April has been the cruelest month to Laura Veirs and her fans down here in the Six-Five-Oh. Instead of both a workshop at Stanford and a show at The Mitch, we have various examples of woodshedding.

Using my magic box, I reached out to some proxies, whom collectively I am calling The Earthwise Siphonphore Chorus — a siphonophore is a very long creature, you might see under the sea.

1. Ben Davis of Brisbane area:
2. Beauman Edwards of Palo Alto, Boston and sometimes Montreal chimes in (8 pm Thursday): 3. Thursday evening, Eric Cohen (Los Angeles and Stanford, CA): 4. Friday evening — and I have a couple more reports from friends of mine pledging to learn Laura’s song, maybe over the weekend. My goal would be to have a day where there are more Earthwise Siphonophore Chorus “Galaxie” demos than Covid-19 deaths reported in Santa Clara County… Carla Wray (Palo alto) 5. Saturday afternoon Steve Cohen (Los Angeles, Stanford, California) And by the way, this is Plastic Alto post #2,600… This one, number 6, does not really count because it’s just me, I had created a couple short vines more to shame my friends into doing a better job. I could probably learn my way to those chords, with an in-person tutor, but it would take me several hours of focus, and I cannot focus on things that well these days, plus the whole self-cancelling thing — my previous guitar teachers were named Hershel Yatovitz and Laura Chavez, by the way. Plus, Rob Lederer showed me a few drills, and my nephew Ben and sometimes Eric, help me, by opening my tuning, for instance, which is a cheat and wouldn’t count here. I find that I resort to humor to compensate for the lack of musical prowess — but I feel I tell the same two or three jokes over and over again or as permutations. To the extent I try to perform at all or endeavor at a facility or faculty with a tool of music, it is to increase my profound respect for the actual masters of those tasks. Monday, early afternoon: Sylvie Simmons (San Francisco and I think England: London — I know I asked her her team and I think she answered Chelsea) I want to point out that this is a cover, meaning she does the entire song, beyond the chords and the chorus. Another picture of Laura, slightly nicer; it’s surpassed 1,000 views: