Our first hosting gig! While living in Texas, catching an Adam Carroll show seemed at times impossible. Steve Coffman first introduced Adam to many of us on the Third Coast via coffee w/ Coffman. I never seemed to hear about him playing around much and by the time I did I had either just missed him or was on my way out-of-town/sea. Luckily right before moving up North we were able to catch him at the now deceased Flipnotics in Austin. Stayton Bonner opened up that night for him blowing us away with “Me and My Poodle” his French hunting dog song. Shortly there after Adam graced the tiny stage and was as lyrically mesmerizing as I had hoped he’d be. Finally I got to watch in person the man who brought us “Sno-Cone Man, Blondie & Dagwood, Girl With The Dirty Hair and most of all Errol’s Song.” Fast fwd about 6 years to Long Island NY. While revisiting the Peconic River Herb Farm on our weekly roam of the North Fork we struck up a conversation with the owner Cris Spindler, about her Austin like themed shop. Quickly realizing we had much in common the conversation led us to music, Texas music to be exact. I mentioned that her property called for some live music and she responded with her longtime dreams of bringing music to her sacred river banks. The match was lit, and it didn’t take long for our love of great songwriters to ignite into all sorts of ideas. I told her how many smaller artists will do house concerts all throughout Texas (something done up North but uncommon to most fans) and she was all in. Cris told me if I could find her someone she was in. Immediately I thought of Walt Wilkins, a perennial traveler to the NE and one of the kindest souls writing & playing songs out there. I contacted Tina and was quickly informed that Walt was booked up for his trip through the NE but she was glad to give me some great info/guidelines on house concerts as a whole.(Karen Cleaves also shared with me some great insight and helpful tips following a Slaid show on the island.) After mulling my brain for great but smaller songwriters that I could convinvce into playing for us Adam Carroll’s name popped up. Why I have no idea. I couldn’t even catch his shows when I lived in Texas let alone convince him to come to NY. After a quick check of his website I was blown away to see he was scheduled for a show in the fall in New Hampshire! I quickly sent him an email and waited. About a week later ring, ring, ring on my phone and “Hi, this Adam Carroll is James there?” That was it we had our first show booked and excitement is an understatement. With no social media,advertising or local fan base we secured Adam 30 plus paying listeners and were ready to share with Long Island some real gulf coast craftsmanship.  Oct 19th rolled around, Cris and I were nervous, Adam was late (missed his ferry,long story,better told by him in a song) show was a success. Dream filled. Brought a great songwriter to Long Island, enjoyed his music, ate pizza with him and his graceful wife Chris, and sang songs with him, his wife and my little girls late into the night. Three days later Cris and I were already talking and dreaming of the endless opportunities that we could create for the next fall.(2015) It’s now Dec. 2014 we’re in the process of securing artists for next year and things are rolling. ie. twitter,facebook,webpage,logo and endless dreams. All we can do now is hope that the people of Eastern Long Island fall in love with this style of music like we have and help support an annual TX-NY pilgrimage for great songwriters. Stay tuned and always Support The Scene!