According to my math, and based on how long it took me to park, everyone who packed into Boulder Coffee Friday night to see Flower City ex-pat Tony Brown and The Believers with Swati drove two cars. Swati - a lone woman and her guitar - rumbled with a casual intensity, punctuating her acoustic guitar with little electric trips. Brown towered over the stage with a voice that was a little more silvery than it is on record. The band grooved on its mid-tempo asphalt Americana and got a little gritty with Tom Waits' "Way Down In The Hole."

Me and the Jive Mama wingman hit the Dinosaur next for young Boston soul-singing sensation Jesse Dee. Dee wails, Dee croons, Dee delights. It was de-lovely, with his voice sounding as disheveled and heartbroken as his threads. The dance floor swirled as the band positively pumped with maximum road house appeal.

Even when The Buddhahood and friends stopped it was as if they were still playing. Water Street Music Hall was so hot it could'a been Steam Street Music Hall. Goddamn, I just love those horns.

You needed a shoe horn to get into The Bug Jar for the Beat 4 Boards extravaganza. I rolled up as Ric Rude was rapping and raving righteously. Rude and other artists of this scene have the lyrical insight, unity, and quality to really make something happen here.

Saturday night at The Mez: while cars skated outside, Kinloch Nelson, Maria Gillard, Al Power, and Dawn Thomson skated the line between jazz and everything else. Thomson in particular seems to be approaching singer-songwriter status, with an emphasis on story and melody above and beyond her plaintive six-string augmentation. Nelson, on the other hand, is more of a stream-of-conscious player. He's tough to nail down but a pleasure to listen to. He doesn't play so much as coax and cajole his guitar. I was in the middle of cracking up over Al Power's tune about life being half over, when again I did the math and it occurred to me: "Shit, that's me." But then Maria Gillard's pretty voice made it alright. It's musicians like her who make the countdown fun.