There's no better place for music in Cleveland than the Barking Spider Tavern near Case Western Reserve University.
There really isn't. And it doesn't matter who is playing. I've heard rock and roll there. I've heard country. I've heard jazz. I've heard Irish music. I've heard a guy who can spin marbles in a big metal pan and make it sound like music. Located between Bellflower and Juniper just off Ford, it's a little brick and wood building that has a bit of a log-cabin feel. Large doors on either end of the squarish building can be opened on perfect summer (or spring) nights like Wednesday night, allowing anyone to sit on a picnic table outside and listen to some fine music while having a beer or other beverage.
And when you have performers like Oliver Buck and the New Madrids -- who played on the Euclid Library lawn last summer -- along with Euclidian Quinn Sands, well, it's a perfect night.
Joined by my buddy Tom and local music scene legend Peanuts (c'mon, if you've been out anywhere to sample local music you've seen the guy with the white bushy mustache and long ponytail coming out from the back of a trucker hat), I had a great time listening to and talking music.
Most interesting for me was that Quinn Sands was my Facebook friend before I met her in person. That goes against my general policy of friending only people I already know. I think it's cheating to have, say, a thousand friends but knowing only about 25 percent of them in real life. That is unless you are someone famous and they are friending you more as a fan than anything else. I am not famous. But Quinn is friends with another friend of mine in the music scene, and he vouched for her, so I broke policy.
Turned out to be a good thing. It was one of Oliver's last performance. The Cleveland native who moved away then came back a couple years ago will be moving away again soon. He's gifting The New Madrids to Quinn, who will be the new lead singer. We took a few cracks at naming the new band -- Quinn Sands and the Sons of Beaches? Quinn Sands and the Wonder Band? -- but I think there's still some time there to come up with something.
Here's to hearing them later this summer back at the Spider.