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.

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.

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.

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