Locavoration: The Benefits of Playing It Close to Home

I spent the first part of 2010 touring a fair amount and taking some extended trips to the East Coast. Travel, even short getaways, is one of my addictive tendencies. While I love it (and am hardly knocking it, my winter will probably look very different) it can become a short-term solution for whatever nagging discontent I might be experiencing in my 'everyday' life. So in the the interest of walking my talk and shaking up my sneaky self-delusions, I set the for-me-radical intent to keep it local for at least a few months and get to know the East Bay a lot better: No planes, biking and walking as much as possible, close to home gigs, etc. I wrote about intention a while back and if the past couple months are any indication, they do work! Staying closer to home (my 'core area' of my territory as a wildlife biologist friend termed it) has begun to yield its own unique harvest of deeper connections, new found opportunities and friendships, and as far as the gig calendar, a host of dates at venues that uphold a local, sustainable ethic. Saturday, I'll be playing the Acoustic Brunch at Gather, an extremely well-thought out hub of excellent food and drink in the heart of Berkeley. In October, Oakland's latest proponent of neighborhood cultural enrichment, Actual Cafe (see video below from gig there a few months ago) will play host to a monthly Sunday residency of sorts for the Songwriting Collective of which I'm a part. Živjeli!

Saturday, August 7th, 2010 Gather Restaurant Acoustic Brunch - 11am-2pm 2200 Oxford St. Berkeley California 94704