Day 5: Day off in Boston

They say days off on tour are one of the 1000 paper cuts that can kill the beast.  But it’s monday.   It’s Boston.  Mondays are a musician’s saturday: chances are you’re not playing that night.  And the sundays are fridays: you might have to work, but it’s still the weekend because tomorrow is saturday.  

Hit the morning with some granola, fresh drip coffee, and a little “office” time (did you email those lyrics to samantha? should we call that new song “smiling” or “change A?”  What does “Change A” mean?  Oh shit we gotta make sure those download cards got sent to sam . . . ).  The grand finale of “office time” was me trying to learn how to put this blog on our website and include pictures+videos.  An extremely frustrating tutorial that included inabilities to import pictures from cameras, not having the right cables for the video camera, being unable to rotate pictures, learning basic HTML, myspace crashing safari, GAAH!  

 

 

The center snaps the laptop to the quarterback, its a GREAT snap, the QB confidently grabs it out of the air and places it’s corner to the grass, the kicker (Tyler) is already one step away, right leg cocked, ready to send this laptop into the atmosphere – 

 

Mike: Hey Tyler, you want to come see an Imax movie at the science museum?

 

“Umm . . . yeah.  Ok. ” (Stupid computer)

 

That movie was called, “adrenaline” a feature about skydiving, jumping off mountains, and a 6-year-old’s first day of school (somehow they fit that one in there).  Experiencing the first day of kindergarten in full 360 degree sight and sound is a truly awe-inspiring entertainment experience not for the faint of heart.  Though I would love to skydive, i wonder how much it costs.  Maybe i could do that instead of driving to a gig – at least it would have some practical application.  

 

End movie, negotiate some more museum attractions, walk back to the homestead.

 

Ok you damned computer, there’s only room enough for one of us in this town . . . 

 

. . . one hour later . . . 

 

aaaaahhhhh THAT’s how you do it.  I now know how to live my life through a computer.  What’s next for the record button?  FACEBOOK?!  

 

Nope, but there’s  PIZZA!  Really GOOD PIZZA!  

 

Now begin the post-dinner aimless hang.  A few friends come over, no plan, no objective, just the elements: tequila, oysters, IPA, youtube, and chin-ups.  

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Wd-Q3F8KM

 

End the night with a midnight excursion to a local jazz club called, “the bee hive.”  Cool underground bar with lots of art to ponder — what does that make you think of–GO:

Umm, a train billowing out smokey labia rings?  

 

Next.  

 

*Weekend fun fact: a thumb is a hand leg.  

 

Love, the [record] button

Day 4: Boston

A beautiful morning (aka noon – 4pm) at the carpenter family residence. Words can’t describe the beauty of this house nor the love that it contains.

One thing we always look forward to when coming to boston is the cannolis at Mike’s. ANYONE thinking about investing in the cannoli industry — this is the cannoli of the future. Imagine looking through the glass at 100′s of fresh, hand-made ‘nnoli’s in 20 varieties. It’s . . . perfect.

A day 4 mini-highlight: the paul mccartney and michael jackson music video for “say say say” i wish i could meet the people who wrote that script . . . i wonder if they live in a bathtub of jello tequila.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gWvBXS2t4A

Follow that with a post-thanksgiving thanksgiving dinner — good god.

DAMN IT GETS DARK EARLY, how is it only 4:30??

Load the bus after dinner, get to the club (Johnny D’s), load in during their local blues jam. They have a half barrel of grease for us! (“um, someone called and asked if we could save some of our throw-out grease for a bus . . . )

A lot of great friends showed up for the show, and a good crowd in general thanks to our beloved street team and a great article in the local paper.

Staff was incredibly nice, and how about kevin doing the splits 20 times during clubbing?

Good pre-game and post-game talk on the bus (dude, could you try that beat on the other snare? hey dave, can we get more of tyler in the monitor for the 3rd verse of all i do? MYF bridge is in a 4 measure phrase, lets wait till measure 7 for introductions, oh man i love that feedback delay loop in the break of lost in a day… holy $#! michelle and mike killed it tonight!!).

Someday we hope to have a show where everything can go wrong and no one in the audience will know . . . i guess we’ll have to have a few more of those shows to get some good practice. Is there a book about playing legendary drum solos in the face of screaming feedback?

End the night with the discovery of a pizza box to the right of the stage, filled with cookies, with a note saying:

Dear, My Dear, My Dear Disco,

we’ve baked no less than 3

class I narcotics into these

cookies. Can you tell which ones?

Just kidding, the only ingredient

was love.

Sincerely,

Miguel and Marilyn

. . .

Thank you!!

(and another point for the karma team)

Sincerely, the [record] button

TXT MSG: from Christian
Meet at bus @ 9am

Bob’s b-day the night before — a celebration of 24 years of Bob life. Friends, cupcakes 2.0, wine, and hookah. A highlight of bob revealing his salvation army secret weapon: a white 3-piece bellbottom suit, complete with red Hi-C stains on the bottom right leg. Looks like we’ll have to have a red Hi-C squirt gun fight to match.

Day 1: Buffalo

Sleep 3.5 hours — wake-up up to a blizzard of packing, grocery shopping, bank deposits, missed alarms, printing contracts, and trying to ignore the annoying voice, saying”aren’t you forgetting something? aren’t you still forgetting something? maybe you’re forgetting something . . . ” Leave by 10:30, not bad for us.

Arrive at Nietsche’s, a club that has accurately recreated the feeling of being on a disney world Pirates of the Caribbean tour. Good news! The club has two jugs of grease for us — another 30 miles of deep-fat driving!

We meet an incredible traditional african drummer Alasaan Sarr, who sits in on “My Dear Disco” along with Marc Vitagliano, who both blow everyones mind.

Haven’t figured out where we’re gonna stay, who’s selling merch did you tip the bartender where’s the kick drum pedal case . . .

Joey: someone from a some co-op in town called nickel city said we could stay at their place
Everyone: hell yes

Try to park the bus in downtown buffalo for an hour, end up parking 15 feet away from where we started: across the street from the club. HA!

Day 2: Ithaca

little did we know that nickel city co-op would treat us to warm beds, pancake breakfast, fresh ground coffee, and home-made blueberry kombucha!! Time to pass on some serious love and keep this karma alive. Any one have a kombucha baby? I’m thinking a roasted-cherry-porter-soaked-peanut-filled-mango-lassi kombucha might be good.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMcz4KGSFvk

A 2 hour drive to Ithaca feels like a 6 hour drive, wait was it only 2 hours? its getting dark, feels late, we’re supposed be there by 8 what time is it.

Playing at a club called Castaways with a local fav Jimkata. Pull up the club, another pirate-esque feel to the room (this time more mild). Jimkata boys are fun as hell, good time loading in and setting up, they brought a lighting guy (actually also their manager disguised as a lighting guy)!

To the our surprise, and even more to everyone else in the club’s surprise, a whole crew from Hobart College pulls up in TWO enormous stretch limos packed with the brim with peeps to see our set.

Pretty good reason to get on stage and hit it hard as we can. Super fun set, those kids can make a room shake. Jimkata pulled off a great set, and an equally fun after-party. They even put us up that night, put up another point on the karma score board (should we add curry to that kombucha?).

Christian falls asleep in mid-party on the living room couch . . . he is rudely awaked later that night by an individual sleep-walking and mistaking a coffee table for a toilet. Unfortunately, Christian’s shouting wasn’t enough to stop that force, lets hope the scotch guard is.

how do some people get so lucky?

Day 3: Travel Day to Boston

The band accumulates at the famed ithaca breakfast joint College Town Bagels. With the 8 person crew and our collective Ithaca friends we formed a formidable semi-circle taking over half the floor space. Thank fully breakfast for us started at 2pm. Christian is asleep face-down at his table. Poor guy. DAMN, i need a shower.

DAMN, it gets dark earlier out here. Awake for 3 hours and it’s already night time.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ryDGf8xp8s

Arrive in boston 7 hrs later and rejoice with a late-night tray of veggie lasagna. I’ll take the futon, looks like 6 people are trying to sleep in the basement — thumb wars?
And there’s the shower . . .

More to come in the days to follow,

-The Record Button