Laurie Sandell

When I started going to artist’s colonies, I became friends with artists, and now most of the art on my walls comes from friends. Likewise, I’ve gotten to know some musicians over the past few years, and as a result, I’m always listening to a friend’s CD or going to his or her show. Last night I went to Rockwood Music Hall to hear Amy Correia perform, along with her friend Richard Julian. Amy and I shared the Joe’s Pub stage last September for the Happy Ending Music & Reading Series, but I’ve been listening to her music for years. Her new album–a twangy, rockabilly collection of songs that was entirely fan-funded–has been in heavy rotation in my (cough) boom box and I think it’s her best one yet. It was so magical to hear her sing the songs live.

Then this afternoon I stopped by The Living Room to see my friend Randy Kaplan perform. He lives in LA but was in New York doing one of his kids’ shows. The guy is a genius songwriter and storyteller and there’s always plenty of winking subtext for adults in his songs (his cover of The Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is about kids’ id-based demands and the lesson they learn when their parents say “No.”) Capped off the weekend with a reading at KGB by my old “co-worker” David Goodwillie (we used to write together at NYU’s Bobst Library.) His new novel, American Subversive, has been winning raves in the press and the guy deserves it, because he is still hunkered down at the library, writing, while I am running around town attending shows. It’s OK, though, I am on a different writing schedule–one book every seven years.