Andrea Daly:

July is cherry season in the little lake town of Traverse City, Michigan.  Dried cherries, chocolate-covered cherries, cherry pie, cherry jam, cherry pits... It's adorable. 

I was there for a week around the start of the festival, and it could have been an experiment in how to get on stage in the shortest amount of time.  I scouted out some live venues early in the week, met some local artists, and by Thursday I was making guest appearances at Union Street Station bar, Kilkenny's Irish Pub, and a martini piano bar called Beacon Lounge on the 10th floor of the Park Place Hotel.  Highlights include meeting singer-songwriter Levi Britton, who let me sit in on his Union Street gig, and Tom Kaufman from Beacon Lounge. 

Levi is an incredible performer, and if I closed my eyes I could have sworn I was listening to Martin Sexton.  Post-Jager-shots, it turns out, Levi's performances are even more interesting.  Around midnight it was getting hot on stage, and he decided to strip from the waist up - as did the rest of the male band.  Having a woman on stage singing who was still fully-clothed seemed to bother them though, so Levi made up a song about how I and everyone else in the audience should take their shirts off as well.  The band jammed along.  Their efforts were amusing, but in vain.  (And eventually I changed the subject of the song to "cherries" long enough to get their minds off the idea.)

Performing at Beacon Lounge was the musical highlight of the week.  The regular entertainer there is Mr. Tom Kaufman - a singer-keyboardist extraordinaire who also dabbles in metal art, fashioning wire into unique and intricate shapes.  After I sat in and played a short set of originals to a charming crowd of regulars, Tom and I jammed for the rest of the night, hitting standards from "On Broadway" to "I Will Survive."  (Amazing how a few martinis will bring out the Gloria Gaynor in everyone.)  Spectacular night.

As a souvenir from the evening, I came away with a delightful metal wire sculpture of my name that chimes when I tap it.  Check out Tom's wire work HERE.  (You can order personalized sculptures by e-mailing him.)  Now you know what to get your aunt-who-has-everything for her birthday!

This is what my name looks like...