Northampton (pronounced NORTH-AMPTON)

Yesterday we had a show at the Iron Horse in Northampton Massachusetts. Don't ask me why they chose to name their fair city something so confusing and hard to compute. Why not just make it two words and call it North Hampton? Or put two H's in the middle if you want to get all weird with it. I'd even be ok with putting a dash in the middle and pronouncing it as it looks with the ol' NORTH-AMPTON.

Aside from its questionable choice in name, this city is somewhat of an enigma to me. As we drove in, I felt as if I recognized it as if from a pinch of the deja vu. But after a few moments of contemplation, I realized that I actually had been there before over a year ago to play a show with my band Rider. Actually, it was the first show I played with them, and we had stopped in the town briefly to buy drumsticks on our way to Mt. Holyoke college ten minutes away. I remembered the bagel place we stopped at for a snack, the world famous chocolate shop along the main drag, and I distinctly remember the dreadlocks, hemp backpacks, and facial hair that I saw on the street. Yes, this place is quite the base for the modern hippie. It is also a seeming hopspot of youthful lesbianism.

To me, Northampton comes off as a vision from the future in a way. It bears a likeness to my picture of a modern utopian society more than any other town I've recently been to: vegetarian friendly dining, polite drivers in hybrid vehicles, non-intrusive hip-hop playing in homemade bakerys; not a wal-mart to be seen within 50 miles. And every place has free wireless! Everyone is friendly to a scary degree, even the bums. A lady stopped Brian to ask for a lighter, and after lighting her cigarette she simply stood there for a good ten seconds as if to ask, "ok, so what are we going to talk about now?" Needless to say, everyone at the show proved downright hospitable. We enjoyed ourselves and our generous hour and twenty minute set, playing to grown-ups, a few babies, and more than a handful of Smith University students.

After the show we hung out for a bit, drinking some of the leftover scotch from Philly and jawing with the opening band and the leftover stragglers at the Iron Horse. Somehow, we in the Diamond found ourselves in a curious cloud-nine state of mind. The day had been easy, and I even got to do some driving for the first time so far on the tour. I love being behind the wheel, to be honest. I'm a lover of the road. The best thing I've done in my life so far was driving my car across the country from LA to NY about two years ago. I left at the end of August, and took only five days to make the trip. Seeing the USA from the perspective of an automobile gives you more a glimpse into that whole "purple mountain majesty" thing, which is something that excites me greatly about doing this whole shabang-bang on the road. I even took that opportunity to listen to Homer's Iliad in its entirety on cd. I think it took me a grand total of 35 hours, but I'm pretty sure it was worth it. I averaged about 8 or 9 hours in the car a day, and I completed the trip in only 5 days.

As much as I can glorify the process and phenomenon of bumming around the country in the van, I cannot deny the somewhat difficult task of playing 7 shows in 7 days, each at least two hours away from the one before. Then again, I can't really complain, can I? Tonight's show at Wellesley College will be our 8th show of the tour so far, and Friday's Buffalo show will be the 9th. I can say confidently that we have hit our stride by now, and we have begun to move and conduct our business in a very P R O manner. I believe we have about 26 shows left on the schedule, and will be travelling into the dirty, drity south next week. Also, If you have any suggestions for April Fool's Day antics, please let me know, because we're having a lot trouble thinking of a satisfactory prank. That's all for now. Please enjoy your weekend.

....on the subject of technology (tekmology?)

I feel like rambling a bit today. You'll have to excuse me. I guess I'm just a little excited about the fact that I'm right now "blogging" from the friendly confines of the My Brightest Diamond van. I'm riding shotgun, Brian is in the driver's seat, and James and Shara are in the way back taking a nice little nap. I'm online because James, in his infinite logistical wisdom, was sharp enough to secure a portable wireless router, thereby giving us the ability to be online essentially all the freggin' time. As we speak, I'm typing this, talking to Oliver and Sam and Adam on AIM, and checking my myspace like a total dork.

We are also equipped on this tour with our own GPS system in the van. Whereas Nuno's GPS unit in Europe garnered the nickname of Cynthia, this unit has aptly been given the monaker of Gertrude. I don't know how we settled on Gertrude, but I'm quite happy about it, because my niece's middle name is Gertrude. For whatever reason, we chose the Australian accent for her voice. Apparently the hard consonant sounds in the yankee dialect were too piercing, and the brit voice was altogether obnoxious. Go figure.

I took my first shift at piloting our ship today, and used Gertrude for the first time. As I followed her commands and made my way up the eastern seaboard from Philly to Massachusetts, I started thinking about the existential implications of the GPS phenomenon. For the first time in the history of the world, a person can see exactly where he is on earth at any point, on any continent, and in any climate. We have it set up in a way that an ear piece communicates the directions from Gerty's wizard-like brain, so not only are you looking at a map display of your route, but you are also informed mile by mile of your location and your proximity to the destination. There is, in essence, no way of finding yourself lost in the entire country. It makes me think about 700 years ago, when the common opinion of the world was that you'd fall off the edge if you ventured too far. I think about the first white man to ever set foot in Africa, or about Christopher Columbus and his mad dash across the pond. I just find it interesting that being lost in the world will soon become a derelict concept. Within five years, all cars will come equipped with GPS. Everyone will know where they are, and where they are going, but only by proxy of a computer's knowledge of longitude and latitude. So, we will find that our knowledge of the world is not really increased, but is merely made relative to global geographical information communicated by satellites from beyond the earth's atmosphere.

I guess part of my thinking on this subject is informed by the difference in my feelings on this tour so far as compared with how our last stint in Europe felt. On the February tour, I had a distinct and palpable sense of homesickness at a couple of points. I felt it when I caught the death flu in Amsterdam, during our first night in Dublin, and perhaps in Italy, where I found it hard to communicate with anyone. The language barrier and difference in culture certainly played a part in those feelings of loneliness and dejection, but I think not knowing the terrain around me probably did more to make me feel far from home. But what is home, really? The broadest answer to that question is simple: EARTH. That is where we live. And now that we, as a species, have the capacity to easily travel anywhere on Earth with the proper finances, the concept of home must be expanded to take into account the technological advances of the past decade. It is true that the internet has made the world much smaller in theory, but in terms of practical concequences, we must consider that the world is still a HUGE place. Even if Gertrude or Cynthia or any other GPS unit tells me where I am, that really doesn't mean that I actually know.

Anyways, thanks for letting me go on a tangent. Once in a while you just have to let it all out, you know? Getting back to the subject of the tour, we are kicking the proverbial ass and taking the proverbial names. Tonight we will play a headline show minus our friends in the Decemberists at a venue called the Iron Horse, just outside of Amherst Mass. We will enjoy a 90 minute set, as opposed to our quick burst 30 minute sets which we've been executing as the opening act on the "twilight in the fearful forest" tour. Highlights from last night in Philly included another great (free) bottle of scotch, a phantom stain on my kickass white pants, and a nerdy, freckled, geekish young fan named Rob. He told me that my stage moves reminded him of a combination of a robot and a dinosaur; I didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. After tonight's show, we will be heading to Wellesley College to play for a bunch of hormonal females. It should be fun.

......(cont'd x3)

yeah, more pictures.

....(cont'd, x2)

Like i said, more pics.

...(cont'd)

more pics from europe, sxsw

Here are some supplemental pics from our time in Europe, and last weekend in Austin. Included are some shots of the bands "dirty projectors", "health", and "the apes." Peep their myspace pages if you have a second. Dirty projectors feature my friend Angel on bass and backups; she plays in Inlets as well.

TWILIGHT AND THE FEARFUL FOREST: PART 1

Here we are, once again. We are on the road. We are chasing that fading dream through the great beyond. Things are different on this adventure than they were on our last excursion: we are no longer in the position of headliner; we no longer have with us our faithful driver/logistical operator, Nuno Geraldes; we are, to some extent, on our own this time around.

That said, we are also in an extremely privileged position in that we are functioning as the opening act on the Decemberists' "Twilight in the Fearful Forest" US tour. Prior to our first two shows in Jersey City, I had a limited overall exposure to this band. My roommate and fellow pro Michael has been obsessed with them for at least a year and a half now, after having seen them at Webster Hall a while back. I remember his reaction to that show vividly. He came home, somewhat snookered, blathering exuberantly about what an amazing group of musicians they were. He talked about the organ player, a woman who wielded a stack of keyboards, organs, percussion instruments, and possessed a mighty stage persona. He described the lead singer as having a beautiful, flowing melodic which flew from the side of his mouth as he strummed a variety of acoustic and electric guitars. He also described the lead guitar player as a jack of all trades, an expert shredder as well as a seasoned player of the "hurdy gurdy," mandolin, and lap-steel guitar. And he talked about the bearded, "normal guy" looking drummer who held it all together. Hearing their first album, I didn't quite get it. But having watched their live show for these first three nights of the tour, I understand the source of Michael's excitement.

Since that concert, the Decemberists have been signed to a major label, and have enjoyed the status of an "it" band in the United States and abroad. As a result, they now represent something in music which provides hope for many of us in the industry: they represent a band who is making the music they want, and is funded in a way which allows them to make a solid living on the road, and by proxy, of album sales. To put it another way, they have maintained their "indie" integrity, while enjoying the fruits of the major label world. They are living the dream.

Another consequence of this band's skill as an ensemble and as individuals is that they draw a crowd which prides itself on being a conscious, respectful, and artfully appreciative audience. We in the Diamond are lucky enough to enjoy this pleasant fact. So far, the crowds have been the biggest I've personally played to, and have been extremely attentive to our music. The first two performances were at the historic Loews theatre in Jersey City, an ornate venue in the style of the old-world with assigned seats, a balcony, and a huge stage. The sound was amazing here, but I've never had worse butterflies before a show. To top it off, we had a short, stressed soundcheck on account of a late load-in and some minor technical difficulties. We overcame these factors for the first night, and played a good show, even though it was only about 30 minutes long. Coming from our tour in Europe where we were the headline act and enjoyed 90 minute sets, this was a weird change. But we've adapted to our role as the small fish to the Decemberists' large whale, and our second show at the Loews proved markedly more confident, energetic, and together.

Today, we did a radio spot for the Boston public radio station, which proved pretty fun. We have a day off tomorrow, and I will head down to the D.C. area early so I can meet my lady's parents. Please wish me luck, and hope that I don't make any cliche Ben Stiller moves. As for the rest of the tour, I don't really know what to expect. The crowds have been great so far, but we're certainly the small fish around here. I will update in the next couple of days, and I will include a couple more pics from SXSW and Europe.

mo pics...

these are some more pics from the trip. they're from my film camera, so the resolution is a little sharper than my cell cam. enjoy. all pics are copyright me, or something.....

LONDON CALLING, and final thoughts.

I write now from my girlfriend's couch in Brooklyn Heights. I am officially home. In trying to think about this final installment of my blog, I haven't been able to decide between trying to find some ultimate meaning and lesson from the experience, and summing up the whole shabang-bang from top to bottom. It kind of feels like writing a final paper for some whacky class where the professor never sticks to the curriculum and hands out homework assignments like "write a 10 page paper on your happy place" all semester.

I guess to start I will say that the past month has been one of the most interesting experiences of my life. I use the word interesting because the trip was beyond characterizations like good or bad, fun or boring, easy or hard. It was, above all else, the first time that playing music felt like my job. Now, I know there are a lot of hangups that come with the word job: issues of authority, conformity, boredom, and general ambivalence are abound. Most of my friends get home from work and land on the couch with a sigh of dejection and feelings of futility, and I can relate to this feeling only in so far as my rigorous high school education goes. College was a breeze for me, and I never had to work too hard to do well. With my "job," however, I have no boss; I have no time cards; I have no workspace or desk. I did get a work visa, however, which made me feel great. It even listed my occupation as "Bassist...." SWEEEET!!! When all is said and done, my job essentially pays me to revert to my childhood, which is extremely easy for me to do. The feeling I get playing music feels just like how i used to feel when I would put legos together or play tag. Perhaps the better comparison would be to playing sports, since the team aspect is certainly prevalent in the concept of a band.

Even though the tour lasted just short of a month, starting on february 5th and ending with our final show on february 28th, there were moments when I thought it would never end. I guess it was probably around the time when I grew ill in Amsterdam on the 13th. Something about the way time functions in these circumstances is very odd, though. It's almost as if time expands and contracts without warning. On some days, 5 hours seems more like 12. On others, 6 hours will pass in what seems like fifteen minutes. I don't really understand this phenomenon, because the nature of each day essentially never changes. You wake up for van call, brush your teeth and shower, make a final check of your stuff, and walk downstairs. You then pack your stuff into the van, choose which seat you'll be occupying for the duration of the travel, and pile in. Then you drive and drive and drive until you get to the venue, unload all of the stuff with the help of the always quirky and friendly stage hands, and begin sound check, which can last anywhere from 1 to 3 hours depending on if there is new material to be worked out. After sound check, the only challenge is to successfully kill time before the show, usually by fiddling around on a laptop, drinking some beer, taking a nap, calling home, or just twiddling the thumbs (my favorite). Then it's showtime, followed by load-out, and the drive back to the hotel. And then you go to sleep and the whole things starts up again the next day. With this type of day-to-day consistency, I am puzzled as to the reason for the expansion and compression of time thing. Even on days off, which proved few and far between, some would pass too soon and some would last forever.

Aside from the issues of time, I got to observe firsthand the inner business workings of a tour on the independent artist scale. When I say independent, I mean that the label to which MBD belongs, Asthmatic Kitty, does not have the major label funding to provide monetary assistance to its artists while they are on tour. The result of this is that MBD basically pays for its own costs on tour. Hotels, food, and Brian and my fees are all straight out of pocket. This doesn't mean that there isn't a profit involved, especially considering the number of cds we ended up moving. In the end i think our best night in terms of cd sales and t-shirt dollars was in Amsterdam, where the crowd was both extremely enthusiastic and grand in scale. They ended up buying upwards of 80 cds, at a cost of either 10 or 15 euros. I can't remember the figure exactly, as the prices changed depending on the currency. The money side of this tour was all new to me, though, coming from the background of making around 20-30 dollars (if that) after every show, without the benefit of merchandise or cd sales. One of Nuno's final tasks at the end of the evening would be to count the money and enter it into his laptop records, thus providing a receipt of our profits. Now, I must clarify here that I do not get a cut on the merch or cd sales, given that I am somewhere in between an official member of the band and a highered gun. This puts me in a funny position to be a cheerleader on the monetary front, because of course I want the best for MBD, and the concept of actually making profits from live shows is extremely exciting to me.

This brings me to one element of my "final conclusion." In order for me and my friends who are similarly trying to crack the lock in this business to succeed, people must come out and watch. Live music represents the essence of the musical profession. Those bands which are on MTV, in movies during montages, and on commercial radio, are backed by labels who are throwing huge amounts of money into making sure that the highest possible number of people in the world get exposed to their product. Not to say there's anything wrong with that, because that sort of money helps to keep the record industry an industry, but all I'm saying is that the percentage of music which exists on that scale is miniscule. And, what's more, as the money poured into a band increases, I believe that the personal integrity, creative expression, and overall artistic validity of that music decreases. That maxim isn't true for all artists, but it certainly is true for many. All I'm saying is that in my line of work, I need people at shows to make money. That's all. Plus, watching music live is one of the last pure, unadulterated forms of entertainment. Whether it's at a tiny little club in Buffalo or in a goddang stadium somewhere, this will still be true. Don't download a concert to your phone instead of bucking up, buying a ticket, and just fucking going. It's more fun that way anyway.

So, onto the subject of London. The trip to this fair city was absolutely heinous on accounts of the space/time continuum topic alluded to earlier. We woke up at 8 to make a ferry at 10am from France to the white cliffs of Dover in England, only to find out that all vessels out of that port were shut down due to rough seas, a development that forced us to drive half-an hour back the way we came to catch another ferry out of the port of Calais. I slept through most of this leg of the journey, awakening only a couple of times to verify our progress. Once at Calais, we were hassled at immigration because of a technicality which I would not do very well to explain. It was sort of over my head. After a delay of about 20 minutes, we boarded the ferry inside our noble van vessel and were on our way. This was a much larger ferry than the one we had ridden to get across the channel previously, so it was a much smoother ride. I ate some not-so-terrible indian food and chatted with Shara, Brian, and James for awhile. Once we were off the ferry, we hit traffic on the M20 to London. It was terrible. We literally encountered 5 different serious accidents on the motorway, each one complete with its own delays. This proved to be the part of the journey which lasted the longest. Even though the drive from Dover to London is usually about a 2 hour process, it took about 3 and a half for us on this day. Shara had to miss a radio interview, and we arrived exhausted, disgruntled, restless, and about an hour late for our scheduled sound check. To our surprise, another band had also been added to the bill, a Brooklyn-based band called Takka-Takka. I was immediately enthused at this, because my room mate is a fan of theirs, and so I had heard of them before. Also on the bill was the band that opened for us in Manchester, Uncle Bob. We made like lightning and zoomed through our load-in and sound check.

The hall itself was spectacular: white walls, chandeliers, carpet, ornate ceiling decoration....the works. For some reason it kind of felt like walking into a high school prom or something similar. Maybe a semi-formal. On the list for the evening was a friend of my lady's, a jewelry designer named Stephen Webster, and my good-luck charm, Vicki Perez. I met VP randomly about 7 months ago, on the one day when I decided to sport an Abe Lincoln beard (this detail is totally superfluous, but picture me with an Abe L beard....classic). When I met her, I was immediately taken with her. Her mother is a brit, her father is a spaniard, and she is cute as a button. I met her with my room mate/partner in crime Michael, and my number one star of the party friend, Kelsey. We drank car bombs at Iggy's in the lower east side until Kelsey was shturblasted, and then went elsewhere. Vicki and i exchanged numbers at the end of the evening not in any awkward, potentially romantic way, just in a way that said let's hang out soon. Nuff said. However, after meeting Vicki I became convinced that she had brought me luck. Lucky shit just started happening left and right. I'm not going to go into specifics, because that might void out the lucky-ness, but trust that it's true.

The show was great, and the audience basically turned into dust when we played No Quarter. Seriously, here it is.... . If that link doesn't work, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR97Ne4ZuGc to watch it. There's also a youtube of the song freak out from london.... . Peep that ish.

After the show, we said our goodbyes to Nuno, packed up the van one last time, and finally retired. The feeling i got when Brian and I got back to Joe's house, who was kind enough to let us crash, was one of the most rewarding feelings i've ever had. There were times when I thought to myself, "this is too hard. I miss home, I'm tired, I'm lonely, I'm sick of sleeping in a foreign bed every night." But in the end, I felt good about it. I felt good about getting through it. Most of all, I felt good about being a P R O, because that's what it's all about.

Thank you to all of my friends who kept up with my blog, and thank you to all who gave me words of support via A I M (you kept me sane a bit...). I will keep writing periodically, so keep on the lookout. And if you haven't already, pick up a My Brightest Diamond cd, because MBD is the bomb. Represent.