dave Isaacs Trio backing us up, then a band called Sugar Lime Blue followed, the Dave rounded it out with his usual blistering set. Wow. Justin Conn ended the night, and by all accounts he's a great talent. Thanks again to Gary Hays, and to Scott the owner for treating us really great!

Debi Champion is one of the sweetest folks I've met in the music industry here in Nashville. She is the host for this long-running songwriter night, and she is so accomodating and encouraging. I was surrounded by country music writers and guitar players, so I felt like a fish out of water for my shared "round" of songwriters. Perhaps this is just not my gig as I'm not a country writer, but it would be hard to beat Debi as the nicest host in Nashville!

I really like playing at Fuel, whether for a songwriter night or a full band show. The stage is very comfortable and roomy, and the sound guy James has done a superb job for me each time I've played there. Thanks to James, as well as to Joy of Plugged In Entertainment and Gary Hays of Songwriters Anonymous for booking me there! I'll be back this week and next week for songwriter nights, then a full band show in November! Can't wait!

Unlike any songwriter night I've done to date in Nashville, this was an interesting evening. The first band, scheduled at the last minute, featured a fabulous female lead singer named Katrina Stone, and they were really high energy and great. Which set the stage for an oddity--myself and another female singer/songwriter performing with just the keyboard. Wow, this was difficult--following a high-energy rock act with just an acoustic sound. I hope the audience liked what we did, but I know they were coming down from the first set. AND there was a new crowd arriving for the set to follow ours, which was another high-energy pop/electronica act featuring another female lead, Savannah. Oh well. I believe I performed my songs well, and I hope the audience that was there "to listen" actually liked them! I hope to play The Rutledge again soon with MY band, 'cause I know we'll rock, too. It really is a cool venue, and the sound was great! See you next time!

Hey! Wow, this gig ROCKED! Everything just really gelled tonight, and despite the traffic and parking problems posed by the Titans football game, the Pat Benatar show just down the block, and the Nickelback concert down the other block, there were plenty of new fans and new friends to be made at my show! I've started standing now when I play and perform, and it's really making a difference and I'm having more fun, too. My band just played awesomely, and we had a blast together onstage. By all accounts, too, the audience was grooving along with us. Yeah. That's so cool. Can't wait 'til the next show on 9/13 at The Crescent Cafe with Andrew James and the Dave Isaacs Trio--we'll be reuniting after our successful dates in July. Come on out and say Hi--we promise you a great show!

Hey! Once again, I played The Crescent Cafe and Oyster Bar in Nashville. It was definitely a "hot" night, not just because of the music, but because the temperature outside was over 100 degrees! Yet we still had fans and friends come out to see the show. Josh and Jesse were back in full force on bass and guitar, and Zach Stewart filled in fabulously on drums as I played keys and sang. Having a longer time slot this time allowed me to perform more songs from the new album, "Low-Backed Dress", including "Leaving London", as well as "Sometimes We Fly" and "Blue Jean Meow", which I'd never performed live before. They went off really great, by all accounts. Thanks so much to Scott, the owner of The Crescent, and Gary Hays, the talent scheduler and coordinator for Songwriters Anonymous, for setting up the show and having such a great place to play! Also, thanks to everyone who attended! I'm making some cool new friends and generating a growing buzz, thanks to you all! More shows are coming, including an acoustic set "in the round"-Nashville style-with 3 other songwriters this week at The Commodore. Just piano, acoustic guitar, vocals, and great songwriting--no bells and whistles. It's all about the song this time!

Perhaps there exists no greater compliment to a performing musician than that of a set of loyal fans that will follow you from show to show--and I'm not talking about stalkers!

If you had a chance to read my diary notes from the Douglas Corner show of last Friday, you'll know that Andrew had managed to invite several fans to the show while he was still in England by utilizing the ubiquitous myspace.com. After he made the trip to Nashville earlier this week, we learned that some of these fans had invited more of their friends, and thus we'd had a great crowd at our Douglas Corner show. But these guys just kept getting better--they loved our show so much that they told us they were going to come to our show the following Wednesday at The Crescent Cafe and Oyster Bar. And they actually showed up, and brought even more friends! Wow! So we filled the room Wednesday night at The Crescent. Again, the show went well. Jesse Brock filled in for Dave Isaacs, and Josh and Rob did their usual superb and funky job on bass and drums. Our sets again went well, and I loved singing backup for Andrew before my solo set. I still wonder if his massiveness onstage, both behind the piano and behind the mic as he sang backup for me, was the main attraction, but at this point, I don't care. The crowd was great and responsive, and all went very well. The owner of the venue was happy with us (yay!) and Gary Hays of the Songwriters' Anonymous group was happy with us too. So I'm sure we'll get invited back again to this very cool listening venue.

So this show finished out the mini-tour of Nashville for my pal Andrew. He was a big hit, and we both plan for me to take my turn flying over the pond so that he can return the favor and set up some shows for us in merry old England next summer. In the meantime, I plan to play out some more here in town with the guys, so keep your eyes open for new show listings in the Calendar tab on my Home page. Thanks for reading so far!

Last night's show at Pegram Deli & Coffee turned out to be a success, but going into tonight's gig at Douglas Corner, I was still unnerved at the near-disastrous events of last night! But I soon calmed down, because all the stuff that went wrong last night turned completely around to make tonight a huge success for both myself, and my musical guest from England, Andrew James!

First of all, the fabulous live show engineer, Mervin Louque (also owner of Douglas Corner) was present this evening to engineer the sound for us. He was simply wonderful with the soundcheck, and I knew I'd be able to hear everything well and give my best performance. Plus, Mervin was just such a nice fella with which to work. With his credentials, he could've been a pompous jerk, but he was comfortingly down-to-earth, polite, and fun. (Thanks a million, Mervin!)

Second, my regular guitarist, Dave Isaacs, was able to plug up the hole in his leaky ceiling enough to make it to the show tonight. He and his Dave Isaacs Trio, who also happen to be my regular band, put on a spectacular opening set. Dave is a true master of the guitar, and if you were not at the show, please take a look at www.daveisaacs.com to find out more about this fabulous musician. His trio tonight consisted of great local rock/jazz drummer, Robert Crawford, and my favorite bass player around, Josh Carre.

Another great feature was that Andrew James, who was sharing the bill with Dave and myself, had utilized myspace.com in the optimal way, and had garnered a group of fans to come out and see us play. He did all of this from England, before he made the trip over earlier in the week! These fans brought an electric vibe to the show, and turned out to be a great group of folks. Keep reading my diary entries to see how they stayed in the picture later into the following week....

As I mentioned above, Dave's blistering opening set was amazing, and charged both the audience and Andrew and me with energy and confidence. Andrew and I both performed our solo sets, but enjoyed singing backup for each other, which is one of my favorite things to do. Andrew's beautiful voice, great piano playing, and big ole rugby-toned muscles kept all the ladies in the audience enthralled, so he was a hard act to follow. But honestly, I closed out the sets with the best show I've ever done--the energy among all of us on stage together was hugely inspiring. What a great experience!

Check out my diary notes on our show at The Crescent Cafe...you'll get to read more about some of the same characters mentioned in this entry!

Well, this was one potentially disastrous event, but we managed to avert the worst...

Andrew James, my musical guest from England, and I knew going in that this show was going to be in front of a lot of my local friends and neighbors, so the audience would be friendly and comfortable. But at the same time, I wanted to make sure we put on a good show for these loyal fans who've watched me grow as a performing musician. So I was anxious due to some particular circumstances that were out of my control. Mainly, that the rehearsal we'd planned to have with my band became an impossibility late in the game due to scheduling difficulties for the guys. But we continued to move forward, just as we should as musicians with a valid gig at stake. We knew our drummer and bass player were going to come into the show brand new, but knowing they were pros made us feel better. But about 5 minutes before we walked out the door to transport our gear and ourselves to the venue, my guitarist phoned me, quite upset, to let me know he couldn't make it to the show due to his ceiling falling in because of a leaky water pipe and his apartment was full of water...so I pulled in my backup guitarist at truly the last moment! My backup guitarist, by the way, happens to be my 15-year-old son--thank goodness he also happens to be a child wizard on the guitar. Whew.

So with Plan B, C, and D in active mode, we arrived at the venue. My anxiety level was incredibly high. But thanks to the aforementioned friendly crowd, and the professionalism of all the musicians involved as well as the sound guy, the show went off well and I think the crowd was pleased. There is nothing like the friendly faces of a crowd that gives back even as you give to them. What a cool, cool thing!

We left that night knowing that our gig tomorrow was going to be a high-stakes event, so check out the diary entry for Douglas Corner...!