Enough hair of the dog to make myself an entire rug,
the good times are killing me

No one has addressed this, and I've told the stories many times over now, and some of them take a while, so I'll shorten, or I might just tell the whole thing from my perspective which was (drunkenly) skewed Friday and (insanely, homicidally) skewed Saturday. I think we had a good time.

Thursday: After work, Andy gets to my place, Evan follows shortly, I misunderstood what Andy said about when we were leaving, so I had 15 minutes or so to pack. Headed to Richmond, hung out at McCormack's, learned that foreign places still have Happy Hour while North Carolina still says no. Roman Holiday (their link is broken) was really good, not what we expected, figured it was another high school hardcore/punk band. Good stuff. Teenage Mutant Flesh-Eating Squirrels, or TMFES for short, like Zappa. A lot. I can't really say anything bad or good, I'm just not a Zappa fan. It was their last show, regardless. Friday marked the second time we heard a band use the progression E-G-A-C played (1/2)-(3/4)-(1/2)-(3/4), which, if you have ever picked up a guitar and figured out some chords (and now, looking at the bands, throw "over the age of 21" in there), you realize what you're playing is "Stepping Stone," actually, I think it might be "Steppin' Stone," either way, you can't just throw new words over that, it works when Sheryl Crow and Lou Barlow happen to have the same chords in songs, but they are in punk bands and they sing nothing alike, so it works out, no one is the wiser. It got late, Darryl was kind enough to have us again (I like this picture because it looks like him and Chuck were forced to stand by overnight in case someone wanted to record another song). We ate no veggie burgers.
Friday: Got up early early early, Andy is a good man. Saw funny things that just couldn't be true, there are some jokes of epic proportions up north: toll booths, SUVs from densely populated cities, signs in Baltimore advertising a carton of Marlboros for only $49.50. The latter was nothing compared to NYC where they don't bother advertising carton prices as a pack of RJRs are running you $7, a 200% addition to the price of a pack here, all in the form of taxes. If ever there is a time to quit, go to New York with no money. When you see that you can get 3 huge Dominican breakfast sandwiches that can fill you for a day or 1 pack of cigarettes, well, you see what I'm saying. Got to Mike (Allen)& (Robert) Murray's place in Brooklyn around 3 maybe, hung out with Mike, waited until Murray got home, went and ate some Fish & Chips. When we got back it was about time to head over to Lit to load in, so we hung around and then piled back in the car, letting Evan get his city-drive on again.
Here's how Lit went down:
7:30-arrive, unload at a bus stop
7:45-E goes to park car ("few streets down you can definitely find something"-other band)
8-done loading downstairs, told we're playing right at 9, we can get marked for "$2 beers," not free, just we get them for...
8:30-other band done with soundcheck, we're supposed to set up
8:50-E gets back from parking around this time, finishes setting up his drums, we're told that as soon as we finish, "they changed the policy again, you guys have to load right out, you can't keep anything in the back"
9-soundman has checked us and given us 15 minutes to "chill"
9:10-we're told to start
9:45-things start getting thrown out the side hatch quickly as E runs back to the Williamsburg bridge to get the car. Here, we're the northernmost point, the car is the southernmost.
Eventually E came back, I almost started a fight with a bouncer 4 times my size because he told me to get back inside with my wee cup of water, E and Mike went back to Brooklyn to drop off all the stuff, the rest of us headed to the bars, first to Mars Bar where everyone else got $2-ish Budweisers, except for me, I chose the one that was $3.25, maybe the bartender just thought I was under and wanted to fuck with me. I don't know. Then, back at 11:30 to get paid. Took a long time, E, along with most the staff, couldn't find the owner, and once he was found, we were told, "you guys only had 4 people, I can give you $20," to which, I hope, E replied, "it was a $5 cover, so you're not really giving me anything."
Out on the street, Andy and I watched one cowboy emerge from the club, "I wish he'd come to see us," and Andy nodded, "yeah." Then, a second cowboy. "Holy shit, two cowboys, I wish they'd come to see us tonight," "yeah," said Andy. Then a third cowboy came out, "holy shit! THREE cowboys, what the hell!? This is great." Andy laughed. I thought it was the highlight of the evening. Then a 300 pound trans-gender in a sort of tight, white negligee with thigh-high stockings and garters with a curly blonde wig walked by.
More later, I'm off to be slightly productive. My roommate left so now I have an "office," but the rest of the house is still a mess.
Andy, Evan, feel free to continue the stories, make corrections, etc.
posted by beta at 5/20/2004 08:54:00 AM