On 10 November, I attended Liner Notes, courtesy of a wonderful deal through my usual channel for inexpensive events: Goldstar. I am quite broke this month and challenged myself to only spend $50 a week on outings. This may seem easy for many, but proves difficult for me. My problem stemmed from the fact that I purchased a $43 ticket to see Mint Condition. As an aside, I really need to make at least a small effort to go to the box office of concert venues while I am already out because the ticket fees were 43% of the cost of the actual ticket. Then I took one of my best buds who was only in town for a night to birthday drinks.

Amazingly, this dropped me to a remaining $30 for each of the next three weeks. Here’s how I spend my second weekend in November (first on a $30 budget): I went to an Afro-Brazilian dance class for $12. I thoroughly enjoyed my first class, though I had to leave early because I was improperly (i.e. in the grocery store parking lot) parked. I wasn’t particularly good. The instructor only showed the class the move once and then I had to rely on wiggly White girls in front of me to remind me of what it looked like, which I feel wasn’t the best exemplar. Who are we Alvin Ailey members? If we could get a dance on the first try then we wouldn’t need this class, would we? D.C. has the coolest classes to get more interesting exercise but honestly parking precludes my attending most because paying to park is equal or more to the cost of the class, which blows the budget.

Then, I attended the aforementioned Liner Notes for $10.50 with fees. I will admit that I did not know what to expect as the description on Goldstar didn’t give much and shockingly, the theater’s website didn’t link properly to the production company’s site.

Pic from the B-Fly Entertainment website

The event was a celebration of music, connecting original songs through a live full band—bass, drums, guitar, keyboard, horn, vocals—to hip hop songs that sample the content with lyricists under the theme of “Family”. In fact, there were generations present throughout the night with men playing alongside sons, daughters and grandchildren.

I am quite knowledgeable of 70’s era music because my mother has an extensive music collection. It is ridiculous actually. People tried to convince her for years to sell it and she refuses. Being defiant about every damn thing including small items, like “turn right here”, she sabotaged potential sales by discarding all of the album covers. She knew this ruined all resale value. However, this collection means that I can usually identify most samples of hip hop songs easily, not that this is a marketable talent. The event started with Sly and the Family Stone. I actually remembered “Sing a Simple Song” from the recesses of my childhood though I should really go back and re-listen to this stuff. However, I couldn’t remember what hip hop song could have sampled it and then the ending. Yes, the “Ahhs” and pow, “Mama Said Knock You Out”. I was extremely excited to learn new “originals”. I didn’t know the origin of the “They Reminisce Over You” sample at all and it’s a really beautiful song. I had a ball for many reasons. I got to sing and dance. I love singing along to anything, even Garth Brooks songs I remember my high school classmates playing ad nauseum. Plus, I had an opportunity to do something that I have been doing for years inside my head anyway—bridge the gap between the music my mother adored and the hip hop that defined my generation. Great event.

I capped off my holiday weekend, forgetting my migraine jamming to the Chuck Brown band and the band of my generation, Mint Condition. I really could listen to “Nothing More to Say” live over and over again forever.