Monday, August 25, 2008

Brighton

I started this leg of the tour like I start every other, asking myself "What should I load onto my Kindle?". Just kidding. I actually brought along the same borrowed copy of Jonathan Lethem's "Gun, With Occasional Music" that I've had with me on the last three legs, but this time I'm really going to finish it and not be distracted by radio dial name that tune and the Guardian's cryptic crossword. I had a good chance to make some headway on it during the flight over, since Delta's in-flight entertainment system kept crashing, which surprised me because everytime they re-booted I saw the penguin logo letting me know it was based on Linux, which is supposed to be pretty stable, right? I would've expected that kind of thing from Vista, but come on Red Hat, does Steve Jobs have to do everything? We've landed in the U.K. during another Bank Holiday, when the banker's of this great nation finally take a break from making our American Dollars even more worthless against the mighty Pound and flock to the seaside in Brighton for pitcher's of Pimm's and rounds of Dolphin Derby at the pier. I joined them there as I was trying to get over jet lag and had my first taste of the South African delicacy Biltong. One of these days when I really get this blog laid out with graphics and photos and stuff I'll add some hyper-text links for things like "Biltong", but for now you'll just have to Google it on your own. I'm sure it has a very detailed Wikipedia page, but suffice it to say it's pretty Jerky-y. While down on the pier, I also saw a poster for Brighton's leading Oasis tribute band, Oasish, which is an adjective that I'm definitely maybe going to start working into my vocabulary. And it made me think, what's a better name for a Blur tribute band, Blurry or Bluresque? After strolling around for awhile, it was back to the hotel, which was completely overrun by brides-to-be on their "Hen's nights", another British tradition like afternoon tea and knife crime waves that I'll never quite understand.

Anyway, about the gig. We had some pretty typical first night technical/sound problems, but the crowd was wildly forgiving and actually one of the best audiences we've played to in a while. They even laughed at some of our most pathetic attempts at humor, puns so bad I think I've erased them from my memory forever. And they didn't object to the fact that we broke at least two of Vampire Weekend's four cardinal rules as laid out in the new issue of Uncut. We might have even broken all four, depending on your definition of disco drumbeats and rock'n'roll cliches.

After the show, I was informed by my British friends that in the final ranking of Olympics success, every other country in the world put China first, as they won the most Gold medals. It was only the American media that didn't differentiate between a little thing like finishing first and finishing third and figured our over all medal total should put us on top. We've been known to discount trivial things like the popular vote count too, so I guess there's a precident.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Dallas

4/21/08 - Saw Jake from the Joggers Bl(j)ogging backstage after their show and it inspired me to make a post. Who'd a thunk it but Dallas was maybe the best crowd we'd had in a while - all head bobbin' and song requestin' and singin' alongin'. We were supposed to have a head-to-head with Cat Power last night in Austin, but she blinked. I'll get some photos up here soon I promise. Fer now I gotta rest up for the drive to Albeqeurque (SP???).

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Indy

I'm living on borrowed laptops, so I wasn't able to blog more about the Chicago show or Indianapolis. Bob Nastanaovich was at Chicago - always a pleasure and a priveledge. And what were he and Stephen talking about furtively and passionately in the corner? Possible fuel for the Pavement reunion rumours? Or just Fantasy Basketball? O.K., it was just Fantasy Basketball. The Vogue in Indianapolis was kind of a typical run down old movie theater turned into even more run down rock club, complete with utility closet "dressing rooms" with no bathroom, and the entire back wall covered in framed autographed promo shots of touring bands that are since a little passed their prime (Ezra might actually be better by this point). But we met some super nice fans after coundcheck, and there was a totally acceptable Japanese restaurant on the corner, and a perfect-for-time-killing record store a few blocks away, and the sound was pretty good and the crowd was fun and somehow the charms of the place won us over. You can thank Dave from the John Vanderslice band for lending me the hardware to mount my cowbell for "the Hook", or you can curse him, depending on your feelings about that song.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Chicago

I know it's boring to blog about the weather, but that's really the main theme today. 4-5 inches of snow on the ground when we woke up in Milwaukee. If this happened in Portland, the city would shut down and everyone would stay hunkered in watching Matt Zefino. The 90 mile drive to Chicago took 4 hours, which was annoying, but we were entertained for the last bit of it by the most perfectly hilarious college radio DJ on some left-of-the-dial station. Long stretches of dead air? Check! Songs played at the wrong speed? Check! Mumbled apologies for forgetting to play PSAs? Check! I was glad to see things haven't changed since the "When you play it, say it!" 80's.
Might play Vanessa and it Kills tonight. Both sounded pretty good at soundcheck, as did the Social D cover, but that one's probably a few drunken encores away.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Milwaukee

Dang this theatre is nice. Free Arkanoid backstage too! We pretty much stuck to the set list last night, although I think dim stage lighting and bad eyesight led to one little switch. Gonna mix in some different ones tonight - Dark Wave, Oyster, Post-Paint. We tried to get some better lunch options by waiting 'til Madison, but I still ended up at Noodle Co. Decent Pad Thai for a chain, though.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

March 19th - Minneapolis

Alright - I know no one else in the band is interested in blogging, so I'm gonna have to give it my best shot. Let's just start with straight news. This afternoon we did a live session for Minnesota Public Radio station "the current". In typical Jicks style we didn't think about which songs to play until the last minute, but ended up choosing "Gardenia" "We Can't Help You" and "Elmo Delmo". The studio was insanely nice - there must be some really generous NPR members in this town - so I think it ended up sounding surprisingly good for those types of situations, which sometimes can be a little rough. Janet was confined to a pretty hilarious isolation drum shower stall. Maybe I'll get some pictures up when I get this blog a little more established.
Soundcheck went pretty well, although we've got some new gear for this tour - Janet's drumkit, a couple of Stephen's pedals and my Roland Fantom X6, which I'm still getting accustomed to, so we won't be completely worry free for this first show, but I think we'll get up to speed pretty fast.
Anyway, Steve Jo and Janet scored tickets to the Timberwolves/Grizzlies game (surprise! - not that hard to get!!) and are at the Target Center Arena right now, so hopefully they're pumped up for the show.

proposed set list:
Dragonfly
Jo Jo's
Hopscotch
R.E.T.
Troubbble
Cold Son
Baby C'Mon
Gardenia
Out of Reaches
Elmo Delmo
Pencil Rot
Water
Wanda