Thank You All for The Barking Spider
Best wishes and many thanks to the lovely and dedicated Jenna Juredine, for keeping our living room alive, and filled with Art, and to Brent Kirby for being the musical & magical man, who won her ever expanding heart!
My own heart soars for you, as you begin your new and exciting life, as expecting husband and wife, and know that your child will sing and dance, and once day romance a lover of his own, with songs and poems and tales from afar, penned over drinks in a live music bar!
For those of us who have read poetry and played music in this space for most, or half, of our human lives, Barking Spider Tavern is more than our collective home, or a place to occasionally roam.
This sacred space provided 30 years of live performances, and for the past two decades, for pretty much 364 days/year. That’s not simply a “venue” where people play, that’s actual lifetimes of Live Music that live in the room, unseen, like forest folk and faerie queen, to this very day.
The cooler cats among us say, “There is a lot of vibe bouncing around in those rafters...” And we all know that thousands of songs have stayed, they simply seeped into the wood, and continue to resonate, with each note played.
Deep winter sadness and incredible summer joy have always raced around the room, chasing away gloom, like moths chasing sparks up the chimney, or, bright fireflies against dark Cleveland skies.
The Spider always feels right, on any given night, as Creation, Collaboration, Celebration, and Rumination, push back the tables and dance the night away; and the curious, the tourists, and the walk-ins, always stay.
So we celebrate, and say goodbye, in a single song, one that will last the whole night long.
Martin’s dream of a Musician’s bar, came so very, very far, and we are all better writers, players, family and friends, from the countless hours that we did spend, for the love of what we do, and in honor of who we are.
Jeffrey Michael Bowen. "Thank You All for The Barking Spider" Facebook Notes (2016)
Image by Douglas Trattner via Cleveland Scene.