D Note love letter 5/30/13

dear frienDs,

I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this D-mail every Thursday morning for the past decade.  As most of you know, the D Note has new owners (kind of like marrying off your daughter!) so it is time to hang up my impresario hat and take a break. I will only be writing a few more D-mails and then I'm off to the next chapter in my life. Gonna be tough to follow the last chapter. My time at the D Note was amazing! I can't thank Matthew and Monica and the rest of my family and friends enough for helping bring this amazing dream to fruition.

I will miss meeting with all of you here weekly (and face to face at the D Note), but if you want to stay in touch I would love to connect with you on Facebook or Instagram (just hit me back for urls). And/or I would be happy to keep sending you poems via e-mail once a week too. Just hit reply and let me know!

As for this weekend, there's some great music on board. There's the sweet bluegrassy harmonies of Birds Of A Feather Friday night at 5:30p. Free! Then a really good dance band (seriously) called Moses Jones at 8pm. $10.

Saturday at 4pm we have the big band panache of Sentimental Sounds at 4pm. Free!

Then at 7pm Saturday we have Flamenco. From Rene Heredia's announcement for the show:

"We many new numbers, all produced and choreographed by René Heredia. The enchantment of Spain, the excitement of genuine gypsy flamenco dance, live authentic music played by a flamenco master, and multiple changes of lavish costumes all combine in one exquisite performance.

René Heredia is one of today’s foremost flamenco artists—the artistic director of both the Gypsy Chicks and the Flamenco Fantasy Dance Theatre, a solo guitarist, and a leader in the Flamenco Fusion movement. He has produced shows and performed around the world. René holds both the Governor’s and the Mayor’s Awards for excellence in the Arts for performance and education. René just recently received the “Living Legend of Dance in Colorado” award from the Carson-Brierly Dance Library and was nominated for the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Colorado Dance Alliance. He has won the Grand Prix de Disc from France.

René has performed for Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, Princess Nora of Jordan, Princess Grace Kelly and Prince Rainer of Monaco, and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. He has worked in person and on television with such noted artists as Art Linkletter, Steve Allan, Ed Sullivan, Ann Southern, Peter Nero, Hal Linden, Eddie Fisher, George Gobel, and Bill Cosby. Denver is privileged to have one of the leading flamenco artists in the U.S. today as a resident, performer, producer, choreographer, and teacher."

So there you go!

Extra Credit: I recently read the following Longfellow poem to my girls and we found it to be enchanting. Dungeon of my heart indeed.

The Children's Hour

Between the dark and the daylight,

      When the night is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day's occupations,

      That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me

      The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

      And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,

      Descending the broad hall stair,

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,

      And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:

      Yet I know by their merry eyes

They are plotting and planning together

      To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,

      A sudden raid from the hall!

By three doors left unguarded

      They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret

      O'er the arms and back of my chair;

If I try to escape, they surround me;

      They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,

      Their arms about me entwine,

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

      In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,

      Because you have scaled the wall,

Such an old mustache as I am

      Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,

      And will not let you depart,

But put you down into the dungeon

      In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,

      Yes, forever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,

      And moulder in dust away!

Love Letter 5/23/13

D ants,

Dancing away the years are we over here at the D.

For over a decade! This weekend we have entertained so many feet!

This weekend, we start with Moses Walker! Moses played with the Clamdaddys for years every Wedneday night and is one of our favorite people and musicians on the planet. Free! Then there is a cool indie show on Friday night with Marlo Narwhal and friends. Marlo Narwhal is a fusion of alternative rock and experimental blues-prog. Think Captain Beefheart meets Primus, with a little Lee Scratch Perry? Because we are keeping it weird.

Saturday Dusty Bottle Boxcar Band is back. This is highly danceable jug band music. Dikki Du on Saturday night is always the best Zydeco dance party around. Dikki Du is Zydeco royalty from Louisiana, Roy Carrier's nephew.

And of course, salsa on Sunday night, caliente.

4:30p Moses Walker! [7:00p] Nick Rockwell [7:45p] Electric Sunday $5 [9:00p] Marlo Narwhal, Big Thirsty Girl, Arturo Complex $5	25 [10:30a] Zumba $8 [4:00p] Music Lessons Of Westminster band recita [7:00p] Dusty Bottle Boxcar Band $5 [9:00p] Dikki Du and The Zydeco Krew $10
26 [2:00p] Baby Boogie, bring your kids into dance! [8:00p] Salsa Dancing (lesson at 8pm, Sabor de la Calle at 9pm) $8

Yours,

D pants

Extra Credit:

Roberto Bolano has become well known as a novelist, but he is also a poet. In fact his novel The Savage Detectives is partly about the state of poetry in Mexico City. Here is a selection of his poems, from BOMB Magazine.

34. I dreamt I was a really old Latin American
detective. I lived in New York and Mark Twain
was hiring me to save the life of someone without
a face. “It’s going to be a damn tough case, Mr.
Twain,” I told him.
35. I dreamt I was falling in love with Alice Sheldon.
She didn’t want me. So I tried getting myself killed
on three continents. Years passed. Finally, when I
was really old, she appeared on the other end of the
promenade in New York and with signals (like the
ones they use on aircraft carriers to help the pilots
land) she told me she’d always loved me.
39. I dreamt I kept sleeping while my classmates
tried to liberate Robert Desnos from the Terezín
concentration camp. When I woke a voice was
telling me to get moving. “Quick, Bolaño, quick,
there’s no time to lose.” When I got there, all I
found was an old detective picking through the
smoking ruins of the attack.
40. I dreamt that a storm of phantom numbers was
the only thing left of human beings three billion
years after Earth ceased to exist.

42. I dreamt I was 18 and saw my best friend at
the time, who was also 18, making love to Walt
Whitman. They did it in an armchair, contemplating
the stormy Civitavecchia sunset.
44. I dreamt I was translating the Marquis de Sade
with axe blows. I’d gone crazy and was living in the
woods.
46. I dreamt I was an old Latin American detective
and a mysterious Foundation hired me to find the
death certificates of the Flying Spics. I was traveling
all around the world: hospitals, battlefields, pulque
bars, abandoned schools.

--

D Note love letter 5/16/13

D ears,

The D, if you haven't noticed, is in the shape of an ear. It is an ear at attention. You can almost picture a cartoon hand cupped behind it. The D is listening.

The D is listening to bluegrass this friday night with the incredible Blue Canyon Boys. We have heard dozens of great bluegrass bands at the D Note, but this band is one of our favorites. Very traditional. Very good. (It strikes us that we could write a very rich history of the Colorado bluegrass bands of the aughties. BCB would have a chapter.)

There is a Singing In The Rain sing-a-long on Saturday at noon. That sounds fun!

We really like the bands Saturday night too, especially Mezzo Mestizo, a young acoustic, earnest CSN-style band. Like an amped-up romantic campfire.
 

17 [5:00p] Bill Mckay [7:00p] Blue Canyon boys $5 [9:00p] Project 3 / Liberal Monkey Movement $5	18 [10:30a] Zumba $8 [12:00p] Singing in the rain [4:00p] Music Train [7:00p] Mezzo Mestizo $5 [8:20p] Canyon Creek $5 [10:00p] Vignettes $5
19 [2:00p] Baby Boogie, bring your kids into dance! [8:00p] Salsa Dancing (lesson at 8pm, Orquestra La Brava at 9pm) $8	20 [7:00p] Open Mic Night (Open Stage-sign up at 6:30pm)	21 [8:00p] Tuesday Swing Night feat. The Stilettos	22 [8:00p] The Big Blues Jam

Thanks for tuning in D.

D part

Extra Credit: Here's one from Jennifer Mackenzie, winner of the 2013 Fence Modern Poet award.

from Blurbing the Reconquista  

Burgeoning with sleep I think
whose net is this cast upon the pearlescence
and is it monitoring my heartbeat
At the center is not being
able to breathe. I couldn’t sleep
and so discovered a genre (Welsh)
called “exultation”. Night
on the black windows of “The Swan”
3 tallskinny girls in white short shorts
(just before Trafalgar Square) ignite in me
the strong wish to smell like strawberries
and a scream budding from my chest
like breasts. Something that takes a long time
to recognize. Then wistful arson
Passing the night-dull statue
of the famous rider, inside me
an incredible privacy still reigns. Stealth
I thought was ardor

Love letter 5/9/13

D Particles

Ever noticed how strange music is? Where does it comes from? There are rhythms in nature, sure, in everything really, but melody and harmony and that thing called music that you get inside of, that gets inside of you? It is something we create out of tones and rhythms, and yet, once we are attuned to it, it seems to be creating itself. The more you think about it, the stranger it becomes.

But, whatever it is, whatever it really is, music does wonders for the health and wealth of the human spirit. And we are proud to bring you such a fine examples of it every night at the D Note.

On Friday night we have an all female tribute to Journey, The Journey Girls, and that will no doubt be lots of fun, followed by a good cover/dance band Banned In Japan.

Saturday night we have a CD release for D Note owner Dave Rosenberg's band Homebrew. Some great player in this band. The guitar player has an especially sweet tone. 

Free jazz next Tuesday, Green Mountain Jazz Band. And check the rest out at www.dnote.us

10 [5:30p] The Living Wills [7:00p] The Journey Girls [9:00p] Banned in Japan	11 [10:30a] Zumba $8 [1:00p] Stone Guitar Recital [4:00p] The Guests w/ Snore, The Dead Guns $5 [5:30p] Wannabes [7:00p] Home Brew CD Release $5
12 [2:00p] Baby Boogie, bring your kids into dance! [8:00p] >Salsa Dancing (lesson at 8pm, Conjuntos Colores at 9pm) $8	13 [7:00p] Open Mic Night (Open Stage-sign up at 6:30pm)	14 [5:30p] Green Mountain Jazz Band. Free. [8:30p] Tuesday Swing Night feat. The Stilettos

Come on and dance. Make a little romance.

Yours,

D Part

Extra Credit:

Robert Louis Stevenson is known as a novelist, but he was also a travel writer and poet. His poems are collected online here and are well worth diving into. Here's one from his children's collection Child's Garden Of Verses.

Block City

What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.

Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,
There I'll establish a city for me:
A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,
And a harbour as well where my vessels may ride.

Great is the palace with pillar and wall,
A sort of a tower on the top of it all,
And steps coming down in an orderly way
To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.

This one is sailing and that one is moored:
Hark to the song of the sailors aboard!
And see, on the steps of my palace, the kings
Coming and going with presents and things!

Yet as I saw it, I see it again,
The kirk and the palace, the ships and the men,
And as long as I live and where'er I may be,
I'll always remember my town by the sea.

D Note love letter 4/25/13

D tails,

Howdy do? We do D. How?

For those of you that haven't experienced the highland rock and roll of Angus Mohr, we suggest you check them out Saturday night. They do classic rock and roll in an epic fashion, including bagpipes. Their version of Dylan's Hard Rain is one of the best we've ever heard.

Speaking of classic rock, The Legendary Hitchhikers do a beautiful Tom Petty Tribute and will be playing a family show on Sunday afternoon at 3pm ($10 for the adults).

Some good big band music Saturday afternoon. Free

Some free jazz next (uh, free in the monetary sense) next Tuesday night.

Ahhhh, music!

Yours,

D Scribe

Extra credit: This week we feature a new poem by...myself. May it forever change your perception of a certain song we all know and love.

UPSCALE POETRY

"Doe, a deer, a female deer"

You hold in your mind the image of a deer.

A female deer.

Hold it there for a moment.

Look how beautiful she is.

"Ray, a drop of golden sun"

We have added the sun to the picture.

The deer is now there in the sun.

You can feel the sun.

(And note the adjective "golden".)

"Me, a name I call myself"

Now, by juxtaposition, you have yourself.

You have the thing that you call yourself.

This "me" escalates out of the "doe" in the "ray".

You are a female deer outside in the sun.

"Fa, a long long way to run"

You are a deer running in the sun!

And you have a long, long way to go.

"Sew, a needle pulling thread"

The needle is the deer (you) leaping as it sews,

Leaping there in the sun, sewing a crazy quilt.

"La, a note to follow sew"

The notes are the leaps of the deer, you, the needle,

leaping up the mountain, up the cloth, up the scale.
The deer slows, near the top of the mountain now, tired,

her voice straining to reach the next note...

"Tea, a drink with jam and bread"

You, she, deer, calls for a rest,

to stop for a refreshing picnic.

"Which brings us back to doe doe doe doe"

The food brings you back to yourself,

nourishes you, literally becomes you

and you're ready to start again

escalating up the endless scale.

D Note love letter 4/18/13

D flowers,

Here's to water! (even in it's frozen form, snow.) Good for the flowers.

This weekend we have a the Rolling Stone-esque rock and roll of The Duke Street Kings on Friday night followed by the Journey-esque music of Eclipse. Then Saturday night we have the incredible flamenco guitar master Steve Mullins and his projects The Rim Of The Well and The Muro and Mullins Guitar alliance. At 9:30p Saturday, we have a 420 show with the Primus tribute band Mr. Knowitall. This is one of those tribute bands where you shut your eyes and can't even tell the difference. We end the night with one of our favorite all time weird sing-along bands, The Inactivists. Here's to fire! Good for the smoke.

19 [5:00p] Fundraiser for Cancer w/ The Duke Street Kings. [9:00p] Eclipse (Journey Tribute Band) $5	20 [10:30a] Zumba $8 [4:00p ] Family Music Train presents: Raising Cain (80's Rock). $7 adults/$3 kids. [7:00p] The Muro and Mullins Guitar Alliance, Rim Of The Well. $15/$12 students [9:30p] Mr. Knowitall (Primus tribute band) and The Inactivists $5
21 [10:00a] Free Form Yoga ($5 - $10 Suggested Donation) [12:00pm-6:00pm] 303 Choir "Local Heart" Benefit w/ Paa Kow By All Means Band [8:00p] Salsa Dancing (lesson at 8pm, Conjuntos Colores at 9pm) $8	22 [7:00p] Zing The Big Band $7 [9:30p] Catsmelvin	23 [7:00p] Tuesday Swing Night feat. The Stilettos	24 [8:00p] The Big Blues Jam	25 [6:30p] Geeks Who Drink trivia quiz. [9:30p] Beer Pong

Also. Here's to air! Here's to earth! Elemental, my dear Watson.

Extra Credit: Here's a beautiful sequence of Haiku from Issa, one of the great masters from the 18th century. This translation is from the Penguin book of Haiku. Dig how the Haikus work on their own and in the sequence.

For fleas, also

Slowly, slowly, climb
Up and up Mount Fuji,
O snail.


Far-off mountain peaks
Reflected in its eyes:
The dragonfly.


For fleas, also, the night
Must be so very long,
So very lonely.


Stop! Don’t swat the fly
Who wrings his hands,
Who wrings his feet.


With bland serenity
Gazing at the far hills:
A tiny frog.


Emerging from the nose
Of Great Buddha’s statue:
A swallow.


Spring rain:
The uneaten ducks
Quack.


Red sky in the morning:
Does it gladden you,
O snail?

D Note love letter 4/11/13

D tails,

Adam DeGraff here, ye ol' impresario for ye ol' D Note. We are ironing out all the kinks in the transition from the DeGraffs to the The Rosenbergs and I'd have to say that overall it has been pretty smooth. Thanks for hanging with us. Long live the D Note!

Some great indie bands this weekend. Friday night brings The Constant Tourists, a gypsy jazz band that exhibits exquisite pop sensibilities followed by Idlewhile, super tasty alt country rock (for fans of The Lumineers and Churchhill.) The Deadwood Quartet on Friday night is a blues rock folk band from Boulder. Atomga is awesome afrobeat, James and The Devil is just hard core Colorado music (and REALLY fun). Check out the sweet websites for all of these bands.

Also check out our legendary salsa night Sunday night if you haven't had a chance yet. Beginners welcome. Great date night and great for singles too. Tuesdays we have swing dance lessons and a killer swing band, The Stilletos. The Big Blues Jam on Wednesday night has really taken off. You will hear some of the best blues this side of the Mississippi care of Dan Treanor and friends. Check out the rest of the schedule below.

11 [6:30p] Geeks Who Drink trivia quiz. [9:30p] Beer Pong	12 [5:00p] Bill McKay (of Left Over Salmon). Free. [7:00p] The Constant Tourists $5 [9:00p] Idlewhile $5	13 [10:30a] Zumba $8 [4:00p] Music Lessons Of Westminster Garage Band Recital [7:00p] Deadwood Quartet. $5 [8:30p] Benefit for Natalia w/ Atomga, James And The Devil, Lead by Design, Atomga, James and the Devil, Collierad. $5-$10 suggested donation
14 [10:00a] Free Form Yoga ($5 - $10 Suggested Donation) [2:00p] Baby Boogie, bring your kids into dance! [8:00p] Salsa Dancing (lesson at 8pm, Conjuntos Colores at 9pm) $8	15 [7:00p] Open Mic Night (Open Stage-sign up at 6:30pm)	16 [7:00p] Tuesday Swing Night feat. The Stilettos	17 [8:00p] The Big Blues Jam

Thanks for your support!

Yours,D scribe

Extra Credit: Here's one from Mary Ruefle, out of the recent issue of Boston Poetry Review.BROKEN SPOKE

You grow old.
You love everybody.
You forgive everyone.
You think: we are all leaves
dragged along by the wind.
Then comes a splendid spotted
yellow one—ah, distinction!
And in that moment
you are dragged under.