We were lucky enough to make it up to the Meriden Daffodil Festival for a little while on Saturday. Long enough to catch The Guru and Mark Mulcahy.

The Guru are a really great band from the Waterbury area that draw a fun and energetic crowd. They seem to be really down to earth funny guys. At one point on Saturday they had one of the members grandmother come out on stage to throw t-shirts into the audience. I recommend catching them at one of their upcoming shows before they head out on their summer tour!

It was such a beautiful day, after The Guru we visited the food tent, the craft vendors and took a nice walk around the lake.

But the moment I’d been waiting for was the return of Mark Mulcahy. It’s been way too many years since he played in Connecticut, so this was a grand homecoming for the former Miracle Legion front man.
He brought his ‘super group’ of players with Ken Maiuri (vocals, drums, keyboard, bass), Henning Ohlenbusch (bass vocals, keyboards, guitar), Dave Trentholm (guitar, saxophone, flute, vocals) and guest appearances of Jeff Wiederschall and a guitarist that Mark introduced as ‘Dr. Managua’ (not sure what his real name is).
They put on a phenomenal show playing a great mix of classic Mark Mulcahy songs along with a few new tunes from his upcoming album ‘Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You’ scheduled for release on Mezzotint on June 18th.
The highlight was the grand finale playing the original Miracle Legion songs ‘Mr. Mingo’ and ‘The Backyard’ bringing back so many memories of the 80′s and 90′s New Haven music scene and all the great shows over the years at places like The Moon, The Tune Inn & GPSCY.

It was so great to see Mark again and its really great to see a number of tour dates scheduled to support the new album!

For those of you who missed the show, here is a set I recorded on Sound Cloud:

I love this picture I took today

Art is everywhere! 

A group of Greenhaven-ers went on a weekend tour of cohousing groups in Massachusetts. The group visited 4 sites.  I was not able to go for the full weekend, but I was able to go up to see Pioneer Valley Cohousing on Sunday Morning 10/7/2012.

Things I liked:

• Wonderful common house with all the features I am looking for including meeting space, large dining facilities, guest rooms and a huge kitchen.
• The homes were designed to maximize usable space and rooms to be used for multiple purposes.
• The exterior of the homes looked really nice and were made with sturdy material (fiber cement that did not require lots of maintenance.)

Things I didn’t like:

• The slope of the land made the walking paths harder to travel especially for older people
• The common house was quite far from the houses on the top of the hill 
• The homes in the center of the circle were wedged in
• The parking was very far from some of the homes. (Wonder about bringing in grocery bags and other deliveries to the home.)

In her New Orleans neighborhood, artist and TED Fellow Candy Chang turned an abandoned house into a giant chalkboard asking a fill-in-the-blank question: “Before I die I want to ___.” Her neighbors’ answers — surprising, poignant, funny — became an unexpected mirror for the community. (What’s your answer?)
http://www.ted.com/talks/candy_chang_before_i_die_i_want_to.html

Here are some of the things people wrote at the Grove last month on the Before I Die chalk board:

I was interviewed by Ray Hardman during Morning Edition. The story first aired at 8:40am on Tuesday June 19, 2012. This interview will also be posted on wnpr.org

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