The Scratcher Bar is a quaint Irish pub, and a place that I wanted to get in on early on in my time in NYC, back when I was overzealous and up everybody’s wahoos all the time about playing everywhere all the time. I asked Brendan for a gig kind of not expecting to hear back from him, but to my surprise, he gave me a date almost immediately!
Located on 5th st btw 2nd Ave and Bowery, the Scratcher hosts acoustic musicians once a week on Sundays for warm, intimate sets. They invested in a Bose PA system for these occasional concerts, one of those sticks that can be erected minutes before a set and counted on to deliver room-wide atmospheric sound with minimal adjustment. I love this thing, and felt right at home playing through it.
My favorite moments of the night:
Explaining, then playing “Misophone” to an attentive room, and talking to the engineer after, who said that he thinks he might suffer from misophonia. I like being reminded of music’s multipurpose nature — while I wrote “Misophone” with the idea of relating my issues with others and commiserating with other misophones, I had never thought about the potential it had to out a few that laid dormant in their quiet suffering. That made me feel really good.
Relating to the table in the back, which sported a crowd of strangers who seemed very happy with me. Maybe I have fans I don’t know?
Ending the night with “Rainbow Connection.” Brendan offered me an unplugged encore, so I roamed the length of the Scratcher, addressing each audience member individually, and wrapping up in the front of the house. When I did the key change (accomplished by fingering a D7(III) and moving the capo from the nut to fret 1, then playing a Eb7(IV) before landing back into the main progression), the musician-types clapped and hollered, vindicating weeks of practicing that move.
Capped with a run to the local Gastropub with friend/super-fan Ken Selig, this night at the Scratcher made me really feel the transportive potential of what I do. If every night playing out were like this evening (and the one at Shrine earlier this month), I would play clubs every single night, no question.