it has been a while since i wrote a marathon session of a post, and there is no better time to write a wrap-up than in the splendor. having returned home from a brooklyn cookout of the house of a true brooklyn family, i figured it was the right time to do what i have been looking forward to wanting to do for a while. writing. i am truly sorry to have missed the actual feast of said cookout, but i wanted to keep the hunger on. better to give this weekend recap the appropriate attention. the stomach needs to wait.
i was a lucky member of the audience at glasslands on friday night. having returned from a tour-de-force, the love story and she keeps bees put on a “welcome back to brooklyn” show of shows.
i’ll start off by saying that jason, the drummer for the love story, is probably the best drummer i have seen in a while. molly, renn, and jason, the members of the love story, have a musical intimacy that few share with others. some keep it to themselves in the practice room, and do not share it with the people who come to see them. they share it willingly. plenty of raw, and plenty of sweetness.
jessica and andy are she keeps bees. andy had the tour beard representing miles of red ribbons, and having looked him in the eye, i can say that there are a number of miles ready for more. jessica is it. genuine article. most singers you see sing from their throat. maybe their chest. jessica sings from the toes. all the way. the train is running at 130 miles an hour, and if you aren’t ramped up to speed, you might miss it. or even worse, you might get run over.
i met a couple at the show just before the love story went on. i am usually good with names, but with my recent joining of the “we forget collective”, i can’t remember their names (wait for the documentary…but we’ll forget to make it. because we’re in the “we forget collective”, so forget it). i am going to use he and she as their names. they have my e-mail address, so if they write me, i’ll make a follow-up post with their names. something like:
hey everybody!
he = YYYYYYY
she = XXXXXXX
she is a singer, and he is from chicago. he had seen the love story and she keeps bees in chicago, and he had come to nyc to bring her (as in she) to the show because, as he told me before everything started, “molly and jessica are the best female singers happening right now”. let’s hope molly and jessica play another show together again soon.
i woke up on saturday early after about 4 hours of sleep to go to the punk rock record fair at southpaw. the fair opened at 10am, and i was there right around 10:15am. it was already packed. i guess punk rockers don’t sleep either. i picked up some stuff, and some notables were:
black lips 7″ - does she want/stoned
the clash 7″ - english civil war/pressure drop
the chesterfield kings - here are the…
the red krayola - god bless the red krayola and all who sail with it.
the soft boys - underwater moonlight
cousin stevie met me there, and we left together to head to jeremy and my new apartment. jeremy is the 3rd band member i have lived in the same building with (brett and nick being alumni of this great legacy of me moving every year of my life), and as i am about to pick up the repaired rhodes cabinet this week, collaboration is about to go plaid.
stevie hung out. stevie left. and the band came over to hang with naomi to start discussions about album artwork. i reached my peak of being hungover at this point (nausea, etc ensued), but the discussions went really well. naomi is basically family, and we are lucky to be involved with someone who has got a fire burning.
too hungover…
nap time…
hit snooze…
nap time…
and i am up at 5:45pm to get the stereo set to record the prairie home companion. j and i reminisced about how we stormed the local public radio station in st. paul at around 10am while on tour (having not really slept much), and basically freaked the receptionist out completely. this was a special prairie home companion because wilco was performing. so i taped it. i figured you’d all want to hear the thing, so here it is split up in 3 pieces:
prairie home companion 1
prairie home companion 2
prairie home companion 3
after that, i cleaned up and headed to the moy palace on 5th ave and 3rd street. the sangria cured my hangover. went home. went to sleep.
went for a long run on sunday morning with brett. 1 hour and 45 minutes to be close to exact, and we saw a lot. from park slope we hit the manhattan bridge, houston street, west side highway, battery park city, south street sea port, brooklyn bridge, carroll gardens, grand army plaza, and then home. then 2 bloody mary’s and a kings brunch at cafe steinhoff. off to the rehearsal space. i hooked up the mics, brett got on the drums, jeremy got on the keys, and i got on the bass, and we recorded…
space is the place, and that is where we went. i bounced a snippet from the session (about 8 minutes), and i figured i’d post it so you could hear it. we name and date most (or close to all) of the rehearsals, and it was mother’s day, so you could call this one “happy mother’s day”. so here it is:
then off to the afore mentioned brooklyn family cookout. this home represents a dying breed in brooklyn. this is a home where 5 people and 2 dogs exist in an entire house. roof to basement. most buildings have been split up into individual apartments. and it is sad to say, but what used to be the fringes are now where lots of people want to be, so now the fringe have got to cut out and find a new place to live.
the warm summer sun has now set on this weekend. it’s a school night, and i need to be awake in the early a.m. to correct what i just wrote, bounce some files at the rehearsal space, and get to work before the receptionist does so she doesn’t give me hell for getting to work after her and leaving before her.
how was your weekend?
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