This concert is guaranteed not to stink

By Aimee Heckel

If there are two things that can evoke the strongest emotions and memories, it’s a scent and a song.

Longmont women are bringing the two together for an unusual concert. Call it scent entertainment. Or music that smells great.

Or call it typical Sharon Glassman (about whom very little seems typical).

Her “aromatic music” event kicks off at 6 p.m. Oct. 4 at the new (as in just opened Thursday) Colorado Aromatics Store, 340 Lashley St., Unit 220, in Longmont.

Glassman, a Longmont-based author, oral storyteller and musician, will perform songs from her new CD (as in just released this week), “Blame it on Hoboken.” And Longmont scientist and herb farmer, Cindy Jones, is carefully pairing handpicked scents to complement the different songs.

The audience will faintly smell lavender during slower songs, rose during love songs, peppermint during bold tunes.

Jones, the owner of Colorado Aromatics, creates the local, organic fragrances, as well as skin-care products.

“Songs tap our emotions through sound,” Jones says. “And scents are powerful emotional enhancing agents, too.”

Scent also can affect your learning and mood, she says.

Plus, she says, her aromatic waters (which she will lightly mist or pass around the room) have aromatherapy and anti-inflammatory properties, are full of antioxidants and are refreshing and hydrating to the skin.

Jones has been making products for about seven years. You might have seen her booth at the farmers’ market.

In fact, that’s where she hooked up with Glassman, who was performing at the market.

“I call her the quirkiest person in Longmont,” Jones says.

Glassman used to be a New York-based journalist, who confesses she was so nervous about doing interviews she could only conduct them naked, at home, on the phone.

Upon sharing with her classmates a horror story about a completely bombed interview with boxer Michael Spinks (she never got out a single question; perhaps because it was in person and she was clothed), Glassman says she realized she much preferred telling stories to reporting them.

“Humor became my weapon of choice,” she says. “The telling, the bridging fear through humor — that was my thing. That’s how it all started.”

In 2002, she wrote a fiction novel, “Blame it on Hoboken.”

And that book is what inspired her CD.

Glassman used her musical background to begin writing one song a week that complemented a chapter in her book. She started reading a chapter from her book, with the corresponding song, on the porch at the La Momo Maes Bakery in Longmont. When food appeared in the story line, the bakery would present the same food, too.

She called it the “Lazy Person’s Book Club.”

It has evolved into a 13-week series called “Blame it on Hoboken, Live,” previously hosted by Shine Restaurant & Gathering Place in Boulder and now located at the Still Cellars distillery in Longmont. Glassman invites anyone to sit down with a drink (occasionally specially crafted for the theme) and munchies, while she reads chapters from her book and sings.

The events regularly draw 10-20 people.

She now boasts a small cast of local actors who stand in to play the parts of the characters. Among her ever-evolving crew: Mark Collins, a freelance writer for the Camera; Amanda Berg Wilson, with The Catamount, and Nina Rolle from Truth Be Told.

The book has come to life with sounds, tastes and visuals.

“Now, smell is the final frontier,” Glassman says.

At the aromatic concert, Glassman will read a bit from her book and play music from her CD. One song, “Uh-Huh,” recently won the 2014 Colorado Music Business Organization’s songwriting prize.

The scents at her concert will be subtle, she says.

“It’s not like being attacked by the sales lady at Macy’s; ‘Try Obsession!’ ” Glassman says. “It’s not that. You can delicately spray yourself and be transported to the world of the song.”

On Oct. 12, she will read her final chapter from “Blame it on Hoboken” at Still Cellars. Anyone is welcome, even if you missed the previous 12 chapters. There will be a dance party afterward.

Glassman has some private events booked this fall, and she’s gearing up to release a digital version of her book with the audio files embedded in the text. So when you get to the jukebox playing in the diner, you can click and hear the song from your Kindle.

Beyond that?

“I’m open,” she says. “I’m going rogue.”

Not that she hasn’t been all along.

Contact Aimee Heckel at 303-473-1359, heckela@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/Aimeemay.