To those of my friends with real jobs in this grace period between graduation and reality, this blog is for you. I will try to keep those of you who browse abreast of the daily happenings and noteworthy shenanigans (sp>) of our My Brightest Diamond journey. Remember, regardless of how sweet i make the road out to be, your job pays you more and may actually lead somewhere in the long run.
Yesterday was a tough one. Shara woke up feeling like pooop, and had evidently lost the battle to escape the grips of a wicked flu. As I opened the blinds at around noon, the sky was grey, and it was raining hard and sideways. Ick. As we got down the lobby to rendezvous with Shara and James, Shara was huddled in her hoodie, looking like she had seen a ghost. She had been up with a fever for much of the night; some of the medicine had made her sick to her stomach; things were not looking good.
I've been playing with Ms. Shara for about a year and a half now, and she is without question one of the tougest people I know. So, I had no doubts that we would still do our in Philly. She hibernated in the back back seat while James, Brian, and I pressed on towards the city of brotherly love. For much of the day we were driving through an actual snowstorm, the first of the year for me. After a couple hours, we were in the clear, and the skies were beautiful. After sound check at the North Star bar on 27th and Poplar, I headed to my friend Charlie's bar, called Doc Watson's.
I got a ride there from the promoter, who gave me the lowdown on Phlily bands right now. He mentioned MAN MAN, which i've heard a lot about, and the band ILLINOISE. Er something like that. Charlie treated me to a DELICIOUS philly cheese steak and a beer, and showed me his awesome place. i went to high school with Charlie, and he has really done well for himself here in Philly. The place is three floors, with a nice music venue and a room for private parties here. He lives in a loft on the 4th floor, so he basically wakes up and works every day of the week. I commend the man for his work - it's a great place. Check it out if you're in Philly.
Our set at the North Star was at midnight, a fact which didn't help Shara's condition. We rallied, however, to a small but lively (too lively, perhaps), and overcame a pretty wicked flaw in the bar's sound system. The place itself was a little weird, too. When i got there initially, they were playing "Braveheart" with subtitles on mute, and when i left, the movie was "A Night at The Museum." We got done around 1:20, finished our load out at about 2:10, and arrived at our hotel at around 2:40. Foolishly, Brian and I stayed up a while watching crap tv and breaking down the evening, finally calling it a night at around 4:30am. Luckily, our van call was 1:00pm the next day for the drive to Arlington, VA.
I ended up taking the last leg of the drive, which meant I had to master the friday night beltway NIGHTMARE. The I-395 of the DC area is notorious for its friday evening traffic, and I nearly lost my mind getting to the venue. Somehow, we arrived only 30 minutes late for load-in, and soon thereafter had a low-key sound check for the 10:30 show. Tomorrow I will be New York, and I can't wait to come home!
Last night's show in Columbus was one of the best we've played in a while as a three piece unit. Something was just plain right about the whole experience from the very beginning. Pulling up to the veune, I expected an auditorium, or some seated and sterile lecture hall type place. But, after I followed the mysterious and winding path of orange arrows on the linoleum floor inside the Wexner Center for the performing arts, I came to a gem of a place. All black, the theatre was perfect for rocking. The sound system sounded stellar from the very get go, and the crew was beyond professional in helping us with our load-in.
At the very end of our second song, however, I had a minor S.N.A.F.U. It was a similar situation to what I had to deal with during our show in Koln, Germany, in February, (check the blog....) where I broke an important string on my bass during a cover of the Led Zeppelin song "No Quarter" . This time, I severed my bass strap, leaving me flailing and helpless with my bass hanging down by my feet. Luckily enough, Shara had brought a "just-in-case" extra strap, and I was able to recover without having to pull up a chair and play the rest of the rest of the show on my silly ass.
The rest of the set went swimmingly, and we had a great time. After load-out, we hit up a Taco Bell near our hotel and celebrated our victory of rock. The night had been somehow special, beyond the usual and expected 'job well done' type of vibe. There are times in this MBD trio unit where excellent somehow seems boring, which is a funny thing to think about - we've been playing so dang well for so dang long that spectacular has become boring! i'm just being silly, right now, but i honestly believe that the songs Shara has put together are just NEXT LEVEL, plain and simple.
Enough tooting of our own horn here....onto the blog at hand. Brian and I went to sleep watching a program about the theory of intelligent design, and somehow that led to my having dreams about watching an extremely intense little league game. I have no idea what the thread between those two concepts might be, but that's ok. Our van call was at a leisurely 11:30, affording another decent night's sleep. Brian took the primary driving duties for our trip to Pittsburgh, which meant I could hang in the back seat for the entirety of the drive. Shara slept for most of the ride in an attempt to combat a sneaking sickness and a serious case of tour fatigue, while I sat in the back listening to the rough "lemming tracks" in an attempt to mine some new ideas for the album. I also attempted (unsuccessfully) to start a new season on my new NBA video game. Lebron James is apparently just as good in the virtual world as he is in reality. Go figure.
For the record, I love the city of Pittsburgh. This was my first time here, and I have to say that I had reservations about the city at first. It looked a little flat and monochrome upon first glance, but Pittsburgh showed its true colors as the day wore on. Our venue for the day was the Andy Warhol museum, a beautiful bastion of art. After our load-in, I had a sandwich and walked around the place, snapping a handful of photos along the way. Some of the exhibits blew my mind; some were boring. There's something about Andy Warhol that seems like cheating to me. Although, the exhibits were decorated with a handful of quotes from the man, including my favorite, "Buying is more American than thinking....." I like that one. That's ironic to me in a time when you, as an artist, have to do artistic backflips to get anyone to put out for a whole album. Shara brought this concept up in Montreal and phrased it as an issue of "entitlement", meaning audiences in the internet age feel entitled to music without having to pay a cent for it. Just take for example Radiohead's last album: they made it availabe on the internet for OPTIONAL purchase. You could pay nothing, or pay $100, depending on how much you thought the album was worth. As it turns out, about 60% of the people who downloaded the album paid NOTHING for it. That shit ain't even right!!!! HOW ARE WE AS MUSICIANS SUPPOSED TO MAKE A LIVING WHEN THE BIGGEST BAND IN THE WORLD CAN'T EVEN GET THEIR PROPERS FROM THEIR AUDIENCE. Anyways, now i'm just ranting. sorry.
After strolling around the museum, we executed our sound check and proceeded to kill time as per usual. Brian and I went out for a drink with an old friend of his named Jared. Before I knew it, we were joined by the entire Wolfe pack, including the Wolfe patriarch, Jack, younger sister Amy, and mother Margaret. The family all jumped out to go to the outback steakhouse next to the Pirates stadium for some grub. I went back to the museum to get ready to rock.
Our green room was a spacious little art studio on the lower level, complete with silk-screen equipment, paint, and various other tools of mischief. Shara and Greg would later make use of these tools to make a totally stupid cool Justin Timberlake tote bag. Sweeeet. As for the show, it took place in a small, carpeted, somewhat weird venue. We blew up the spot.
Also worthy of note is the fact that Shara's stage banter has recently taken a turn for the massively comical. Whereas I'm more or less used to hearing her "valley girl" alter ego, or her "southern gentlewoman" twang, our audiences are hearing it for the first time. I have had trouble recently holding off my chuckles while on stage because of it.
After the show, Brian went out for drinks with some friends from the old days, and I headed to the hotel with Shara and James. As I mentioned yesterday, this was our fulcrum show: 6 down, 6 to go. New York is soon approaching, and I can't wait to play at home with the full lineup. Until next time blahdy blah blah.
Last night was Louisville, Kentucky, also known as the home of fried chicken, bourbon, and baseball bats. We arrived at around 4:00, after a healthy 7 hour drive which began at 8am in beautiful Chicago. The venue was an art gallery/church/hip venue, with a great hard-wood floor stage and a wide, couch-filled room, perfect for hanging loose and watching some music. I think the place even had a children's day care center, which became evident during dinner as we heard the piercing cries of a baby down the hall. We had a proper spread of catered food, a nice bottle of wine, some bass ale, and a fair amount of peace and quiet. The venue also offered to record the show, which is sometimes fun and sometimes a bit painful. I'll put up the link once it's on the net.
By the time Tim Fite started his set, there was a solid 80-100 people in the audience, all of them fascinated with his set. I had a spot of loneliness before playing, a feeling that inevitably accompanies tour fatigue and a lack of proper sleep. To battle this, I called my mom, I called my lady, and I called my good friend Rishi to chat for a bit. This is a short tour, but it still means time away from the life I'm used to living. I miss my friends when I'm out here. I miss sleeping in the same bed every night. I miss my other bands, too.
We played very well in Louisville. The place was pretty packed, and since the stage was no more than a foot high, the people in the front were about 4 feet away, smiliing and listening intently. The tough thing about last night's show was that the floor was extremely slick, a fact which nearly put me on my ass on a hanful of occassions. I couldn't wait to play the tune "freak out", because I planned on running around and sliding to and fro like an ice skater. It was pretty fun. After the show, we packed up quickly and headed back to the hotel, which happened to be the same hotel we had stayed in on our stop here with the Decemberists. Brian and I ordered a pizza and debriefed until about 2.
Luckily, we had a late van call in the morning, which meant a healthy and welcomed dose of sleeping in. I hadn't done any of the driving from Chicago to Louisville, so I volunteered my driving services as we left the city. Even with our GPS unit, Gertrude, I had a lot of trouble actually getting out of the city. I was rockin and rollin once we got on the highway, though, and ended up pushing on through all the way to Columbus. The Columbus gig is on the campus of the famous Ohio State University, in the Wexner center for performing arts. The venue is absolutely gorgeous, with perfect sound, professional stagehands, and an overall super vibe. The stage has a great feng shui to it, and our sound check was probably one of the better checks we've had over the past year. I guess this venue benefits greatly from the funding enjoyed by such a large university, and it really shows.
Tonight's set is later than usual, as we go on around 10:15. This means we have had a lot of time to kill. It's now 8:25, and for the past 2 hours my activities have included a vigorous bit of roller-chair nascar, some night frisbee, and a shave. I even visited a music store down the street and bought myself a little black mandolin for the super-duper low price of $69.95, marked down from $134. WHAT A DEAL, NO? If only deals like that were possible in NY, I would be a much happier person (and i would have way more toys to play with.) It's a beautiful little instrument, and it will give me a nice little project for the Winter time. Tomorrow we head to Pittsburgh for a show at the Andy Warhol museum. Pittsburgh is more or less home turf for B-dub, seeing as he grew up an hour and a half away in Clarksburg, West Virginia. This is good news, because the entire Wolfe pack will be in full effect.
Tonight marks the half-way point of our "11 fingered-tailor" tour, a fact which is bittersweet for me. The fact that after tonight we will have 6 shows left is strange, because that feels simultaneously like an eternity and nothing at all. Saturday will be our hometown show in NYC, at the Blender Theatre at Grammercy. I couldn't be more excited for that show, because it will mark the first time since Nov 5 of last year that the full MBD lineup will be playing together. It will be something to behold, and I'd love to see some friends there. Until next time, I'm signing off.
I'm a huge fan of Chicago. Every time I come here I feel like staying for a week, but I can never manage it. My first visit to Chicago came in the summer of 2002, just after I had graduated from high school. I was working as the lowest rung on the crew ladder for Linda Rondstadt (sp?), who ended up being a total diva B-I-T-C-H. It was a great experience for me, because i got to meet some great people, travel the country, and get some experience on the whole touring phenomenon. I remember having a day off, during which I had a chance to walk around quite a bit.
The second time I passed through Chicago was during my cross-country solo drive. I only took 5 days to make it from LA to NYC in my blue volvo, listening to the entirety of the Iliad on audio tape and stopping once every 4 hours to take some pictures. The first night I made it all the way past Salt Lake, followed by stops in Lincoln Nebraska, and then onto Chicago. I treated myself to a nice hotel room that night, and even went to see some blues downtown. I remember getting a bit tossed at the bar, taking a cab to the hotel, and chatting with the funny cab driver the whole way. I don't remember what was funny about him, but I do remember finding it amusing.
We played Chicago on the tour with the Decemberists in April, and had a lot of fun as well. When we arrived at the Lakeshore Auditorium, we had a mini dance party by the dumpsters behind the venue, jamming out to Frank Sinatra's smokin' oldie "My Kind of town." (MYYYYY kind of town chicaaagooo)......This visit to chi town was special for me, though, because my brother Ian was able to come. He moved out here with his family in the early part of the Summer, and it's the first time I've seen him in his new city. He came to meet us during sound check, and afterwards we had a nice bro-bro dinner at the chicken hut across the street. It was literally called "chicken hut". The oddest thing about dinner was that at one point i looked over my brother's shoulder to see one of the employees of the hut reading a gay porno mag on his break. I mean, I guess that's ok...but seriously? PORN AT WORK???? Ian explained to me that we were technically in boytown of chicago - the equivalent of LA's West Hollywood or NY's Chelsea - so wasn't as random as I had first thought. After dinner we ate some ice cream and drank some hot apple cider, talking all the while about life, love, family, and careers.
The venue itself must have at one point been a movie theatre (perhaps a gay porno theatre?), judging by the vibe of it, with a sloped floor and the 3 sections of red seats. Tim Fite rocked his thing around 9, and even managed to get everyone out of their seats and up to the front of the stage. I think the Lakeshore Auditorium is primarily a venue for comedy acts, and the audience certainly got their laughs in during Tim's set. Every time I watch Tim and his brother on stage I get a huge smile from ear to ear.
Our set started at about 10:05, but we soon ran into some serious technical issues with Shara's line 6 unit, forcing Shara to scramble for about 5 minutes in order to figure out a contingency. The crowd was extremely respectful and forgiving of our minor disaster, and seemed to find Shara's stalling banter incredibly charming. After the show we drank some of our free whiskey and tried to laugh off the night's shortcomings. Of course, we still rocked the f*ing house, so it's no biggie. That's how we roll.
Back at the hotel, Brian and I ordered burgers at 1:40am and stayed up watching Ricochet for a good hour. The best line in the movie is when my pops says to Jesse the "Body" Ventura, "FUCK YOU CREAMCAKE" just before smashing his face into the sink. Way to go Dad. I also realized that he has the best bad guy name of any bad guy ever: Earl Talbot Blake. Of course, there's Eric Qualen, too.....but that's a whole nother story. (nother?)
We had to leave Chi town the next morning at 8am for our drive to Louisville, which we are now about 40 minutes from finishing. We stopped in Indianapolis for lunch with Mike Kaufman, the brains of MBD's label, Asthmatic Kitty. We talked SNL fake commercials, new music stuff, and mused on some heavy business topics. Good times were had by all, and I will say that Mike has a couple of the cutest kids in the known universe.
Tonight, I hope to drink some bourbon, for Louisville is the bourbon capital of the world. I can't wait.
In principal, a city's name does not require any relation to its actual physical properties. City names are much more arbitrary than that, by and large. For example, Los Angeles has no real angels flying around lost and with a home; Buffalo certainly is NOT where the buffalo roamabound, nor does Great Falls Montana have any real falls anywhere in sight. But in the case of Grand Rapids Michigan, I was a little disappointed with the lack of rushing river water. Where were these famed Grand Rapids?
When we arrived in town after our 7 hour sojourn from the great north, I couldn't really get a bead on the vibe of the city. It's a university town, for one, which usually means lots of students roaming the streets and misbehaving. But there were no students to be found, with the one exception being the stage hands and interns at our venue. The venue itself was quaint, with rows upon rows of theatre seating and a large wooden stage, complete with a grey-blue curtain and some circus style lights in the front. The name of the place was the "Ladies Literary Club," and was founded in the first half of the 20th century as a place for ladies young and old to come engage each other in book banter and crumpet eating. I don't think it's still used for this same purpose, being somewhat of an esoteric and dusty enterprise in the internet age. The room itself sounded fantastic, with a good amount of natural reverb and sonic balance. I watched Shara and Brian jam on some Sonic Youth-ian noise from the back of the auditorium, taking it all in, and imagining a little circle of 1950's housewives jawing on about JD Salinger and Edith Wharton and so on. A somewhat small bummer was the fact that the venue was a "dry" venue, meaning no alcohol would be available on the premises. No biggie. I guess this was because of the venue's affiliation to the Christian college around the way.
We took a stroll down the street after sound check to find some food, Tim Fite and Greg Fite in tow, and stumbled upon a charming little Pub/Restaurant near the venue. I had a mediocre Tuna melt, Brian destroyed a garden burger, and we were ready to rock. I boldy took it upon myself to find a little hooch in this sleepy town, jogging for a good mile and a half before coming to "Martha's Vineyard". I got a little whiskey for Brian and myself, and headed back to the venue to catch Tim Fite's set.
With the auditorium setting, Tim Fite's act was in full swing. He delivered his jams with the fervor and madness of a pentecostal preacher making the rounds in the deep south God circuit The audience watched, half-terrified, half wildly-amused. After a bit I got my threads on and got ready to roll. Since we're on the "11-fingered tailor" tour, we get to dress to the 9s every night, and it feels like every night is my senior prom. It's the bomb.
After our set, we had the help of a team of students from Calvin College, the chrisitian school right down the way. We've been used to the fat, moustached, cigarette-smoking union stage hands over the past year, mostly because of our opening slot with the Decemberists, so this was a real departure. It was a little funny watching them tremble under the weight of our gratuitously heavy gear, but we appreciated the help nonetheless. Once load out was finished, Brian and I got to throw around our glow-in-the-dark frisbee on the quiet street in front of the venue while James finished up with the merch sales. All in all, the show went off without a hitch as per usual.
We stayed the night with friends of our close MBD family member, David Michael Stith, whose artwork has graced our T-shirts and is featured on "bring me the workhorse." Ken and Suzanne, whose wonderful house provided a welcomed feeling of comfort and care, were great hosts, even busting out some amazing artichoke dip and red wine. We talked late into the night about interesting things, and finally called it an evening around 2:30. Brian and I slept on two comfy couches and awakened in the morning to the smells of home made quiche (sp?) and coffee.
As a digression, I must say that Michigan has the best apples in the UNIVERSE. I had 3 last night from our dressing room, and one this morning, and I can without equivocation that Michigan apples are a superlative fruit. The first bite is crisp and juicy and succulent, and the rest is just as good. Seriously, I love a good apple, and for that reason Michigan is at the top of my fruit-bearing states list, just ahead of Florida, for its oranges and orange juice, and Montana, for its huckleberries. Another Michigan observation is that people in Michigan drive like total fucking lunatics. It's amazing anyone arrives anywhere alive.
We are now on the road heading to Chicago, where we will play the Lakeshore Auditorium tonight. I'm excited for Chi town because I will get to see my Brother Ian, who just moved there this summer with his wife Rachel and daughter Ava. She's the cutest. And what's more, Ava will soon be a big sister!! I'm going to be an uncle twice over!! yay!! I digress. This should be a fun show, and I will cross my fingers for some interesting things to write about tomorrow.
alas!!! I'm back on the road. It's been awhile, but I'm glad to be cruising along again with my good friends in MBD across the great north eastern corner of the continent. We set out officially on wednesday around noon, rendezvousing at Brian's rehearsal space in Williamsburg to load up our new steed with gear. The monday preceding our departure was our main rehearsal, complete with the OSSO string quartet, playing in beautiful colors and shapes.
Over the past month I've had the great pleasure of recording some tracks with OSSO for the forthcoming My Brightest Album, "1,000 Shark's Teeth." It should be a FINE piece of work. Also in the recent weeks of fall, I and my co-conspirator Michael Resnick got the chance to record the foundations of our LEMMING album. Should be ready in late spring. We tried to keep it in the MBD family a bit, as we laid down the tracks in the same diggs as "bring me the workhorse," a beautiful little nook on Santa Monica Blvd; we even used the same engineer in Joel Shearer, whose band PEDESTRIAN opened up for MBD on a past Fall tour. They rule, and so does Joel. Check PEDESTRIAN out backing shara up! PRO.
But back to the subject at hand: CANADA. After the 7 hour drive up from NYC on Wednesday, we got into our hotel in downtown Montreal at around midnight. The hotel was a nice Hyatt, and I couldn't have been happier pulling into the valet lot after finishing the last leg of the day's drive myself. We were underway. After a comfortable rest, Brian and I got up at a leisurely 10:30, and trolled around for breakfast. During our perambulation, I discovered a few funny things about Montreal. For one, if you ask a person from Montreal a question in English, they'll give you two answers - One in french, one in English. Because most Montreal people are bilingual, they tend to do it out of habit. If you ask the price of a small coffee, the answer will likely be, "Huit Cinquante Eight Fifty." This is a bit of an annoyance, but it also sort of makes me feel like an imbecile for speaking only one tongue fluently. The other thing I've been able to observe about the city is that its layout could not possibly be more logical and intuitive. I got around a bit as I searched far and wide to find a charger for my computer, since i so stupidly neglected to bring my own. I even got to hijack our van for a moment to find an appropriate apple retailer. I finally found the "micro boutique" on Parc Avenue (yes, "parc"), which even had sort of mock-up Canadian "Genius Bar" people. They wore black shirts, drank lattes in the store, and spoke in tones of mild condescension. Of course, I was in the store for about two minutes too long on account of having to listen to two answers to every one question I posed.
The name of the first venue was La Salla Rossa, and proved as good a place as any to commence our "11 fingered tailor tour." Tim Fite, our opener, went on around 9, treating the seemingly tame Montrealean crowd to a performance worthy of a circus tent or an Outcast show. Before they knew it, Tim had them up out of their seats and partying to his magical brand of ironic crunk/country/r&b/circus shenanigans, complete with cartoon projection and sing alongs. The dude is a magician. Check him out. The stage set up is basically Tim, his brother Greg on sampler and backup vocals (and madness), and projected video of an alter-ego Tim playing lead guitar on the projector. The music never stops, and the vibe goes from straight up hardcore hip-hop politique to barn-burning sing alongs. Come to think of it, I can't even really describe it in a way that does the performance justice. Let's just say it's a joy to watch and hear.
Montreal was good to us. The next morning, we awoke early for our trek across the eastern section of Canada, chatting about consumerism in music, Prince, and Canadians. Most of the trip was a little gloomy on account of the rain, and we arrived in Toronto at about 4:30. It's a beautiful city that seems almost futuristic in design, and has a pretty little tower in the middle of downtown which resembles Seattle's space needle. James' quote on the city was, "It's like New York, but cleaner!" That's a pretty good description, actually.
The venue for the evening was the Drake hotel, a hip little venue with free wi-fi and an amazing 60's photo booth.We would have our way with the photo booth later on in the evening. For dinner, Brian and James and I ate at a little Vietnamese place down the street called Saigon Grill, where the waitress succeeded in upselling James on ordering 2 orders of spring rolls, and a large bowl of noodle soup which could have fed a family of six. The restaurant also had a large flat screen TV on the wall which seemed to transfix James and Brian, their eyes fused on the Jeopardy tournament of champions semi-finals. By coincidence, the Canadian contest --also from Toronto--came back from -$1000 to win it on the final jeopardy question. Needless to say, it was riveting.
The show we played at the Drake was GREAT. Montreal had been my first show with MBD since the Bumbershoot festival on September 4th, so i was a little overexcited for that whole show. I tend to flail around about when i get excited. This time, everything was comfortable and right. I was on the bench for MBD's last tour of duty in Europe, and our good friend Jeff Shoop (SHOOP!!) filled in for me so I could hang in NYC with my lady and my other projects for a bit. He did a great job, and has the coolest last name I've ever heard. Since then, Shara has incorporated some new material into the set ahead of the new album's release in 2008, including my new favorite jam, "Inside a boy." It rules. Here's a clip of it from the Zurich show: The drake hotel sound was great, and we were on fire as a trio. The dynamics were PERFECT, the groove was TIGHT; everything was just right. And what's more, Shara, who is always pleasantly hard-to-please, was pleased indeed. Nothing makes me happier than making my boss happy.
After a nice session of photobooth shennanigans (*pics to come*) with Tim Fight, Greg Fight, MBD, and Shara's good buddy Francine, we finished our evening out and prepared for the coming day.
So, that brings us up to date. I am now finishing this as we sit in line at the US/CANADA border waiting to get back onto US soil. Canada treated us well, and I'm happy to have had the opportunity to visit our neighbors upstairs. We had fun. Tonight, we play in Grand Rapids Michigan, and tomorrow we will be onto Chicago. I can't even begin to imagine how badly my back is going to hurt when this 11 fingered tailor tour is over. Even though we're in trio form, MBD does pack a lot of gear. We do NOT travel light. Anyways, there will be more to come, including some pics from our stay in Canada. Hope everyone is doing well. eh?
Yesterday was a tough one. Shara woke up feeling like pooop, and had evidently lost the battle to escape the grips of a wicked flu. As I opened the blinds at around noon, the sky was grey, and it was raining hard and sideways. Ick. As we got down the lobby to rendezvous with Shara and James, Shara was huddled in her hoodie, looking like she had seen a ghost. She had been up with a fever for much of the night; some of the medicine had made her sick to her stomach; things were not looking good. 
