Barefoot Tap Dancing

The evening's first priority was collecting my "purple gold" in Church Hill.

That's how the Dad from whom I was picking up my Girl Scout cookies referred to my three boxes of Samoas.

"You were smart to order these early," he said, sliding the boxes toward me.

Not smart, just experienced when it comes to my favorite Girl Scout cookies.

And since I was right there, how could I not have a glass of wine at the Roosevelt?

Swilling White Hall Cabernet Franc while a friend told me about his wildly colorful trip to Charleston, I heard about much good food, many alcoholic over-indulgences and a decided lack of sleep.

Oh, well. As a friend likes to say, we can sleep when we're old.

The grape was calling for some food and what better than the crispy fried pig's head terrine over red cabbage buttermilk slaw?

That golden brown shell encasing who knows what tasty head pieces benefited even more from the tang of pickled mustard seed.

A new bartender was introduced to me, along with my only requirements ( a straw for my water) and we chatted a moment.

He attentively checked back to see if I wanted more food.

You know, I wasn't going to do it, really I wasn't, but when prodded I quickly caved and ordered a piece of coconut cake.

I thought I heard the woman next to me make a little moan when the cake was put in front of me.

Honestly, I couldn't tell whether it was a knowing moan (as in, she'd had it before) or an anticipatory moan (as in, I must have that).

In either case, I savored every bite of the dense yellow cake and fluffy white icing while she stole covetous glances my way.

It was about then that the bartender came over with a look of relief on his face.

Turns out he remembered me from Avenue 805 years ago. More than a few.

Now that's a guy with a memory.

But I couldn't linger and reminisce because I wanted to catch Scott Phillips' show, "9 & 3 Static Series," opening at Eric Schindler Gallery.

It was nice going early because that gallery can get so mobbed and tonight it wasn't.

The eleven paintings mixed narrative with abstraction, meaning a close look inevitably yielded all kinds of "found" images amongst the effusive use of color, layering of paint and deliberate brushstrokes.

A closer look at "Firebirds" uncovered a horse and a forest of hooded figures.

"Playboys" gave up lines of automobiles and a man at a table, among dozens of other things.

"Clearing," a simply beautiful work with a central rectangular focus area, had lines of soldiers and a couple dancing hidden in the painting.

Looking at the intricately detailed works, I felt certain that Scott Phillips must have done a lot of doodling as a kid to develop the patience clearly needed for so many layers of imagery.

When I headed back down the hill, it was back to J-Ward to leave my car.

Gallery 5 was hosting an event called "Paint the Music" and precisely because it had gotten no attention, I was curious about it.

The event page had warned attendees to be early because the first fifteen minutes were really special, whatever that meant.

But I followed instructions and arrived to find a growing crowd.

I took a seat near the front, next to a couple who greeted me warmly for joining them in the front row.

When I asked why they were there, the girl said she was an abstract painter and photographer and Fridays were date night for her and the boyfriend.

She'd read about the show and decided it sounded compelling enough to qualify for date night.

So I left them to their date and looked around.

What was interesting was that I didn't recognize a single person except the bartender, Pete.

I should have known something was up when I saw no bikes outside and not another walker besides myself heading over.

Toto, I don't think we're in Gallery 5 anymore.

Except we were, just at a show organized by an out-of-towner.

That would be Dan Fisk, a musician based in D.C. (which we all know usually means NOVA), who had organized his fourth "Paint the Music" right here in River City.

It was a novel concept: a musician would play a song and a painter would create a work based on that song.

There were four painters and four musicians and we were introduced to them all in short order.

Bryce McCormick sang "Fallen Creek" while Robby Norton began applying green paint with a palette knife to his canvas.

All at once, the smell of paint wafted by my nose.

Jared Jones brought another guitarist, Luke, to help him out on "Love Again" while Laura Page approached her canvas, already painted in a vibrant blue with white curving lines on it.

She seemed to have a head start.

Next came David Bromley with Dan playing guitar and singing "Heart Lies" while Bryce backed him up on keyboard.

Dan explained that Bryce hadn't known Dan's song until last night when they met and he played it for him.

Meanwhile David got to work on his blank canvas.

Last up was FarAway (Sara Davenport and Brian Franke) doing "Somehow" with Nikki Galapon facing a canvas already painted gray and with the word "somehow" stenciled at the bottom.

"Enjoy the live painting," we were instructed and the show began in earnest with the smell of paint thick in the air.

Bryce's set was first and he told us he'd written a song a day for a year as a "writing exercise."

Oh, you mean like blogging every day?

He had a Stevie Wonder quality about his mannerisms and delivery, and it was clear he'd come from VCU's jazz studies program.

Well, not so much when he sang the hysterical "You're so fly, girl," and detailed his nerdiness, but by his effortless talent.

He did one of the 365 songs, "One Hundred Years From Now," and it was one that had made it on to his album.

Introducing two songs about females ("but in an observant way"), the first, "Annabelle' was about a pretty girl he saw in Can Can eating lunch by herself.

"Mary the Librarian" was full of advice to take her out drinking and dancing on bars to cure her lonely library lady status.

Jared and his band buddy Ryan came next and the painters painted on behind them.

They began with "Heartbeat," a song Jared had gotten in trouble for after telling an interviewer about the relationship that had caused him to write the song.

Unfortunately, the ex had read the piece, recognized herself and chewed him out for it at a show.

"It was worth it," he shrugged. I bet it was.

They played some songs from the band they're both in  - Lust, Not Love- like "Matter of Time" and "Natural Love" and I got the feeling Jared's spent some time with the ladies.

But they also did two well-executed covers, including Sade's "The Sweetest Taboo" and MJ's "Human Nature."

Dan's set was next and he got things off to a rollicking start with "Barefoot Tapdance," as apt a metaphor as any I've heard lately.

Asking the crowd if anyone watched "90210" he got some affirmatives.

"How about the new "90210"? he clarified. Crickets. Not a one responded.

"Yea, me, neither. And this song was used on that show. So I haven't seen my song on TV."

That song was "A Thousand Life Songs" and it had the kind of warmly, evocative sound that probably suited TV perfectly.

After another poll, he did "Disappear," a song about going to an ex's wedding (someone had, but as the singer).

FarAway was a duo of boyfriend and girlfriend and he sported the first real facial hair of the evening.

I felt much more at home then.

They began with a song that Brian had performed at the first "Paint with Music" last July in D.C.

"I'm Coming Around" was introduced by Sara as, "About Brian, weirdly enough."

Saying to the group that it was "our breakup song for the evening," Sara piped up and said, "Don't break up with me tonight."

Very sweet.

Brian's "You Got All You Want From Me" would probably elicit a chewing out if the girl knew about it, too.

Sara, a VCU alum, wrote "Whisky Between Us" and checked on the whisky-drinking habits of the audience.

"I'm going to Tarrant's after the show and get some," she stated flat out before doing the song about a break-up with a Richmond boy.

Most RVA line: "Sing a song about freight trains at dawn."

After that one, she gave the artists fair warning that they had two more songs before the end.

"I hear some whining back there," she joked.

For what they called a Lumineers-like song, the crowd was taught how to do stomp-clap with Sara leading us.

"Amanda with a Wink" was about a girl in a sundress who'd requested a song from Brian.

And we all know how susceptible to girls in sundresses musicians are.

"A hard-earned day is a hard-earned night," they sang, their voices harmonizing nicely.

When they finished, that was the cue for the painters to pick up their canvasses and move them to the other room for display.

They ran the gamut from a woman's head to facing seahorses to the moon separating two girls to the sun bursting over the word "somehow."

All created in the two hours we'd been listening to music.

I felt so inadequate.

Here they'd poured forth their artistic souls and all I'd poured forth was my energy at experiencing them.

Come to think of it, I'd done just what they'd wanted.

Somebody's got to listen to all that painting.