Sharing Rocks! or How Good Was Nicki Bluhm?

If you have been around me at all in the last year you may have heard me mention my newest hero, Nicki Bluhm and her amazing band The Gramblers. My friend Chris O’Connell sent our band a link to her youtube video of “I Can’t Go For That” originally performed by Hall and Oates.  It rocked, and I went further and further into their youtube video spiral, only to discover this band rocked many other songs and reworked them into greatness.  Check out the “Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers Van Sessions” on youtube. “Faith”, You’re no Good”, and “Can you get to that” will get you started on your own spiral.

Now I honestly think this woman may have one of the best voices I have ever heard live.  She packs some serious power and emotion into every song she performs, with always just the right touch.  She is beautiful, she commands the stage, and her band loves her.  You can tell, every member is just so happy to be playing music with this woman.  And yes, she rocks.  Yeah, let ‘em have it Nicki, that old boy friend who broke your heart, he never was man enough for you!

How good was she, you might ask? (or possibly not since perhaps I can go on about something a bit too much when I am excited).  She was good enough to counteract this much suck:

Husband Matt left for Costa Rica on a Monday for three weeks.  On Friday, just minutes before I took our three kids to the super awesome gymnastics gym for three hours of fun awesomeness, Anna throws up all over the floor.  “Oh bad.” I think.  Our own band had our first amped gig the next night at Calapooia Brewing Company.  Matt’s gone, Dale may be very late because most of his staff is out sick, I may now be out and that would leave 3 of the 6 members off our band to carry off the gig… I spent most of the night lying on a crib mattress in our bathroom feeling very bad for my very sick two year old, cleaning up vomit and a bit of time wondering if there was anyway I may get to the gig. 

Miraculously I made it out the next night, Anna was better, no one else went down, my babysitter braved my house, which I cleaned for five hours straight that day, disinfecting every surface I could.  It went great, we had a blast and I returned to my house full of hope and energized for the rest of my week.

Wednesday night Miles went down, Saturday I went down.  Tuesday I threw my back out disinfecting the bathtub. Wednesday was the Nicki Bluhm concert.  It had been a week and a half since I had been able to leave my house, due to the Noro virus’s 72 hour isolation period after each Noro victim.  Wednesday at 5pm Miles walks up to me with his entire lower face covered in blood. He had a major nose bleed which dripped all over my carpets and his bed, the carpets I had just spent two days steam cleaning.  Good grief.  My babysitter arrived 50 minutes later to blotches of blood soaked baking soda from one end of my house to another. 

How good was Nicki Bluhm?  My friends Dave and Kendra and Avie and Jason kindly invited me to come along on their double date, I went along as the happiest fifth wheel ever. We went to dinner and had hours of adult conversation and then to the concert.

She came on.  She is six feet tall, slender build, gorgeous black hair.  There are maybe three hundred people gathered in Cosmic Pizza, a pizza restaurant, bar, music venue. Everyone is watching her, waiting for the music to start.  Likely all of us have watched her “Van sessions” videos on you tube, and we all know we are in for a great show.  Every note she sings is perfect, the band is perfectly timed, no one misses one note, one beat.  But it actually isn’t until the last two songs that the band transcends great.  The second to last song starts and it isn’t even one of my favorite songs, but half way through, they stop just playing the song so much as just making music in front of us, aka "the jam".  The lead guitar player just starts rocking out, Nicki Bluhm gracefully turns the stage over to him and everyone is happy to go anywhere this band wants to take us.   You could almost see everyone nodding their heads in unison to the beat of the music except for those who were already on their feet dancing.  I could feel the crappiness that had been my families unfortunate last week and half, begin to dissolve.  By the end of the show, I was fully ready to go back to my home and make the best out of the rest of my single momma time.

Nicki Bluhm was so good that I was able to accept it when Miles came down with the fever so many of our friends had gotten, the start of the flu, which may spread through all of us before this weeks end, but hey, I have Nicki Bluhm’s concert t-shirt and CD to get me through.

She was so good that I went to the library on Friday with Anna and got some books out on how to sing, because watching her made me understand how much more I have to learn if I truly want to express myself.  And watching her made me want to be able to express myself better.  Watching Nicki Bluhm made me realize this woman needs to be shared.  I want all my friends to see her and listen to her, and be able to enjoy such an amazing human performance.  This is the product of group of people that have devoted their lives to making music, not for the money or the fame, but because they love it, feel it and want nothing more than to share it.  And it shows.

I talked to her after and told her how amazing I think she is.  She signed my CD.  She told me they were trying to get an Apple sponsorship because their youtube videos had been so popular and were recorded just on an iphone, but it hadn’t gone through yet.  Nicki, skip Apple.  I have heard they are notoriously stingy with their money.  Go find an even better technology and work with that company and make them famous along with you.  You are amazing and thank you for bringing some light into an otherwise tough two and a half weeks.   In the meantime I will do everything I can to share your music, perhaps nowadays with social media, we the people can finally decide who should famous, by sharing what we really love with one another.

And the on the last note, lets talk about sharing, because this is what got me through my two and a half weeks of pretty intense single parenting.  Here are my thank you’s to you folks who got me through:

Chris – thanks for sharing Nicki Bluhm, we are indebted to you for finding this awesome music and taking the time to share it with us! Angela – thank you for changing pick up/drop off duties with me and picking up Ava from school for me whenever you could.  Huge help! Thanks babysitter Kelly for still coming into my home in the midst of a virus.  Neighbor Susan for bringing me food when I honestly was sick enough I likely would not have fed my children.  Thanks Helen and Heidi for joining the Noro virus recovery club with me and taking my extra children whenever you could.  Dave, Kendra, Avie and Jason, for letting me laugh and tell you in detail the horribleness of my two weeks, and then letting me have adult conversation for hours. My band for always being there and helping me express myself the best I can where I am.  To Miles – for biking happily with me on my 20 km run of desperation on our first day out of quarantine. To Ava – for getting Anna and Miles cereal every morning and letting me sleep in, you are an amazing seven year old! Evie – thanks for the Hydrogen peroxide/baking soda blood cleaning tip. Afton – thank you for the Ava play date of our little kindred spirits.  And my husband, for doing some awesome research, discovering natures beautiful little secrets, for sharing these secrets with me upon your return and letting me spend all day in bed. You all helped lighten my load and keep it bearable.  I am feeling much gratitude to you all!  I will work on paying it back out when I get out of bed tomorrow!

That’s how good Nicki Bluhm was. 

Check Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers out here:

http://www.nickibluhm.com/