Briefly Back From Brooklyn @ Uncle Lou's in Orlando, FL

Last Sunday, November 28th was my last night in Orlando, FL. I had spent a few days there celebrating Thanksgiving with my family and hanging out with a few old friends and now the subsequent days working extra hours at my day job to make up for the hours I didn't work while on the trip--hence the delayed posting here. Anyway, for my last night, I could think of no other way to spend my time than by playing a small show at Uncle Lou's on Mills Ave. with two of my favorite Orlando musicians and inviting my friends to come and see us play. The e-flyer for the show looked kinda like this:



The night began with an intimate performance by Phil Defile (aka Phil Ileto aka the Defilers aka WPRK DJ of Hex Enduction Programme) on a mountain of vintage keyboards and his trademark, gentle vocal delivery.



He played the haunting, season-appropriate song "Witch Vllg," which is track B6 or so on his fantastic, ultra-single, Fall Subscription Vol. 2.

You can download the track for free here: http://www.mediafire.com/?vf2mpf834uc4n2g or watch the video from the show below.

Phil Defile - "Witch Vllg"



After, Phil, Saving Twilight took to the Uncle Lou's stage, or really just the rug and area by the pool table that serves as a stage.



Since the last time I'd seen them, fellow, Orland-based singer-songwriter, Lauren Carder had joined up with founding member Geannie Friedman and drummer Andrea Knight. They unveiled a new song written as a collaboration between Friedman and Carder called "Beautiful Now."

Saving Twilight - "Beautiful Now"



Geannie also contributed to Phil's Fall Subscription Vol. 2 with an equally amazing track about coat collars and Keruoac Books called "Twilight." You can download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?m7utb3p9mjm879k

That night also marked the debut/final-performance of Giant Insects, who took the "stage" after Saving Twilight. This was a band made up of myself, Omar Delarosa, and Casey Schwarz (of Little Insects), Isaac Pinedale (of Wheels Above), and Andrew Santorelli.



We had only minimal rehearsal time and I admire Casey, Isaac and Andrew's boldness for going through with the show with so little preparation before hand and going along with my crazy, hair-brained, Giant-Insects scheme. In fact, only Casey, Andrew and I really got to rehearse together the day before and Isaac just somehow showed up and pulled off an amazing performance, entirely rehearsal-free on old and new Little Insects songs such as these, awesomely captured to digital camera by David Hood:

Giant Insects - Casio Drone/ Stop Taking Advice From Songs



Giant Insects - Feeling Just Like 20 Bucks



Giant Insects - Burn The City



The night ended with a very special, guest appearance by Christopher Paul Stelling, a Central Floridian now also-living in Brooklyn like myself and visiting Orlando for the holiday also like myself. The guest appearance was setup and made possible by awesome Orlando musician and all-around-mover-and-shaker, Matt Kamm, whose current project Telethon, amazes me more and more with each subsequent release. He played an intimate acoustic-set with some vocal support from Julia Christgau. Unfortunately, I have no photos or video of his performance since I spent some of it putting away our equipment and loading it into various vehicles (this is one of the many limitations of being a blogger/musician/etc. at the same time.) However, you can check out some of Mr. Stelling's amazing folk music on bandcamp here: http://christopherpaulstelling.bandcamp.com

As the night came to a close, I felt very warm inside. Not only because it was awesome getting see and play with all these old friends, but because I've been living in New York for almost 6 months now in relatively cool weather and Orlando, by contrast, just feels incredibly warm to me now in a literal, climate-sense as well.