Hooray! DADT is officially repealed! Thanks, Barack Obama! Now it's time we tackle DOMA, don't you think? Maybe Ari Herstand will write a song about that, too, and I can share it with you. Until then, here's his tune "Do Ask, Do Tell" -- love will saturate our minds.
Beneath the Moon
To give you the long version of the story (because why would I ever give you the short version!?), I met a lovely musician named Ari Herstand when he opened for Ron Pope and Zach Berkman in San Francisco in May. In the weeks leading up to the show, I did a lot of chattering with him, Ron, and Zach in the magical land of Twitter. Somewhere along the line I won a little contest and Ari's Clean Up EP. It was awesome! Then, at the concert, Sara won a raffle thing and got a free CD and me a giant poster of Ron's face. Then, like a month ago, Ari had a contest on Facebook and the winner got any of his songs dedicated to them in a youtube video. You'll never guess who won. So he played "Beneath the Moon" for me, as it is my favorite of all of his wonderful tunes. He's on tour right now with a cool guy named Will Knox, and tonight was their San Diego stop. I wasn't going to go, because A) none of the boys would go with me and B) it was in University Heights, which is like 30 miles downtown, and C) I work a lot and am a boring person who doesn't go out because she has to get up early every stupid day.
But then! Tonight! Ari tweeted that there was a mix-up with the venue address, and that they couldn't find the right place. So I tweeted that if they couldn't find it, they should just come over to my house and jam. Fortunately/Unfortunately, they figured out their venue thing and started to set up. Ari asked if I was planning to come. I said no, but then he said they were going to get started a little later than expected, etc., there was still time for me to get down there, etc., so I hopped in the car and mished to University Heights because Ari Herstand asked me nicely.
And then! As we're sitting and listening to the other musicians, we're tweeting back and forth (from like three chairs away) and he asked what songs I wanted to hear. I said, of course, "Beneath the Moon," the whole Clean Up EP, Last Day, and a cover of Wonderwall that he did in SF. Switch the Oasis cover for an Adele cover, and you've got Ari's setlist. It ruled.
And, of course, I took a really high quality iPhone video of him playing "Beneath the Moon." I didn't manage to record him explaining to everyone else why we know each other or how he'd already played me this on video, etc., but the song is lovely. And the video won't upload, of course, but I'll figure that out. In the meantime, here's the youtube version from when I won his Facebook contest.
But then! Tonight! Ari tweeted that there was a mix-up with the venue address, and that they couldn't find the right place. So I tweeted that if they couldn't find it, they should just come over to my house and jam. Fortunately/Unfortunately, they figured out their venue thing and started to set up. Ari asked if I was planning to come. I said no, but then he said they were going to get started a little later than expected, etc., there was still time for me to get down there, etc., so I hopped in the car and mished to University Heights because Ari Herstand asked me nicely.
And then! As we're sitting and listening to the other musicians, we're tweeting back and forth (from like three chairs away) and he asked what songs I wanted to hear. I said, of course, "Beneath the Moon," the whole Clean Up EP, Last Day, and a cover of Wonderwall that he did in SF. Switch the Oasis cover for an Adele cover, and you've got Ari's setlist. It ruled.
And, of course, I took a really high quality iPhone video of him playing "Beneath the Moon." I didn't manage to record him explaining to everyone else why we know each other or how he'd already played me this on video, etc., but the song is lovely. And the video won't upload, of course, but I'll figure that out. In the meantime, here's the youtube version from when I won his Facebook contest.