It took a little luck to gain entrance to a sold out Mercury Lounge for Jonathan Rado’s Wednesday night CMJ set, but man, what a thrill it was to see him and his band again.

So young, so talented, so cheerful. Unlike the show out at Big Sur, CA last month, Rado was joined for this gig on stage by girlfriend Jaclyn Cohen who sings spectacularly on “Hand in Mine,” an infectiously catchy duet that had the audience singing along. Next to Cohen, a guy named Evan played what appeared to be a Fisher-Price toy. More sideshow than actual sound-maker, Evan would later grab a tambourine and dance happily as Rado brought the house down on densely beautiful tunes “Faces” and “Oh, Suzanna!”

Since it was a CMJ event, Rado was limited to 40 minutes. A representative of the club walked up to the stage at the half-hour mark and signaled time for one more. “Cool,” Rado said before launching into a stretched-out finale.

As a music fan always looking for an unexpected bolt of excitement at a live show, Rado hooked me as a fan with his Woodsist Fest effort. I mean, I already loved his new record Law and Order at that point but what he does on stage exceeds that. He’s a deeply versatile musician and has a great band. Rado’s slot on Wednesday night was part of a bill assembled by the music blog Aquarium Drunkard for the five-day CMJ festival here in New York. What made getting into this show tricky was the presence of headliner White Denim, a band with a large fan following. Clubs hosting these CMJ events face the challenge of calculating whether those with festival badges along with those who bought advanced tickets will combine to exceed the venue’s capacity. White Denim made tickets disappear almost immediately so the challenge my friend Jacques and I had was to convince the woman working the door that we there to see Rado – and Rado only. It took some lobbying, but she eventually let us in for $15 a pop. We thanked her big-time on the way out.

The night still young at that point, we took the L over to Bedford and caught a great midnight set from Brattleboro, VT’s Happy Jawbone Family Band at Cameo Gallery. Jarvis Taveniere of Woods was there. He recorded the Family’s new record just released a few days ago on Mexican Summer. Also on hand was Jeremy Earl who says dates have already been locked in for 2014 Woodist Fests in Big Sur and Pioneertown next August. The new twist on next year’s Fest will be back-to-back weekday gatherings at the library under the redwoods which will hopefully make the availability of lodging/camping a bit easier for fest-goers.

My aunt came for a visit on Tuesday. Among the highlights was a stop at the Museum of the City of New York which is currently exhibiting 17 paintings of Central Park by the 80-something artist Janet Ruttenburg. The Ruttenberg exhibition is highly recommended, especially before or after a walk through Central Park. We ate dumplings in Seward Park and then heard Scott Turow pitch his new novel Identical at a book store on the Upper West Side. Turow opened his appearance with a diatribe about his hometown airline United. He described a recent flight to Providence from Chicago that was badly delayed and ended with customers deplaning via an emergency exit. It was a boo-hoo anecdote with a pompous tilt. Turow would later salvage his appearance with a wonderfully-told story about Bobby Bonilla.

I’ve eaten a lot of pizza the last few days. Squares, triangles, rectangles. And oh yeah, I almost forgot: my brother Tim was in town for a wedding last weekend and I had the best Saturday morning in recent memory. We rode bike share bikes all over the place while the sun came up and then ate bagels in the park. Life is good.