HH,

As I recover from having lost my voice for several days (I’m still a little hoarse and weak, but I plan to be pretty much back at full vocal strength for the Bullwinkle’s show tomorrow night) I’ve had some nice time to appreciate the value of being silent. I apologize to anyone who showed up at the Joni Mitchell Tribute expecting that I would be playing… I was still there, but only in the audience. I even had a coughing attack in the middle of the show, so if you were there and heard coughing, yup, that was me. But it has had it’s benefits to sit quietly, forcing myself to listen more rather than talk, to observe rather than to perform. I’ll probably get to enjoy plenty more of this next week, as I undergo the joy of wisdom teeth extraction. I welcome anyone to share the horror stories on the mixingboard (the site’s new message board, in case you haven’t discovered it yet) since for some reason I find those tales entertaining, despite my intense fears. I think the part I’m most scared about is having an I.V., because I’ve never had to be hospitalized for anything before and I’m terrified…and let me emphasize the word TERRIFIED… of needles. Anyway, I carefully scheduled the surgery during a convenient gap in my performance schedule, so I wouldn’t be singing on stage looking like a chipmunk.

Amazingly, I haven’t written to you since the Over the Rhine show. I sat down to do so several times, but was struck by few emotions other than the utter inferiority I felt performing back to back with Karin Bergquist. I like to think I put feeling in my words, but those two people’s music is rooted in emotions I don’t even know the names of. Their music draws from some seductively cathartic place that teeters between desolation and bliss that I just haven’t tapped into yet. Perhaps I’m too young yet… yeah, that’s my excuse....

None-the-less, I was so thankful for the opportunity to play in front of such a warm and inviting room of people. There were folks to see the show who came all the way from Seattle, Hawaii, Toronto, Florida, and even one guy from Africa (I wish I could remember what country), and they were all incredibly sweet and generous to me, not to mention kindly patient for me to get off the stage so they could see the band they traveled to Dayton, Ohio to see. And for that, I am quite grateful.

This weekend, a strong possibility exists that I will be recording some back-up vocals for Sleepybird, the band that should have appeared in Dayton a long time ago but I’ll forgive them for waiting so long to emerge. One of my favorite things about music is how collaborative it is, and since I’ve been playing solo for the past year or so, that collaboration is something I’ve been sorely missing. So I can’t wait to contribute some hopefully good tracks of vocals to their musical experimentations & creations.

For those of you who haven’t been to one of my shows in a while, you may not know that I released a new CD in very limited quanty. It is a sampler of acoustic recordings (the simple kind of music I like to actually listen to, I don’t know about you) more representative of my live performances than my first album "Feels Like I’m Dreaming". If you are interested in acquiring a copy for $10 (includes shipping), please email me (robyn@robynleahcase.com) and I will get one in your hands as soon as I am able. (If you email me next Tuesday, you may have to wait until the anesthesia wears off…) If you are interested in acquiring a copy for less than $10, come to a show and bring friends and be real friendly and I'll see what I can do.

*rlc