Tuesday, July 24, 2007
gracious what a week: dark's tour remarks part two
Brooklyn, Boston...
Okay, so where was this? Right, driving to Brooklyn, after doubling back an hour or so towards Wilmington. The drive was fine, speedy and uneventful, and we pulled into Brooklyn around 7:30-ish or so that night. Immediately we're greeted by Rippy and Noella in front of Union Hall, the club for the evening. We loaded in our stuff, found a surprisingly close parking spot for the van, ordered up some food, and chatted up old friends for an hour or so. Union Hall had the best bathrooms of any club on tour; each stall was its own separate booth with one of those locks that had a occupied / vacant sign on the outside. I told an employee that the bathrooms were awesome, and he replied that there’d be “a lot of fucking in ‘em” before the night was through. The show itself was a lot of fun, although Crog and I definitely weren’t feeling “Never Gonna Touch the Ground” at the end. We cut “California Rules” to fit it in, which I thought was a bad call. Still, it was a fun show, and we didn’t screw anything up too badly. There’s a video up on youtube of us playing “That Don’t Work That Well For Us” at this show. The Antlers and Overlord played, and both were exceedingly fine. Good music all around.
The show was really early, for some reason, done by like eleven, so there was ample time afterward for drinking with friends and some prime bocce balling. Great to see Jen, Alicia, Christina, Alan Corey and his absolutely amazing ladyfriend Sadia, and folks I barely knew but enjoyed talking to like Jeff Gramm and Heather McIntosh. This night wound up being far more about socialization and drinking than music, and as such was a nice change of pace. It ended on a couple of massive bum notes, though, as Brah and Rip both had shit stolen out of their bags, an iPod each and the digital camera Brah brought along. A pattern was developing, as every time things went well something drastic would happen and noticeably harsh the mood.
We wound up staying at a couple of houses elsewhere in Brooklyn, thanks to the overwhelming generosity of folks like Susie and Heather. On the way to their homes we all got BLTs and grilled cheeses at like four am from some deli at the end of their block. It might be the best meal I had all tour. The next morning we split up some more, as Crews, Griggs and I got some sandwiches from another place and ate them over at Heather’s awesome little garden-deck area. The other dudes all got some ‘za from a place over by Union Hall. After loading up and eating them slices we shoved off for Boston, and a welcome return home for yours truly. Brah elected to leave the tour a day early and sit out the Boston jaunt in order to take in Slint’s show in New York that night. Whatever, dude.
I was hoping to hit the homestead before heading towards the club in Allston, Great Scott, but our lateness made that impossible. I was also hoping to eat dinner with my beautiful wife, but she and her friends had other plans. While we were loading in to Great Scott about 18 fire trucks deafened us forever with their damnable sirens. An apartment building a block or two down from the club was in flames, apparently. Our stomachs were enflamed later on, after we ate at the middling-to-good barbecue joint Soulfire on Harvard Ave. This place is pretty good at times, but it definitely did a few numbers on my digestive track this night. Allyn, Andrea, Stephanie, and Hannah showed up at the end of our meal, and I hung out with the wife for a bit after the dudes returned to the club and her friends got a snack at McDonald’s. I love this wife. We got back to Great Scott right around the time BEARD started; they were even better than their good MySpace songs led me to believe. Frontman was very US Maple-esque. More friends showed up, including Mike, Diane, Darren, his new lady, John Straube from WZBC, etc. Thanks, everybody. The France played a solid if unspectacular set, semi-pro and mistake-free if skimping a bit on the passion. I think perhaps we weren’t quite drunk enough. Still, not a bad show, I don’t think, and definitely not a bad night. Reports made sure of that, as they put on a reliably awesome show full of songs from their great Mosquito Nets album. Boston wasn’t the biggest crowd, but I do believe we sold the most merchandise there, or at least second-most to Atlanta. Also met Bob from the Modern Voice, a local band with a really good heavy-psych cd-r I’ve been playing some on WZBC. Good talking to that guy. But so the Great Scott show was pretty rad, if just a touch more mellow than the shows before and after.
After this nonsense we got back to our place, and, after a couple minutes of uncharacteristic snarling, Oscar proceeded to lick the everlovin’ shit out of every one of us. Seriously, that dog can lick.
More later on this week!
Brooklyn, Boston...
Okay, so where was this? Right, driving to Brooklyn, after doubling back an hour or so towards Wilmington. The drive was fine, speedy and uneventful, and we pulled into Brooklyn around 7:30-ish or so that night. Immediately we're greeted by Rippy and Noella in front of Union Hall, the club for the evening. We loaded in our stuff, found a surprisingly close parking spot for the van, ordered up some food, and chatted up old friends for an hour or so. Union Hall had the best bathrooms of any club on tour; each stall was its own separate booth with one of those locks that had a occupied / vacant sign on the outside. I told an employee that the bathrooms were awesome, and he replied that there’d be “a lot of fucking in ‘em” before the night was through. The show itself was a lot of fun, although Crog and I definitely weren’t feeling “Never Gonna Touch the Ground” at the end. We cut “California Rules” to fit it in, which I thought was a bad call. Still, it was a fun show, and we didn’t screw anything up too badly. There’s a video up on youtube of us playing “That Don’t Work That Well For Us” at this show. The Antlers and Overlord played, and both were exceedingly fine. Good music all around.
The show was really early, for some reason, done by like eleven, so there was ample time afterward for drinking with friends and some prime bocce balling. Great to see Jen, Alicia, Christina, Alan Corey and his absolutely amazing ladyfriend Sadia, and folks I barely knew but enjoyed talking to like Jeff Gramm and Heather McIntosh. This night wound up being far more about socialization and drinking than music, and as such was a nice change of pace. It ended on a couple of massive bum notes, though, as Brah and Rip both had shit stolen out of their bags, an iPod each and the digital camera Brah brought along. A pattern was developing, as every time things went well something drastic would happen and noticeably harsh the mood.
We wound up staying at a couple of houses elsewhere in Brooklyn, thanks to the overwhelming generosity of folks like Susie and Heather. On the way to their homes we all got BLTs and grilled cheeses at like four am from some deli at the end of their block. It might be the best meal I had all tour. The next morning we split up some more, as Crews, Griggs and I got some sandwiches from another place and ate them over at Heather’s awesome little garden-deck area. The other dudes all got some ‘za from a place over by Union Hall. After loading up and eating them slices we shoved off for Boston, and a welcome return home for yours truly. Brah elected to leave the tour a day early and sit out the Boston jaunt in order to take in Slint’s show in New York that night. Whatever, dude.
I was hoping to hit the homestead before heading towards the club in Allston, Great Scott, but our lateness made that impossible. I was also hoping to eat dinner with my beautiful wife, but she and her friends had other plans. While we were loading in to Great Scott about 18 fire trucks deafened us forever with their damnable sirens. An apartment building a block or two down from the club was in flames, apparently. Our stomachs were enflamed later on, after we ate at the middling-to-good barbecue joint Soulfire on Harvard Ave. This place is pretty good at times, but it definitely did a few numbers on my digestive track this night. Allyn, Andrea, Stephanie, and Hannah showed up at the end of our meal, and I hung out with the wife for a bit after the dudes returned to the club and her friends got a snack at McDonald’s. I love this wife. We got back to Great Scott right around the time BEARD started; they were even better than their good MySpace songs led me to believe. Frontman was very US Maple-esque. More friends showed up, including Mike, Diane, Darren, his new lady, John Straube from WZBC, etc. Thanks, everybody. The France played a solid if unspectacular set, semi-pro and mistake-free if skimping a bit on the passion. I think perhaps we weren’t quite drunk enough. Still, not a bad show, I don’t think, and definitely not a bad night. Reports made sure of that, as they put on a reliably awesome show full of songs from their great Mosquito Nets album. Boston wasn’t the biggest crowd, but I do believe we sold the most merchandise there, or at least second-most to Atlanta. Also met Bob from the Modern Voice, a local band with a really good heavy-psych cd-r I’ve been playing some on WZBC. Good talking to that guy. But so the Great Scott show was pretty rad, if just a touch more mellow than the shows before and after.
After this nonsense we got back to our place, and, after a couple minutes of uncharacteristic snarling, Oscar proceeded to lick the everlovin’ shit out of every one of us. Seriously, that dog can lick.
More later on this week!
