I'm really starting to enjoy this whole touring-from-home thing. It's like telecommuting, except, you know: less Twinkies, no conference calls, way less sweatpants. Right now, I'm prepping for tonight's show in Sacramento by eating a sesame seed bagel, having a nice cup of coffee, and pretending I'm going to do the laundry, which is one of my favorite things to procrastinate. Right up there with paying bills, cleaning the kitchen, and finally finishing Canterbury Tales, which (let's be honest), I'm never, ever going to do. I already read the part with centuries old fart jokes so really: what's left? Lots of "y"s in place of "i"s, no doubt, and maybe a dragon. Not really one of those books that aged well, in my opinion.
Yes, indeed. Touring from home is a wonderful thing. This weekend alone was enough to endear the idea to me forever, in fact. One of Dave & I...Dave & mine...Dave & my's...this guy Dave & I knew from our short pants, bad hair, and long division days was in town from the tropical paradise known as Denver and joined us for a couple shows. So did a whole slew of signifigant others, friends, friend's parents, and relations whose description would be too convoluted to attempt to truly describe. We played in Santa Rosa to a lovely crowd that, if I may be frank, was larger and far more wonderful than had been previously anticipated. I was nursing one of those sledgehammer-to-the-face hangovers that force you to contemplate a life of dour sobriety but the show was one of our recent favorites. Plus, there was a poster there advertising Birdmonster with $3 Coor's Light which made me realize the name "$3 Coor's Light" is a pretty fantastic (and incredibly deceiving) bandname. Better: "$1 Well Drinks." Or "Free Appetizers." Sure, people would hate you when they showed up, wondering where their cheap drinks or free pigs in a blanket were, but I bet you'd do quite well before the word got out.
The following day, after a fitfull slumber at Zach's folk's house, a large contingent of us dragged ourselves to Armstrong Woods for the hike I can still feel in my hamstrings. Fun fact about Armstrong Woods: George Lucas filmed all that Ewok-y goodness there. Hiking through there is simultaneously breathtaking and dissapointing: gorgeous mossy trees bereft of hairy gremlin things.
We played Oakland that night, ate at E&J's barbeque, and returned home for half the Superbowl before driving our old buddy to the airport & getting that nostalgic trip to In N' Out in first. To sum up: another show, two more delicious meat-centric dinners, the good quarter of a bad game, and more driving. But we did listen to some New Kids on the Block in the car, which, if you haven't done lately, I thoroughly recommend. I'm pretty certain "Hangin' Tough" is the sorriest attempt at thugish posturing in the entirety of human history. Also, it's set to a beat that even the cheapest, back alley, hip hop producer would be ashamed to use, proving, once again, that there was only one true and noble boy band and that their name was Boyz II Men. A moment of silence for the genius that they were and forever shall be. Amen.
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7 comments:
NKOTB. I flinched. Oh, I flinched.
If you want to see an ewok, come over to my place and check out my roommie's dog. We always joke about it's ewok-like appearance. Not to its face, of course.
Sorry I couldn't make it to your shows this weekend, but I saw Of Montreal + The Blow on Friday which was very special (especially The Blow, but ESPECIALLY Of Montreal), and I saw Dosh on Saturday. Dosh takes the whole one-man-band thing to a level that mere mortals cannot comprehend.
As for Boyz II Men, by far the best thing about them is when they slow it down in the middle of a song and the guy with the baritone voice starts talking to the girl that the song is about.
Alright enough nonsense. See you on Thursday beatches.
Sincerely,
David
Hey! What's wrong with living a life of dour sobriety?!
And Goddamn. I love meat-centric dinners.
Equally deceiving was Government Cheese, a very popular band in the smallish Kentucky town where I went to college. I'm guessing the crowd who showed up looking for blocks of generic Velveeta would have been a bit different from your $3 Coors Light crowd, however.
Or not.
Big fun, Government Cheese. With songs like "Fish Stick Day", "Camping On Acid", and "The Shrubbery's Dead Where Daddy Used To Fall" really whipped the mosh pit (actually a smallish dance floor, but I think we can agree that claustrophobia is claustrophobia) into a frenzy.
I think you'd have liked the GC lads.
SOL: Try it. You'll remember that, if cheese made it noise, that noise would be "Step by Step" by NKOTB.
David: You're truly correct. The baritone dude who said "girl" every third word was the highlight. I always wanted to be that guy. Him or the falsetto guy who sang all the bridges. See you Thursday indeed.
KLT: There's nothing wrong with meat-centric dinners. They just slow a body down. Immensely.
Foo: They certainly sound like my kind of people. I hope they had enough uncomfortable experiences with people asking them for large blocks of cheddar that they actually started carrying a cooler containing said product. Of course, we both know that never happened. But if they did, let it be known they'd be my favorite band ever. It would put Fugazi's famous crowd-loving spirit to shame. You cannot, in any way, defeat free cheese. I feel very strongly about this.
No cooler of sample cheese (not that government cheese ever had enough actual dairy content to concern itself with refrigeration), but they did have a long, gold-colored cushion from the back of a sofa bed. They used to trot that out when they performed "Fish Stick Day".
'Cause... yanno... it looked like a giant fish stick.
At some point, they stopped using the fish stick cushion, and I always wondered why. Years later, one of the band members had written a book about his experiences in the music business and on the road, and I think he said someone had stolen the fish stick while the band was doing a road show. Or maybe I heard it from a first-degree friend who was a second-degree friend of the band.
B2M
ABC
BBD
(The East Coast Family!)
That's all I need say.
Oh, that, and, YES, you NEVER clean the kitchen.
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