Nashville, the end.

The End: basically a smelly rock club. Gene Ween was playing across the street, though I doubt he cut into our fanbase at all. Also, we played on New Band Nite, which we thought was funny at first, then depressing, then, we realized, all too true.

Another show with the Fervor, who played beautifully. And Pete & Jay, who were Crowded House-ish popsters of a high order.

Our set was mostly fine but hampered by a poor monitor situation that near deafened dave. In future, we will try to avoid these situations. Happy to meet new fans Dave and Kelly.

Austin part 2

Ah sxsw where does one begin? How do you tell the tale of a love that fills and depletes, fills and depletes with such rapidity and tragedy?

We played 4 showcases. The four of them were all good, some better than others. We peaked early with the Septembergurl/Organic Entertainment party at Threadgills on weds. Ended up doing two shows with buddies KaiserCartel and doing a good bit of singing on ‘okay’. Weds night brought to the Velveeta Room at 1 am and a modest but vibrant crowd. The other two shows were Friday; at the first one at Mother Egans (sig sounds/red house part). I came out from a dizzy low-blood sugar moment to witness both our keyboards collapse and hit the ground hard onstage from the high energy foot stomping of the first performer (name withheld for tactful reasons — more the fault of the wobbly stage setup). We carried on with broken keyboards as we shall for the rest of the tour.

Last show was the GreenRoom Booking Cashmoneyapolis show, which was good in a unique way, though sparse. Then we were free to wander.

Third time here and so many bands and I’m always amazed how little music I end up seeing. 4 solid days and here is the meager list: Devo, Tricky, Bus Driver, Blitzen Trapper, The Silos, Japan Nite (two bands), and then some very good comedians. And of course KaiserCartel and bands we shared bills with but couldn’t focus on their sets because of pre-show preparation mode. Sprinkled in are a few ‘glimpses’ of unknown bands; heads stuck in club doors, heard over outdoor venue walls, etc.

Fold in: tons of free beer, drinks and food, miles of walking, amazing Mexican, amazing BBQ. No sleep.

Here are some pictures.

west coast tour, blog one. pre-tour.

the first part of this tour consisted of flora and philip driving across america with all the band’s gear. since no actual shows occurred or ion fact anything musical at all except listening to endless country and talk radio, ipod mixes, and the occasional cd,  reading books (night by elie weisel; the sheltering sky by paul bowles; vanity fair) its hard to determine if it should count. suffice to say the time was treated like something of an adventure/vacation for us both. flora had never done such a trip; i’ve done several of them with my family when i was kid as we were a bi-coastal family, but its been ages. i for one was eager to revisit with newer/wiser eyes the haunts of my youth, and flora was eager to see new sites that before had just been images in books.

since many sites we simply tore through, the ones we chose to stop at were given fairly basic tourist treatments by us, but believe me even that is a lot. new orleans made us to actually want to live there even though we did not visit the destroyed parts of the city (what exactly kind of tourism would that be, unless we were there to help in some way? we were haopy tio help with our meager tourist dolars)). anyway, hours spent walking around the french quarter with a warm humid breeze coming off the gulf and eating (in the space of 12 hours) jambalaya, crawfish pie, crab, file gumbo, beignet and muffaleta, was exactly the brief taste we wanted.

then, it was a hallucinatory and beautiful trek across the vast expanses of west texas, a sunset in new mexico that burned the sense, a genuine mexican meal in the tiny hamlet of lordsburg, and the next day the high pilgrimage of the trip to the grand canyon, where 18 hours were spent with our senses completely flooded with the quietude and vastness of  the place, our heads dizzy with the altitude, and later with the copious zinfandels we drank, sitting with our feet dangling over a 3 miles drop into the canyon. just watching the light change within the space of 10 minutes in the canyon feels like lifetimes of actual seeing. no one should eve live without visiting this place.

shortly we will post a video.

bonfire of the vanities

last night we winterpills and our mates welcomed the autumn with a little bonfire at the boomerang ranch. it should be an exciting fall; we have numerous interesting shows in locations near and far. recently, we had a great time up in maine for our show at the space gallery with spouse, and then enjoyed being part of the music for a cure benefit where we met the excellent due kaiser cartel. next up is the middle east in boston, next monday, nov. 1.

Summer reading/recording

I’m reading a book called Footsteps by a Javanese writer named Pramoedya Ananta Toer. It’s the third in a series called The Buru Quartet, and each volume follows the coming of age, the dawning of political awareness, the socio-political strugglesp of Minke, a native who is Dutch educated in early 20th century Indonesia. Minke is the son of a powerful native leader (Bupati), yet his “European” education leads him to write, found the first native owned Malay language newspaper, and work against the Dutch colonial yolk. P. Ananta Toer composed most of the quartet in prison for political reasons. I’m looking forward to finishing all four books. I’d also like to read the last Harry Potter. I was surprised that Dumbledore didn’t make an appearance during the last episode of The Sopranos.

Bassist Tony Levin has been known to read the newspaper while recording his parts. This may, or may not, be true.