Old Town, New Folk

March 27, 2009

David Wilcox

Enjoying the Reggae Fest!

Old Town, New Folk

Suenalo

One of the most wonderful additions to the Key West cultural calendar wrapped up this week with the final installment of the Old Town, New Folk music series at The Studios of Key West. Kathy & I had the good fortune to attend every show of this year’s amazing line-up of Folk singer/songwriters which was capped off by a great performance by the wonderful David Wilcox. And that wasn’t the only musical treat of the week as we also went to the deluge-shortened, but no less enjoyable Reggae concert featuring The Original Wailers and the Miami based funksters, Suenalo.



Jay Scott



The folk music series at the Studios is the brainchild of their board member Jay Scott, who recently relocated to Key West with his wife Carolyn and their family. They had frequently hosted Folk singers at their farm in Wisconsin and thought that the Studios would make a great home for the series. We sure are glad they did. David Wilcox put on an amazing performance to finish off this year’s schedule, but Jay already has booked artists like John Gorka for next season and we are really excited about the prospect of more great music on our island home.

David Wilcox live



The other big show of the week was another Reggae party at the Southernmost Beach. This one featured the original Wailers, including Al Anderson & Junior Marvin as well as the return of Suenalo. The show was on the beach and a huge crowd packed the beach to see the show. The show was going great and the wonderful vibe found at the recent reggae shows was in full swing at the perfect venue until about 5 songs into the Wailers set, the skies opened and a torrential downpour literally swamped the festivities.

The Wailers live

It was one of those storms where an incredible amount of rain came down in a very short time and it totally drenched and rained out the rest of the show. It was still a fun time as we all crushed under any available covered surface to try and escape the deluge. I ducked under the Montessori school tent where they had been selling jerk chicken moments earlier. It was a fun, though damp experience.

The Wailers

Rain soaked corn.

Escaping the Deluge.

This week also found Kathy taking her class on a field trip to the new Community Garden. As the school year winds down, field trips seem to come at a more frequent pace, it looks from these photos that the kids enjoyed their garden visit.







David Wilcox Website

The Wailers Website

Spring

March 23, 2009

Meg Cabot & Judy Blume

Trevor & Nadene

Amber Leigh at the Seafood Festival

Spring



There is a very short window for Spring in the Keys, it goes from a summer-like winter straight into real summer most of the time, but there is sometimes a brief period of very comfortable, breezy and sometimes rainy spring which seems to be the case this week. The great weather is perfect for the large crowd of college students who seem to be here on Spring Break. In fact this is as busy a spring season as we have had in years if sheer numbers of students and traffic jams are any indicator.
The new season hasn’t lessened the amount of activities that we have been involved in, in fact it seems of late that the opposite is true as the social scene in Key West has continued unabated and work for both Kathy & I has become extra busy as well.

Rhett & Melissa

Trevor

Among the past week’s fun-filled activities was a birthday party for our friend Trevor “Shooter” Orr. Trevor celebrated his 40th birthday with a gathering of friends at his home. We seem to have been attending a plethora of birthday celebrations and they have all been pretty damn enjoyable. Trevor doesn’t look a day over 39, though he did seem to have the pallor of a lobster, having spent most of the day poolside at the Casa Marina.

Graf & Eileen

Melissa & Jack

Kathy’s father Jimmy was hosting a visit from a family friend, Carolyn Sones, from Marshfield this week and we took them both up to the huge Marathon Seafood Festival as part of her Keys vacation.

Amber Leigh

Jimmy, Carolyn & Kathy

The Marathon Seafood Festival is one of the biggest festivals of the year in the Keys as over 17,000 attend the two day celebration of Keys Seafood that features entertainment, vendors, fresh Florida seafood and beer.





Brian

Our friend Brian Roberts was part of the entertainment as he sat in with the Marathon based band John Bartus & Storm Watch. We watched their show and stayed for the afternoon show that featured a talented young Country singer named Amber Leigh. It was a great afternoon of music.





Joy Tatgenhorst

Monday, The Friends of the Library hosted a wonderful discussion between two of the finest writers in America, Judy Blume and Meg Cabot about writing for young adults. It was a pleasure to her two such fine writers in such an intimate exchange. It was obvious they were having a great time and the standing room only crowd loved it as well.

Martha with Judy & Meg



It has been crazy busy at work as well as we have been preparing for the upcoming summer season when we will be working in Albania, Sicily and Montenegro. This week we had to ship two boats over to our base in Malta. Howard & Todd have done a great job getting the vessels ready and getting all the additional gear that we are sending in a container prepared. The archeological search work will begin in May and we are scrambling to have everything ready.