In The Lane, etc.

January 14, 2006 -- 330 Melrose Street, Brooklyn
I received some sort of email from someone I had never met before, which does happen on occasion. Whilst we receive many emails from people in far off lands requesting to transfer huge sums of cash into our bank account (I will let you in on a little secret -- Puttin' On The Ritz does not have a bank account, and if we did I doubt it would get much use), we don't often get unsolicited invitations to play a show. Our answer has pretty much always been yes, that is our policy for some reason. The only shows we say no to are ones that we cannot physically play due to one of us being out of town or Kevin having too many gigs that night or whatever. Kevin had been feeling nauseous and hadn't eaten in approximately 24 hours but he agreed to soldier on and play the show despite advice to the contrary. I arrived at 10:15pm as we were to perform at 11. There weren't many people there and I knew none of them. So I stood around, chatted a bit, and waited for Kevin Shea to appear. Eventually this did occur, and later than sooner we performed. I seem to recall getting a bit beat up, although I mostly blame it on Kevin. Perhaps I shouldn't have been rolling around on the ground, but perhaps Kevin shouldn't have knocked his cymbal over. That being said, the burst blood vessels in my face made it look like I had lipstick on it. Nothing quite so sinister, merely a cymbal to the face. This was shortly after I smacked my lip with the microphone, no doubt whilst in the middle of some sort of gymnastics, verbal or otherwise. When I casually mentioned that we had two more songs, some dude yelled "Three more!" We were willing to oblige. The host politely mentioned that we should not perform all night. Thus, we bid our fans adieu. I emerged into the cold night air a bit worse for the wear, but (and it overjoys me to say this) with my glasses still fully intact.