MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND on the road.

MBD oh 10'

2010-06-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

MBD in oh10'

2010-06-25T18:51:00.000-07:00

KNOXVILLE, SYDNEY

2010-06-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

We've done 2 high profile shows since the bowery show in january. Both of which have been great fun. Here are some pics from the Big Ears festival in Knoxville, TN, and the Vivid festival in Sydney AUS.

ENJOY

Roaming. In Rome.

2009-12-09T16:29:00.001-08:00

We woke up late after a hard day's work yesterday and set out to burn this town down. And, of course, when I say burn it down, I mean check out all of the popular tourist haunts. And by all, of course, I mean the coliseum. It's the bomb. We ate some lunch, we snapped some selfies, we made some friends, and we watched Ninja Asssasssins in Italian.

**For the record, you're really not missing that much by way of dialogue when you see a movie called Ninja Asssasssins in a foreign language.**

Shara and James are on to Paris for a solo show tonight, so Brian and I have held down the Roman fortress in the mean time. Tomorrow will ferry us on to our next destination, Athens, the site of recent riots and the cradle of "western" civilization (irony). How the mighty have fallen.

As for Rome, it is indeed something special. But the people really have to learn to pick up the dog shit. Seriously. It's obnoxious. We Americans may be loud, presumptuous, obnoxious, and acutely arrogant, but at least we know how to keep operate a plastic bag. Also, what the fuck is with the graffiti? Seriously, it's not that cool. We're not in the South Bronx circa 1979, and there can be no argument that graffiti is improving the visual aesthetic of this historic city. Having just finished my honeymoon in Athens, we will be seeing plenty more pointless tagging in the days to come.

We had a simple, blissful day today, and we both managed to avoid stepping in a turd. Funny looks aside, I really do love being a TOURist.

NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACENECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACENECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE NECK FACE

Coimbra, Espinoa

2009-12-09T04:40:00.000-08:00

On to the next, on the next! It’s been a couple days since my last post, so I’ll give the old “reader’s digest condensed” version. We arrived in Coimbra in the afternoon after a short two hour trip north from Lisbon, settled into the comfort inn, and made our way over to the venue. The city itself is small, but our soundman Nelson (aka Nelly aka Son) told me that it’s the most educated place in Portugal given its status as a primary school town. Apparently Coimbra is home to the oldest university in Europe, a fact which I can neither believe nor confirm. But I guess we’ll take his word for it.

Nelson is an interesting character. He speaks great English, has a beaming smile, and tells some of the filthiest jokes I’ve had the pleasure of hearing. Something about a joke being translated into a secondary language is hilarious; the punchline always needs a little help from the body language and gesticulation of the teller. One of them involved Sean Connery and his famous prowess in the sack, but it’s just barely over the line enough to validate its omission from my blog (my Grandma won’t find it very funny).

After sound check we ate a MASSIVE lunch of grilled meat, including steak, pork chops, blood sausage and some of the most goddamn delicious chorizo I’ve ever tasted. The show was a little tough on account of some technical difficulties, but we powered through.

The next day brought us even further North to the seaside city of Espinho, where our venue was the performance space of the Espinho Academy of Music. Playing music for an audience full of music students requires a top-notch effort, and that’s pretty much exactly what we put out.

Before the show, we recorded a little stripped-down live performance of Apples and Gentlest Gentlemen for some Portugese Indie music blog in the foyer of the auditorium which should turn out pretty cool. The guys seemed pretty p r o and filmed using a mini-steadycam rig. Shanda and Nelson took us for lunch afterward in a restaurant with an open-fire oven, and we ate some true authentic Portugese food. Only downside was my sweater now smells like a campfire.

The show itself was the best so far by far, as evidenced by the fact that we played three encores, each one receiving a standing O. I think last night was the most connected I personally have ever felt to an audience, probably because of how close the seats were to the stage. We finished up, packed our gear, and said goodbye to Nelson and the rest of the crew, who would be heading back to Lisbon directly.

Today’s trip puts us back in Lisbon for the night before our flight to Italy tomorrow. By chance, our friend and fellow MBD member Marla will be in the city tonight, so we are on our way to meet up for some lunch. Our next show will be in Rome, followed by Athens, and then home sweet home on December 12th. More to come soon.

2009-12-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

Lisbon day off.

Portugal...my kind of "gal"

2009-12-03T16:19:00.000-08:00

Wow. What a day. What a day and what a night. I guess at this point I'm writing about yesterday, but it's all sort of blended together into one present tense memory of an amazing city called Lisbon. There's a certain familiarity and warmth to this city - and this country - that resembles the essence of a exuberant golden retriever. I'm a dog person, so I mean this in the most positive possible way. This whole place sort of wags its tail all the time.

Part (or most) of the reason I'm enjoying this place so much is because of the fact that I'm having a blast with my peeps in MBD. I haven't played a show with Bdub and Shara in almost a year and a half, and I have to say that it kind of had the bicycle effect feeling - we certainly didn't fall on our faces. With only a couple of rehearsals, we seem to have achieved mid-tour form rather easily. Our set last night at the gorgeous Theatro Sao Luiz (I don't know how to make the squiggly accents on blogger) included songs we haven't played since our tour opening for the Decemberists in 07', which now feels like EONS ago. The show felt like a million bucks, and Shara's pipes were a-blowin' last night. Like, furreal. Many of you know Shara has been an honorary Decemberist for the past year, KILLING tracks on "Hazards of Love", and touring the country NAY the globe. But it is nice to see her straight fronting again. Big ups to jenny john colin funk marcel rick cuddles natequizzle wherever they may be.

Theatro Sao Luiz actually reminded me of some of the venues from that tour, like the Tennesse theatre in Knoxville, or the Alabama Theatre in Birmingham. Sao Luiz had a magical, ornate vibe, drenched in history in spite of a renovation 7 years back. The acoustics were fantastic, and we took full advantage. This was the first MBD throwdown in Portugal, and it felt like the people dug.

After the show, we retired to the "oh"tel with our bottle of Jaymo to discuss the decay of Western society and the melting of the arctic ice shelf. Kind of reminded me of our inconvenient truth convo in Glasgow so many moons ago.

As I mentioned yesterday, I've gained a wife, Bdub's gained a son, and Shara and James have become homeowners (D-troit!) since last we rocked the house. I guess these facts make me further realize how much I adore these people.

I woke up at about 10:30 and strolled about snapping way too many photos and sipping the best cafe con leche (lesh???) I've ever had. The day off afforded us all the opportunity to truly see Lisbon in its entirety, and provided a pretty good number of laughs as well. I mean, the night literally ended with watching animal bloopers on Nuno's couch.

Yeah, that just happened.

Needless to say, today was fun, and last night was great. We saw a city with a true place in history, and got to be true tourists in the purest sense of the word. We've had a chance to eat some beautiful food, listen to some gorgeous Fado (pronounced Fadu), and seen our beloved Nuno in his true element. Day off pictures on the way.

Muito Muito Muito

2009-12-03T04:00:00.001-08:00

these are pictures.

Portugal. Back in the Saddle.

2009-12-01T02:44:00.000-08:00

So, Portugal. Nice to meet you. Heard a lot about your beaches, handsome women, funny accents, and international soccer standouts.

The trip out wasn't quite as easy as Bdub and i had hoped it would be, what with the bus accident in the holland tunnel and the generally incompetent Newark airport staff on hand to make things interesting. Jersey obstacles aside, we finally made it onto the plane and settled in for our 6 hour hop across the pond. Even though it's been over a year since my last tour of duty with MBD, the whole process feels familiar at this point. I couldn't be happier.

A lot has happened in the past year for me. I got married, I turned the corner on my mid-twenties, I taught myself how to cook, and my Mom says I've "really grown up". I don't know about that last one, but the other elements are rather exciting. Especially marriage. Also, the cooking. The mid-twenties thing feels a little more uncomfortable in a vaguely existential way. Questions like "how do i make money?" and "why is beer so expensive?" and "who is Myley Cyrus?" and "do I look fat in this spandex workout suit?" abound (oops). But even more exciting and titillating are the prospects of my bands back in the NYC, ArpLine and Inlets. We will be releasing albums in the front half of 2010 - or as i like to call it OH TEN!!!! - and most likely logging some serious hours on the proverbial road. Needless to say, I will do my best do document anything and everything worth a glance.

Until then, our stops will be 2 more in Portugal, Italy, and finally in Athens. Should be a grand old time.

I left my heart in San Fransisco.

2008-05-27T01:08:00.000-07:00

Our friday and saturday shows took place in the beautiful mid-section of sunny california, where we enjoyed nice weather, nice people, and a healthy dose of rocking. Since our sets were longer than the 45 minute jams of the hotel cafe in LA, these shows took on a different character. We got to be a little more patient with our transitions, our pacing, and everything in between.

The friday show happened at the montalvo arts center in Saratoga, CA, where we arrived after about a 5 hour trek from the southland. Nestled in the forest and accessed only by a winding and wandering road about 30 minutes from San Jose proper, Montalvo is a strange place with a vibe somehow reminiscent (sp?) of some kind of cult. As we drove up, we expected to see people dressed in all white with shaved heads and strange beads around their necks, but to our disappointment found only normal, lucid, and otherwise uncompromised humans. Another strange factoid about Montalvo is that I actually came here in 2002 while on tour with Linda Ronstadt, although my responsibilities on that tour were much different. Instead of being a musician on that tour, I was essentially the lowest rung on the crew ladder, working as an assistant to the monitor engineer. All i remember from that show was being lonely, homesick, and sick to death of hearing the song "blue bayou". yeeesh......

The first person we met at the venue was Ray, the stage manager. He had white hair and a soft face, and later on the evening showed off his pithy sense of humor by ridiculing Brian and my ridiculous stage outfits. If i were Ray, i probably would have made fun of us too. On this tour, as opposed to other past tours, the MBD rhythm section has the dubious honor of wearing suit pants, a white shirt, black suspenders, and massive, comical bowties. In all honesty, we look like valets. Valets, or a bad version of a James Bond 007 halloween getup. I will say, however, that we do certainly make it work. Or at least I keep telling myself that. Notwithstanding our stage fashion, MBD had a wonderful show at Montalvo. The stage was wide and deep, with perfect stage sound, and had an audience of extremely attentive (eerily so) and appreciative mostly 30-50 year olds. It's always feels a little bit odd to get loud and really let loose on a crowd of people in seats. You never really know how they're relating to a song until it's over, because the interaction is much different. At rock clubs, where audiences are standing, maybe dancing, maybe bobbing their heads, it's easier to get a sense of return people. The down side of that, though, is the inevitable chatty factor, which can sometimes get in the way of the gentler, softer, and generally more delicate songs.

After the show, Brian and I hung with Chris the monitor engineer and the sound dudes for a bit, talking shop and past shows at Montalvo. I love hearing the sound crew perspective on past shows, especially when the shows are by bands I dig. The medeski, martin, & wood show of 2005 was a highlight on Chris' list of memorable Montalvo performances; i'm sure it was trip-tacular. After our load-out, we got into the van and headed to our place of rest for the night. Little did I know what was in store for us.......

Instead of the usual hum-drum hotel thing, we got to stay with Heather, a lifelong friend of Shara's, and her new husband Gary. The house was a newly renovated and beautiful place, with high ceilings, a dream kitchen, and all the amenities. But the kicker of this whole stay was talking shop with Gary, who just happened to be a 17 year veteran DJ of the local San Jose country station. I'd never met a professional radio DJ before, and I have to say that Gary blew me away. From the first words I heard him say, it all made sense. I thought to myself, "OF COOOURSE he's a radio DJ!" he had that warm, booming, curiously familiar voice that would be out of place in any other occupation other than radio. We chatted long into the night, hearing stories of interviews with country greats like Trace Adkins, Garth Brooks, and countless others. This man was a downright spokesperson for country music, and it was wonderful to hear someone so steeped in the heart of mainstream radio speak so passionately about the art. I think the quote of the night from Gary was, "there's ride a horse to save a cowboy, and then there's ride a horse to save a cowboy...." I think it had something to do with the group "big & rich", but I can't remember quite why it made sense. Gary also had two beautiful big dogs, one a german shepherd and the other a golden lab, who were both a joy to be around/play fetch with.

After Shara, James, and the rest of the house retired, Brian and I stayed up watching a national geographic channel expose on the intellect of monkeys entitled, "Who's Ape-ing who?" It was classic. After that, we wrapped it up with a little bit of "Meerkat Manor" before hitting the haaaay.

The next morning Heather made a Jimmy Dean breakfast pizza which was pretty much the most incredible and audacious breakfast I've ever eaten. It's amazing how easy it is to kill 2 hours just chatting when one of the contributors to the conversation talks for a living. Gary really did have some great stories about his 30 + year tenure in radio, including a truly unique perspective on the events of 9/11. Seeing as he is the morning DJ for the station, Gary's job was to get information to his listening public, a difficult task considering the event.

After some hugs and many thank-yous, we left the house around 3pm and headed into San Fransisco. Just for the record, i LOVE San Fran. It's a city that never ceases to impress me with its beauty. After a rather loud soundcheck, James, Brian and Shara went to dinner with a friend, and I wandered around a bit. On my time-killing perambulation, I found myself in a very familiar place. It was a little park on top of a hill overlooking the city, with rows of stereotypically SF houses lining the streets on two sides. Suddenly it all made sense: I AM STANDING IN THE PARK FROM THE FULL HOUSE OPENING SEGMENT. You know the one. Sometimes this whole touring thing is just too good to be true. ps....what's up with that weird last shot of the grown-up middle daughter ? boobs much? i heard she had a meth problem. go figure.

After a taco, I headed back to the venue to catch some of the opening band. They were great. I can't remember their name, but they were really great. Our set ended at around midnight, and unfortunately for MBD we would have about an hour to sleep once we finished our responsibilities. We had to drop off the gear, drop off the van, settle, sleep for a second, and head to the airport. OUCH. So began our 17 hour day of travel to Barcelona. LITERALLY. 17 hours.

It's weird to basically just erase a day from the calendar by sitting on a plane. But landing in Spain makes it all worth it. More to come soon.

LA is fun?

2008-05-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

the answer: yes. After a very early flight out of JFK on monday morning, MBD arrived on the ground in Los Angeles at about 10:45 pacific standard time. For me, this tour has felt like a vacation ever since the moment i stepped out of baggage claim at LAX, breathing in the warm, polluted, LA air. instead of our usual 15-20 items of luggage, including a variety of instruments and personal effects, our final tally came to about to a manageable 12 items. Not too shabby, even with the new checked baggage taxes American Airlines have been so kind to require.

LA always sort of feels like home to me. It's something about the sunlight, the smell, and the constant motion of the city flying by outside your car window. After renting the van and the subsequent patch of 405 traffic, we arrived not at another bland, sterile hotel, but instead at the place i grew up. Waiting for us there was my mom, armed to the teeth with chocolate chip cookies, blueberry scones, and of course, love (aaw). My mother is at her happiest when she's entertaining guests. She whips around the house, preparing sandwiches, pouring coffee, and making small talk with anyone looking to chat. Sometimes it's possible for certain guests to overstay their welcome, but we could only stay about 4 days, 2 of them being show days.

After our little welcome session, mom left for a lecture at UCLA, and we enjoyed a full-on veg session. We all joked that this didn't really "feel like tour", on account of all the free food, comfortable furniture, and complete lack of stress we were enjoying. I had lunch with my good friend Rishi at our old haunt, Sak's, eating some deliciously awful teriyaki. Everything about the afternoon felt familiar in a way. The two of us chatted about our lives - my new engagement, his thriving family business, and how on earth we all made it out of our teenage years alive. This conversation was a theme of my stay in LA. It felt like every old friend i saw realized (as i did) that our lives as adults are fully underway.

Shara and James did some napping, Brian met up with his best buddy Keith, and I drove around a bit. Something about driving around in LA makes a person feel like time stands still. You sit there, shielded by a canopy of plastic and glass and metal, wondering all the while how on earth the whole system functions. There are so many cars, so many people, so many different lives, and all of them stopping and going all over town at the same time. It's really a miracle that anyone comes out of it alive everyday. With new york, this same cycle happens. The only difference is that the people with two feet on concrete outnumber the cars about 10 to 1 at any one point of the day (or something like that?)

I got home at around 7 to enjoy a nice home-cooked meal with Shara, James, and my mom. I excused myself after stuffing my face to catch the end of the celts-pistons game at my good friend max's house. Max lives in NYC nowadays, as does almost every single member of my maniacal cadre from high school. A lot of these friends, including my buds Sam b, Adam k, David r, Scott K, and countless others, left LA after returning home after college. They all seemed to reason that LA seemed to familiar, too "easy" after college; they came to NYC to "suffer a little", as Sam puts it. Surprisingly, those of my friends who have not yet spent time in the big apple, have echoed the same sentiments about the LA lifestyle. Ironically, I visit LA from NYC and it just makes me want to come home. NYC can beat you down and make you feel insignificant, but it seems that a fault of living in LA is that it's just too easy to be comfortable with the everyday. I hung at Max's into the night, enjoying laughs and some memories with good friends. Tuesday would be a show day.

The hotel cafe is located on cahuenga blvd in the heart of old-school hollywood. It's stage is small, quaint, and not too high off the ground, with a capacity of about 120. The theme is dark, cavernous, and extremely mellow, with candles on tables and bars in the front and back. After a wicked opening set by PEDESTRIAN, we took the stage at about 9:15. Because of the size of the stage, the lack of a proper sound check, and a boatfull of new material, our setup was a little tense. Beads of sweat ran down from Brian's sweet hairdo and dampened his dress shirt; my hands shook as I set up my pedals; Shara fussed with her tone. The new variable in the trio lineup is a roland SPDS drum pad/sampler, which provides a good amount of ambient sound and overall texture to the new stuff. For Brian, however, who already has by far the most intensive pre-show setup ritual, it is booth a pleasure and a source of anxiey at this point.

For all the frenetic worry of this first show, we got through all the songs without anyone getting hurt. I think we even did a pretty darn good job. In attendance were about 15 of my friends, some of them shouting out encouragements such, "YEAH NAAATE!!" or "SIIIITOOOOOO". After the show, I had some drinks with max braverman, another bud from the days of yore (sp?)

The next night at the hotel cafe was a much more comfortable show, and Zack from Pedestrian actually came up and played some piano with us on one of the "bring me the workhorse" singles, "golden star".

Afterwards, i met up with my friend sam feld and her new man at a bar in silverlake, where i got to witness firsthand the LA equivalent of the "hipster" style. I saw a lot of torn t-shirts, tight jeans, non-matching neon outerwear, and ugly 80's sneakers. hmmmmm..... Sam is one of my LA friends who can successfully convince me that LA has fun, happening, and worthwhile options for an evening drink.

Thursday was a day of adventure. I woke up and tried to watch the previous night's laker game, only to find out that the 4th quarter did not record. For those of you who didn't watch/didn't care, it was apparently an AMAZING 4th quarter. Kobe really made it happen. After drying my tears, I embarked on a 3 hour journey to Alhambra in order to eat the famous "TRIUMPHAL PALACE" dim sum. Flanked by friends Sam Shpall, and Ayall "Frog" Haggai, we ate the caloric equivalent of a thanksgiving meal. We arrived just in time, too, getting the last orders of the day before the restaurant closed. Frog is a passionate, passionate eater, and provided an amazing soundtrack to the meal. "WE JUST DOOMINATED THAT MEAL. DOMINATED." I've never dominated food before, but they say there's a first time for everything.

The evening's activities included a visit to my FAVORITE place in the world, "the apple pan", and a vigorous, if not hotly contested poker match. In the end, it came down to a heads up battle between myself and Max B(raverman). I came out on top, winning with a pair of queens on the river to beat max's 10s. I turned my 10 dollars of leftover per diem into 100, and i went home happy!

As I finish this blog, i'm in the dressing room of the "independent" in San Fransisco. I'm a couple days behind, but will be posting more tomorrow. thanks for reading. nate

philadelphia (the state, not the movie)

2007-11-16T17:26:00.000-08:00

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!

more andy warhol pics

2007-11-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

yay! art.

OSU, Pittsburgh

2007-11-14T22:52:00.001-08:00

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.

LOUISVILLE aka LOOAHVULL

2007-11-13T17:02:00.000-08:00

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.

mo pics.

2007-11-13T15:05:00.000-08:00

yay!

some mo pics

2007-11-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

check it. day 5 er something.

Chicago (my kind of town)

2007-11-12T11:51:00.001-08:00

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.

NOT SO GRAND RAPIDS

2007-11-11T08:08:00.000-08:00

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.

OOOOH, CANADA......eh?

2007-11-09T17:28:00.000-08:00

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?

mo (x2)

2007-08-22T05:56:00.001-07:00

holla back.

A HARD WEEK'S WORK (for real)

2007-08-22T05:02:00.000-07:00

Ok. We played on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday in Belgium, Holland, and Wales. From my experiences with these recent Summer festivals, including the Summercase and Resfest sets in Spain and Brazil, I've learned that you can observe a lot about a certain culture or people just from watching them enjoy themselves. Each festival we've played this Summer has been a new perspective on human beings as a species. That might sound a little over-analytical, but I don't think people watching has ever been more fun for me.

Consider yourself a foreigner for a moment, walking around the streets of New York. Your place of origin doesn't really matter, I'm just talking about "foreign," meaning "not from here." The simple act of putting one foot in front of the other in the "city that never sleeps" more than likely is enough evidence for you to make a few sweeping and general judgements about who New Yorkers are as a people. New Yorkers walk quickly, listen to i-pods, wear somewhat fashionable clothes (sometimes UNfashionable), and seem to function on a pronounced level of solipsism. In other words, New Yorkers in transit are all about the big number 1: the only unity to the city of New York during the work day is that everyone is miserable and everyone is on their own way to something somewhere. Every major city in the US I've had the chance to visit has its stereotypes, all of them different, but the umbrella fact is that whether you're in New York, LA, Kansas City, Seattle, or Kalispell Montana, you probably consider yourself "american."

Now, I'm no expert in geography, but I figure the country of Belgium is probably about as big as Pennsylvania. And all of Europe is only about a quarter the size of the continental United States. But in that area we call "europe", every single country is filled with beings who are completely and utterly different, down to the very core. Belgium was the sight of our first festival date, entitled PUKKELPOP, and was certainly the most mainstream-minded, with the headliners being Fall Out Boy (bleh) and the Editors (eh?). Even Sonic Youth and played (mmhmmm!!!), although not on the same day as our set. My buddies in Devotchka also played the day after us, which is a bummer because they're the cooooolest. You would remember their music from the soundtrack of Little Miss Sunshine, for which they received a grammy nomination for best soundtrack....props.

The actual grounds of the festival reminded me much of the Woodstock paradigm for outdoor music festivals, nestled right inside a tiny little suburban town called Hasselt, all full of bucolic scenery and down-home feeling. With that being said, my conception of a tiny little suburban town has nothing to do with the country of Belgium. Seriously, if I had to free associate the word Belgium, my buzzwords would be "waffles, chocolate, and Brussles". I couldn't name another city in Belgium for the life of me, and why would I? What relevance does Belgium have to me in my American ignorance outside of fatty breakfast-cake and those pepperidge farm cookies? And seriously, do they even have those cookies in Belgium? If you asked me a question about Belgium, I might even say something bogus like, "don't you mean Luxembourg?" Ha. I kid, I kid.

In talking about this past group of shows, I am going to try and boil my recollection and writing of them into sensory terms. For Pukkelpop, my memory of the experience will be forever encapsulated and colored by the sense of smell. For some reason, everywhere on the festival grounds had the pervasive and utterly recognizeable odor of vomit, as if the stages were downwind of a human vomit farm - hilarious when you consider the name of the festival. The quote of the day came from Brian: "COME FOR THE PUKE, STAY FOR THE POP." amazing. We arrived around 3pm, after about an hour drive from Brussels, and promptly took care of our procedural responsibilities, including getting wristbands, signing contracts, and vegging out in our cozy dressing room. Although, having not slept for more than hour or two before having to ship out to the venue, we in the Diamond were all understandably pooped. Brian even went so far as to curl up underneath our table of fruit, hummus, and assorted snackees to catch a few zzzzs. I took this time to survey the action and take in the scene.

The crowd at Pukkelpop was undeniably youthful. Full of hair dye, rebellious piercings, and band t-shirts, they sat on blankets smoking and drinking and having a merry old time, without parents, of course. I had a moment of nostalgia being there too, as I flashed back to my oh-so-cool-at-the-time trips to the K-ROQ weenie roast and acoustic christmas radio festivals in 8th and 9th grade. Shara and James and I also went to check out our stage, which seemed part Cirque De Soleil and part Greek theatre. As we walked in, the band LIARS was doing its very darndest to channel Jim Carrey's african tribal dance moves in Ace Ventura II: When Nature Calls. I kept on waiting for the singer to start talking from his ass-cheeks. He was thin, gumby-ish, uncoordinated, and not necessarily gifted with any musical talent outside of his strut and preen, but he really did capture the audience. LIARS was part noise band, part nerd-garage rock, and part total garbage. They threw out all the conventions of form, harmonic structure, and musicality, and did it in a way that I actually didn't mind. It was certainly loud, too, which is always fun.

After Liars, I went back to our dressing room to change my bass strings. Our artists liasion was a belgian woman named Suzie who was tough, straight to the point, and ended all of her sentences with this weird cadence that made it sound like everything she was saying was a question, even though she was essentially giving us orders of protocol and the do's and don'ts of the the festival. With about 2 more hours to kill before our show, I went to see the Editors from the side of the main stage. I sat next to the security guard, a hulking german guy named Frank, who had his hands full with a completely trashed group of brit-dudes who had played earlier in the day. I never found out what band they played in, but all they did the entire set was hug aggressively and intimately, shout-whispering in each other's ears over the music of their favorite band. I watched very scientifically, taking notes on the extremely well-executed show in front of me. The Editors are a band that has obviously been on top of their game for quite awhile. They played ULTRA tight, performed exuberantly, and basically just blew up the spot. er something. The singer had these weird, spastic moves, and the drummer was basically a muppet behind the skins. I had a good time watching them, even though their music is a little too far down the main stream for me, and all of their songs end the exact same way. But now i'm just being a hater. After the Editors, it was time to get our game faces on. We got dressed, loaded up one of the artist shuttles, and headed over to our stage. Our set was to start at 8:30, which was a bit unfortunate considering that Iggy and the Stooges' set was to start at the same time on the main stage, but to my surprise, the tent was more or less filled to the brim at the zero hour. At points during our set, especially between songs or during really quiet moments, i would hear a distant Iggy riff in the background. Kind of weird, but kind of cool, too. After the set, I crashed HARD. I didn't even have the energy to drink free booze! We left at 11:30 in a shuttle and headed back to the hotel. One down, two to go.

Next up was the Lowlands festival, in neighboring Holland. We met downstairs at 8am, got all of our 12 bags together (2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 symbal case, 1 snare case, 4 suitcases, 1 duffel bag, 2 computer bags) and got on the Brussels subway to get to the Brussels train station to get to the Brussels airport to fly to the Amsterdam so we could catch a train to get to a car to the festival grounds. There's a reason i didn't use a comma in that whole shabangbang. On that last train ride, we acquired one Russian tagalong named Lev, who we were nice enough to bring to the festival with us. Lev turned out to be a total ingrate and made a stink about not being able to stay for the other two days of the festivals......BOO FREGGIN HOOO LEV!! BOO FREGGIN HOOOOO......but what can ya do? My dad always said, "never look a gift horse in the mouth;" obviously Lev had never heard this expression.

Once we actually arrived, we only had 1 hour before our set. Just 1. We quickly got our show clothes on, drank some scotch, had a pep talk, and rocked. We had also added one new song to the set to fill time, and we had put it together during a nice little jam/song-learning session on the train. "Riding horses" was the name, and it has always been one of my favorite of Shara's songs. The set was fantastic, the crowd was chatty but totally enthusiastic, and we were done with our playing responsibilities by about 6pm, which meant I had the chance to shoot over to one of the other stages to see the band BATTLES. This was the band i had badly wanted to see at Puke-and-Pop the day before, but had been too exhausted to make it happen. They are a band that sounds like some sort of alien future-music, with tinges of Miles Davis on coke, Marilyn Manson on weed, and the silent film "Metropolis". That's about as good a description I can muster. If you get a chance to see them, take it. You will (probably) not be disappointed.
Their concept is essentially the interplay between looped, mechanical rhythms, and live drums and instrumentation. I think they rule. Most of the set was instrumental, but that little gem features some computer-altered singing.

I'd have to say that the feeling of cold weather on my skin during the middle of August was the sensory way of remembering this festival. That, and the sensation of panic in my gut as Shara approached Brian and I at dinner with the words "I LOST MY PASSPORT." Shara had gone to see Damien Rice play at around 8:30, because our friend, Joel Shearer, plays guitar in Damien's band. During her sprint back to us after the set, her passport had fallen out of her hoodie pocket somewhere between her position on the side of the stage and the catering tent. So, for the next two hours, we panicked and waited to see what would happen. Would we even be able to get to Wales for the Green Man Festival tomorrow? At that point, we had no idea. Needless to say, this was not a good feeling. At all.

In the end, and at the very last minute, someone turned in the passport to the lowlands information desk. Hallelujah! Now, instead of spending the entire saturday scrambling to find a replacement passport for Shara, the only consequence of the near SNAFU was that we bedded down around 3am, rather than something more like midnight. When we got to the hotel, Brian and I found that we had been assigned a room with a king bed, rather than two twins. I went down to change the booking, but forget to make sure that our wake up call would be switched to this room. As a result, we were awakened 5 minutes past our lobby call time, and had to bypass showering, teeth brushing, and the other usual morning tasks. The lack of a shower on this day would come to haunt us for the weekend.

Again we made our way to the Schipol internation airport to catch a flight to London, Bristol. Again we carried our cumbersome load of instruments, luggage, and carry-ons, and again we had a trying day of travel. This time, it was essentially a car to a plane to a bus to a train to a train to a car. And again, finally, miraculously, we arrived at our destination in Glanusk Park, Wales. If I were to try to describe the scenery of the Green Man Festival, it would be in one word: HIGHLANDER. Sure, that movie/bad tv series was set in Scotland, but you get the picture. As we drove over the stone bridge towards the festival grounds, we saw a sea of tents lined up in a massive field, one of which would serve as our lodging for the next two days. The good thing about this day, in spite of the arduous travel and shlep, was that we were essentially in rest mode. The day was saturday, and our set was on sunday. What this meant is that we got a chance to loaf, and simply watch the festival.

However, there was one thing standing in the way of our complete and total relaxation: MUD. When i say mud, i don't mean it in the sense that I'm used to knowing it. Not like when you're a kid and you make a mud pie, and not like the post-snow melt-off mud I'm used to stepping in accidentally in NYC. I'm talking about 6 inches deep, squishy, stinky, ubiquitous filthy mud. Furthermore, my sensory memory of this festival will forever be characterized by the sound of my feet sinking through the chocolate brown bleh which surrounded me. To make matters worse, i only brought one pair of shoes - my show shoes - which were white adidas shells. As you can imagine, they were soiled in a matter of minutes. Brian, too, fell victim to the mud, soiling his new suede loafers. Go figure.

The people here at the Green Man were an odd bunch. British beyond belief, or even the wildest stereotypes of what a Brit must be. Everyone wore the tall, rubber boots called "wellys" on (named after the British General Wellington who invented them) to shield the feet from mud; everyone was white; everyone had features so markedly similar that it almost looked like a sea of clones bobbing joyously to the music.

The first set I saw was of the band Clinic, who I'd heard on record before, but never seen live. I liked them, but didn't love them. They wore brown head to toe uniforms resembling doctors scrubs, top hats, and SARS masks. Watching them from the side of the stage, I noticed the lead singer's hands shaking furiously as he played the keyboard, a sign which meant only that he was nervous or that he was totally high on blow, which, if you know their music, is entirely unfathomable. Here is a clip of their set from near the food tents above the main stage. The sound is actually pretty good, but you can't quite see the outfits. Oh well.
Brian napped as I walked around in the mud, and Shara and James went off to do some business-related errands.

After a while, I forgot about the mud; I forgot about the fact that I would be sharing a tent with my 3 compatriots, including a single air mattress with Brian; I forgot about the fact that I had been staying in hotels at the other festivals we played, and realized that I would rather be doing nothing else in the world than this, mud or no mud. That night I watched most of Battles' set again (yes, they too played Green Man) and introduced myself beforehand. They were extremely nice, and appreciated the coincidence of having been on the same three Euro festivals as we had for the past days. I left their set a bit early to watch the indefatigable (?) Robert Plant do his thing on the main stage. During his set, I met a dude named Steve from South London. He was completely drunk, rolling doobies, and spitting complete and utter south-london dialect NONSENSE for ten minutes. As I looked up to the stage, I saw a supergroup of celebrity look-alike musicians, including Casey Jones from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie on one guitar, Hank Azaria on lead guitar, Pinder, the trumpet player from Conan Obrien's band on keyboard, the singer from Judas Priest on drums, and finally Adam Goldberg on bass. These guys were great musicians, but I just couldn't get over their likenesses. Also, Casey Jones' actual name was SKIN. I shit you not.

Robert Plant's set was hard to watch. I saw the brilliance with which he sang in Zeppelin, but also the signs of old age on his face. Worst of all I saw that these Brits were a tough audience, heckling him throughout the set with caustic utterances like, "where's JIMMY?" and "you're nothing without JIMMY!!!." I felt for the guy. Here he was, in front of 10,000 or so people, being heckled. What a bummer. Anyways, the ZEP tunes they ran down were great. There was "whole lotta love", "going to California", 4 sticks, and a handful of others, each one stirring the drunken, muddy crowd into a frenzy.

After his set ended, the main flood lights from the stage were turned on to show the remaining festival goers dancing like a bunch of crazed hippies in the slop. And, although Brits by and large are not known for their dancing, they will forever stand in my memory for trying to. What's more is that this festival was FILLED with families. When I was watching Battles' set, I saw more than ten 7 or 8 year olds flopping around to the futuristic music. And because of the contrast in styles between that set and Robert Plant's, it seemed to me that the two stages exemplified both a view of the future, and a glimpse into the past. Pretty deep stuff if you ask me.

We bedded down around 1am, Brian and I sleeping head to foot in our two sleeping bags. I was kept awake by 4 totally obnoxious teenagers, laughing, shouting, joking, and just being hooligans until the wee hours. At one point I mustered all the strength and dickheadedness I could, and shouted, "WE'RE RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.....SHUT UP!!!" but to no avail. Finally, miraculously, I fell asleep.

The next day was show day for us in MBD. We got up, brushed our teeth, and headed over to the "folky dolky" stage (its official name) and posted up. Our set was at 4:30, so I got a chance to see the bands playing before us. The only one worth mentioning was a band called "the laughing windows." They were good, but apparently not good enough for anyone to post a highlight of the set on youtube. Use your imagination.

Our set was good, but not our strongest one of the mini-tour. Obviously, we still had fun and still rocked it.

So, I guess you could say that's all she wrote! We left the next day early to retrace our steps back to London, missing a train and nearly losing our minds on the way. I am now sitting on the couch in the house of Sir Derek Jacobi, where my father is house-sitting while rehearsing for a production of 12th night. I couldn't be happier. If you're not familiar with Derek Jacobi, that's too bad. I got to watch him almost every day in Latin class during my 12th grade year in High School, in the BBC miniseries "I, Claudius." Small world, I guess. Anyways, thanks for reading, and until next time keep MBD in your heart.

MO pics

2007-08-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

yes. mo pics from brazil. click on dem.

FLASH FROM THE PAST

2007-08-16T02:37:00.000-07:00

here are some cool shots from RESFEST in brazil. check out the SWEEEET karaoke/sushi place action shots. nate

GEEETRRDUUN

2007-08-16T01:57:00.000-07:00

Time to go to work, if you can call it that. I've just arrived in Brussels after my two flights, and I'm feeling intense. There's something about sleep deprivation that flicks a switch in mind. Maybe it's also the fact that flying overnight to Europe just feels like one super long day, and I only hit my second wind once I realize how backwards it all is. There's a deja vu aspect to this as well. I've felt like this before.......INTENSE........or maybe just crazy.

I flew out of JFK at 6, and landed in Dublin at about 5:25am. Light had just begun to peak out from behind the green hills, and most of my fellow travelers were rubbing their eyes. I just sort of stared straight ahead, not having the strength to do much else. My connecting flight to Brussels was to leave at about 6:50am, and the gate was to be closed at 6:25 - or at least that's what my boarding pass said. After winding my way through the Dublin airport, following all the signs and signals, I came at a fork in the road. To the right were the A gates, and to the left the B and C gates. I looked up slightly cross-eyed at the departure schedule monitors and saw the word "Brussels" next to the symbol A65. Naturally, I made a right turn.

The path to the A gates was under construction, and every couple of minutes I would see a sign saying "allow 5 minutes" for flights out of the A terminal. I chalked this up to caution, but soon found out the walk took altogether about 8 minutes; I was strolling along at a snail's pace. When I got to gate A65, there was a long line of irish, all of them wearing a similar face of befuddlement and exhaustion. I noticed the planes oustide were RYANAIR; my ticket said AerLingus (there's a crude joke there, but I'll be a cunning linguist and refrain from making it). This is the point where any rational, thinking, rested human being would conclude he was standing in the wrong terminal. But not this human being. Guessing it a mere peculiarity that the name on the plane didn't match the name on my ticket, I patiently shuffled step by step up the que (cue? how the hell do you spell that?) to the gate. "There's NO WAY there could be TWO planes heading to the same place......this has gotta be the one....." The ticket-taker took my paperwork and silly passport and did a little double-take, both at my passport pic and the boarding pass itself. "This is an AerLingus ticket," he said matter-of-factly. "Yes. To Brussels," I replied, as if he didn't already know that. He took a moment to soak in my stupidity before pointing to the letter "C" printed in black ink below the word "terminal." I looked at the clock, which now read 6:17am, about 8 minutes from the cutoff time for my actual flight, located about 2000 yards away in the AerLingus wing of the airport. With no time to waste, I took off like a freak down the terminal, a panicked blur of carry-on baggage and blue pants whizzing past the "allow 5 minutes" signs.

I don't think I've ever been so freaked out, exhausted, and pissed-off in my life. As I got to gate C44, I was panting, dripping sweat, about to pass out as I managed to blurt out, "ISITCLOSEDYET?" (that's not dutch....). The man looked up calmly at me and said, "we'll be boarding in about ten minutes." And MAN did i feel like a horse's patoot. Now i was the really sweaty, slightly psychotic looking guy waiting online to board the plane. There's something terrible about being the only sweaty person amongst a group of non-sweaty people. I have experience in this, too. Often i play tennis in manhattan and forget my change of clothes in my car, parked next to the L train back in brooklyn. What this means is that I have to ride the subway COMPLETELY drenched in sweat, ashamed, stinky, and fielding more than a few what-the-hell-did-that-guy-just-do stares.

Anyways, once I was on the plane, the only eventful thing that happened was the fat irish man sitting next to me waking himself up once every ten minutes with a massive snoor/snort. So, having avoided a sure SNAFU, I have arrived safely in Brussels. We will be leaving in two hours to go to the festival venue at Pukkelpop. I can't wait. More to come later.

I left my heart in barcelona AKA best weekend ever

2007-07-15T20:00:00.001-07:00

I think this may have been the best weekend of my life. I'm sure there were some choice ones way back in my childhood, back in the days of GI JOE'S and hamburgers and body glove t-shirts, but this one is certainly unbeatable when I look at my short life as a near-grown up. To arrive on a friday morning and leave on a sunday morning may seem a little exhausting to most normal human beings, especially with about 3 hours of sleep a night. Notwithstanding sleep, I think I'm also out of adrenaline for about the next four days. I'm pretty sure I used it all up.

After about three hours of sleep after our arrival in Madrid, we headed to the venue, led by our delightful chaperon Cati. Cati works for "touchme" records in Barcelona, which in turn works with our label, Asthmatic Kitty. From the moment Cati came to our room to introduce herself, she exuded a huggable if not down-right adorable energy from every inch of her tiny Spanish frame. I will forever remember her in this sort of mid 60's style goldish yellowish vintage dress, wearing a pair of little green sailor shoes. And don't even get me started on the black horn-rimmed glasses she rocked! Cati kind of reminded me of a hip and european version of the kinda nerdy girl from scooby doo - which is great considering i've been told I look like Shaggy (zoinks).

We arrived at the Summercase festival grounds at about 5:45, taking a stroll around the grounds to survey the scene. The place was amazing. I guess I'd compare it to a smaller version of the Coachella festival, but without the palm trees and trucker hats (so 2004!). My eyes bulged out of my head when I stood in front of the main stage, picturing acts like DJ shadow, Air, and the Chemical Brothers doing their thing into the wee hours of the morning. Even more interesting was the fact that we, too, would have our set on the friendly confines of stage N. "Outstanding," i remember muttering to myself.

Before our line check, Brian and I hung with our carpool buddies for the next two days, Dragonette. They were nice, Canadian, and put on a great show. We also got to share bus space with my new favorite band, "the Gossip". I would see their set in Barcelona the next evening, and it was actually the biggest surprise of the weekend for me. They have a singer who exudes a love of music and a dynamite sense of performance that is at no point one bit contrived or faked. She wore a vinyl mini dress which rode its way frequently up into a certain danger area, and sang like straight up Tina Turner on a speed binge, with great pitch and force. Also worthy of mention is that she is a big girl, but is nimble and quick, constantly moving and gyrating with frenetic sexy agility. She's like a big panther of soul. Check it out and tell me you don't see a little panther in her: THEY'RE FUCKING AWESOME AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND LOVERS ABOUT THEM.

Our set started at 8:40 sharp, after a set by some spanish dude named Mickey Puig. It wasn't really my thing because I don't speak any spanish, but it was fun to watch regardless of the language barrier. They did have a female bassist, after all, and that's always cool. We opened up with golden star, which felt great, and launched right into the song Robin's Jar. Here's a little sample of our opener: Smack dab in the middle of robin's jar, Brian's right crash cymbal fell to the floor, severing the small main line of power connecting the generator beneath the stage to everything electrical above. Suddenly, there was no bass, no mics, and only Brian left playing his ass off to a somewhat confused crowd of about 600 people. Naturally, Shara and I did the only thing one can in a situation like that: have a dance-off. Just ask Ashlee Simpson! When in doubt, dance it out. That's what i say. And although the moment was still semi-catastrophic, we managed to have a lot of fun in spite. In fact, I wouldn't have changed a thing about it, because we dealt with it in a way that was honest and unapologetic. Brian kept a dope little hip hop/funk beat going for about 3 minutes after the power outage, and we just had a little fun, breaking out a variety of different crunk, DEVO-style, and random crowd pointing moves. I have to hand it to the man; BDUB really knows how to get the bootys moving. He would later comment, "that's what i do man! I make those bootys move! I get those bootys movin!" Plus, I'm pretty sure our dancing was waaaay cooler than Ashlee's awkward little half-irish jig of shame. After about an 8 minute delay, we resumed our show. The thing about this little disaster is that the chances of the cymbal falling perfectly on that one cable, as opposed to any other of the many cables onstage, are next to nothing. You couldn't duplicate this if you tried 100 times. By the end of our set, we had won over the crowd, and had a complete blast doing it.

After a little post-show debriefing/high-five session, Shara and Brian and I watched DJ shadow's set on the main stage. I saw DJ shadow about 3 years ago at Roseland ballroom and was blown away by the visual presentation he had behind him. Seeing him again, the images were all different than the ones I had seen earlier. Every sequence was intense, many were extremely dark, and there were a few segments which dipped into political messages and calls to rise up. Here are some of my highlights from his set: . The spanish audience for shadow was amazing, and it was easy to feel the energy pulsing through the throng. I snuck backstage for a second and watched it from the other side; it was a beast of a crowd, hulking and bobbing together as if in some choreographed dance of random movement. (google merce cunningham dance company if you're curious on that concept).

Next up was another new favorite of mine, the band AIR. They were great; all about taste, control, and being totally french. It's funny to be able to discern such a specific national or cultural vibe from a band who sings in english much of the time, but something about AIR just screams FRENCH. Earl Harvin, the drummer of Air as well as on our album "bring me the workhorse", blew me away with his level of technique, feel, and style on the drums. He has also known Shara for many years, so we got the pleasure of his company. He's an awesome guy.

I have forgotten to mention the fact that booze was free and flowing during these nights, so after a point my memory fails a bit. This brings me to one of my little realizations during the course of the festival: there is no real memory anymore! As i think back to the haze of the weekend full of joy and love and mutual respect among fellow musicians, I need only go to youtube to get a reminder of just what it was i did this weekend. We don't remember things in the same way as we used to these days. I mean think about how many of your friends' numbers you know by heart these days. How many? 10? 5? 2? I'm a bit of a savant in this department, and if you know me at all well, I probably know your number by heart. I guess that's just sort of the way of this age, though, and i think it has some funny implications about the direction of our development. Will our memory of the past give way to a broadband form of sensory recollection? Will we lose the muscle of our memory? Anyways, I'm rambling....I guess it's a pretty dang cool thing too. Kinda like being there, but less loud, and there's no free booze.

My other revelation was that American audiences, by and large, don't really stack up to the energy and responses that the euros tend to give. That's not true all around, but maybe it's just worse where I live, where everyone and their mother is in a band. Saying "i'm in a band" in Williamsburg is like saying "I like wearing" pants; the over-saturation of dudes-in-bands makes for sort of a weird non-chalance at shows. Feel free to disagree with me on that one, and of course there are exceptions.

In the end, Madrid was great, but Barcelona was the tops. After the hour long flight, we gathered at the bus like 11 year olds at summer camp. This time we were met by our attache for the evening, Betty, a slender, beautiful blonde spaniard with the most gorgeous accent I've ever heard. I was immediately smitten, of course. We all dropped our stuff off at the hotel, which was located right next to the beach, and left one band by one for the festival grounds. The first time I visited Barcelona with my friends Oliver and Michael, we went with our good friend Sam to see the Primavera sound festival at this very same venue in 2005. We saw Tortoise, Iggy Pop, and a handful of other incredible bands, and I can remember thinking to myself, "ONE DAY. ONE DAY I HOPE TO PLAY THIS CRAZY PLACE." Needless to say, once we arrived I couldn't sit still or contain my overflowing enthusiasm. We ate some food with Betty and Cati, and then headed to our stage. This time, all of our equipment worked flawlessly, thank goodness. We even had the pleasure of a fender rhodes this time, which was something missing from the Madrid set. Again, we threw down the gauntlet, and again survived without major injury (although shara did tweak her knee a tiny bit.

My friend Kaylie, who is working in Barcelona as Scarlett Johansson's assistant came along for a bit of the night, adding a welcomed familiarity to the night. I watched music from Air, Dragonette, The Gossip, Jarvis Cocker, The Chemical Brothers, and one more band whose name I can't remember at this juncture. I had no worries in the whole world on Saturday night. Not one. It's pretty rare that you can say that for an entire day, maybe even an entire 4 days, there was not one single worry in your head.

Finally, as the sun came up over the Barcelona sound, Earl Harvin, Shara, Brian and I got back in a shuttle and headed to the hotel. Right before I got in the van, I had a chance to say goodbye to my flirt partner for the evening, Betty (elizabeth). We exchanged a very awkward customary two cheek kiss goodbye, leaving me blushing like a schoolgirl. I believe my words upon entering the van were, "Well that was fucking awkward." I think that got a laugh.

So I guess that was my weekend. It was near-perfect. The only thing that would have improved it would have been a sweet never-see-you-again make out session, but it wasn't in the cards.

It's now 1:18am on my couch back in Brooklyn, and I'm still waiting for my bass to arrive. US Airways took the liberty of losing it somewhere in between my re-checking it at the Philly Airport and the baggage claim at Laguardia, those fuckers. Our next stops will take us to Holland, Belgium, and Wales, then we're on to Ireland, and finally Seattle. Until then, keep MBD in your heart, er something.

HOLA from Madrid

2007-07-13T01:31:00.000-07:00

So, after a long blog hiatus, I'm back on the map. This time, I am writing from a computer station in our hotel in beautiful, sunny Madrid, after a 7 hour plane ride. I guess it's technically about 4am eastern time, and I still haven't slept a wink. I'm way too jazzed to sleep right now.

I've been to Spain on two occassions before, once in the southern peninsula and countryside, and once in Barcelona to visit my good friend Don Samuel Shpall. This place fascinates me, and has since the moment I first set foot on the soil. The faces of the spaniards are shaped like none i've ever seen, and the buildings and layouts of the cities are beautiful, efficient, and vibrant. As we flew over the countryside, I noticed that the layout of the Spanish countryside is completely different than that of the States. When you look down from the airplane window, you see lots of tiny little clustered towns, none bigger than what looks to be about a square mile, and all of them are built in a circular fashion.

Since my last post, a lot has happened with My Brightest Diamond and with my own life. I got kind of burned out on writing the day to day back in April, probably because i feel a little bit odd blathering on about my exports and expecting anyone to care. Regardless, the journal-keeping side of this whole blog thing still holds its weight in my head. I think the last post I made was in Kentucky, as I described our faithful crew on the "twilight in the fearful forest tour." I came to love those guys/girls like brethren, and have been able to link up with a couple of them since to talk shop. Marcel and Rich are back working with the Decemberists for their summer exploits, while Justin and Rick are touring with the Faint and the Cure. Stephen did a stint with the band Slint in Europe, and is now hanging loose in the apple.

Obviously, there have been a number of events i've neglected to address during my hiatus from the blogosphere. For one, Shara dislocated her knee onstage in Las Vegas during the song "magic rabbit" in one of the most shamelessly rocking moments i've had the pleasure of witnessing in my life. We both jumped and landed at the same time, but when i looked back Shara was sprawled out on the floor, still strumming, but looking up at me with confused eyes full of pain. I mouthed to her, "you ok?", and she mouthed back and shook her head, "no...!" Like a true rockstar trooper, Shara hobbled to her feet, leaned into the mic, and asked for a chair and an icepack. We finished the set, and Shara was immediately rushed to the hospital afterwards. The rest of the shows were in chair-mode, but you should check out shara's freakysweet sit-down moves. Really. It's on youtube from the bellingham show.

Another neglected memory was that of the ride between Kansas City and Denver. Brian and I opted to hop on the crew bus for the ride, which took about 12 hours, in order to give Shara and James some alone time on Shara's bday (and skip out on the driving duties). On that bus ride, I witnessed just what it means to drink and be merry. The "pirate ship," as it was so aptly named, seemed to sway with the yo-ho yo-ho of bottles being sipped and passed and sipped and passed. At around 2am we swashbucklers dropped anchor to get some food, although I stayed in the bus and passed myself out nice and cozy in the back lounge. I'm very glad my mates decided against drawing on my face. The one casualty of the debauchery that night was our merch girl, Katie, who ended up face down in a pool of vomitous muck. Oops. I was glad to be out of the office for that one.

Fast forward to our last two shows, in Seattle and Bellingham Washington. Seattle was a blast. It was certainly the greatest venue of the tour, and we were even joined onstage during "No Quarter" by most of the crew, all of them waving the massive pirate flag we bought for them in Vegas and doing their best to plunder the stage. In Bellingham, the feeling was something like that last day of summer camp, knowing that you've grown so close to a group of people and not knowing the next time you will see them again. We traded hugs, emails, myspaces, and said goodbye after a great wrap-up meal at the tallest restaurant in Bellingham. It was on top of a hotel.

After tour, we in MBD had about ten days off before shooting down to Sao Paolo, Brazil, for the Resfest. It was without a doubt the most positive experiences I've had playing music thus far. Olivia and Carlos, two of the main heads of the festival, treated us like royalty, and made sure that everything was perfect. It was my first time playing a festival, and I can't wait to do it again.

That about brings us up to speed. My Brightest Diamond will be doing our thing in about 8 hours at the Summercase festival here in Madrid. Tomorrow, we fly to Barcelona to do our second and final set, and we will be heading back on sunday. Apologies if this post seems a bit manic, but I needed to capitolize on this sleep-deprived and halfway inspired moment of inspiration. More news to come.

THE CREW

2007-04-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

First let me begin this installment by saying that I may have totally contradicted myself in my last writing. I made a big deal about how silly this whole Imus frenzy is, complaining about how making it the only discussion in town represents a problem in selectivity with the contemporary media. I also drew a comparison to the media frenzy surrounding Anna Nicole Smith's untimely death - a subject which I also chose to undertake . However, in attacking these subjects in my own blog, I merely added to the overblown dialogue, rife with stupidity and redundancy. I apologize for my lack of subtlety, and will try to think my rants through a little more carefully in the future. Thanks to my lady for pointing out this discrepancy. She's smart.

Today's subject is the crew of the "Twilight in the Fearful Forest Tour." On our last tour in Europe, the crew changed from venue to venue because of the fact that we weren't employing a full crew to take care of the behind the scenes business. We were a party of five including Nuno, our tour manager, whose responsibilities included driving the van, dealing with merchandise, settling up with the promoters for payments, and other book-keeping duties. James has taken on the tour management responsibilities for MBD this time, and therefore has a whole lot on his plate. On this foray into the world of the road, we have had the privilege of seeing the same faces every day, and therefore have been able to witness firsthand the level of professionalism that happens on this scale of touring. Kong is the leader and overseer of the crew, holding the title of tour manager/producer, and essentially making sure that everything runs smoothly. Kong's real identity remains unknown to all but a chosen few, so he is known to us simply as KONG. He is a large man, smiley when the opportunity arises, and has an affectation of a big teddy bear. He runs a hot-air balloon business when he's not running tours, which lends a vague eccentricity to his demeanor. Next is Rich, who runs the house sound system for the Decemberists. This is a pretty high-profile job, considering the Decemberists stature as an "it" band, and he does it extremely well. I kind of had Rich pegged as the quiet type, but in Raleigh NC he opened up and drank some booze with us, displaying his sweet side and his extremely uplifting laugh. I've also gotten into the habit of giving Rich a big hug right before we play. He gives AWESOME hugs. Next is the "systems tech" on the tour, Justin, who is as much a wizard as he is a pro. Justin's main job is troubleshooting all of the electronics, including the main sound console, monitor mixing console, and the lighting board (i think). This is a job which I cannot even fathom having, because my actual technical knowledge of the electronics involved in a big tour like this is absolute NIL. Seriously. Sometimes i ask Justin how things are going, and he'll spout off a string of electronics issues, including problems with the grounding, signal distribution, and other jargon-like terms that I have absolutely no idea about. I just respond with, "yeah....of course.....yeah that sounds tough....." Justin has also taken on the job of doing the sound for the MBD opening set, and has done a phenomenal job with it. He says that it's the most fun he has during the course of the evening. He's also become the prankster of the group. Since he's from Ohio and Shara is from Michigan, that whole rivalry thing has lent itself well to shenanigans. In Knoxville, he pasted in huge letters OHIO across Shara's monitor, as well as a couple of OSU stickers on her wurlitzer. Good times. In St. Louis, Shara fell onstage at one point in our set, and the next day Justin bought her a pair of "no slip" sneakers, which he surreptitiously placed in our dressing room. VERY well played.

The next member of the crew is Rick, the Decemberists' guitar tech. Rick may have the most active role on the crew, seeing as each member of the Decemberists plays at least two instruments, and Rick is responsible for making sure each instrument is working well and in tune. Colin also tends to break strings, which means Rick has to quickly change them, tune them, and get the instrument back into Colin's hands. His "office", as he calls it, is full of feng shui (fung shway?), and includes a workbench, worklight, and stool. Rick also loves to quote the movie "super troopers", a fact which makes him very dear to my heart. Marcel is the next facet of the crew. He does the monitor mixes for the Decemberists, and also has one of if not the best sense of humor of anyone on this tour. At his station, he has a picture of his gorgeous young son in the middle of the mixing console to remind him of home, and his desktop image on his computer is a similarly cherubesque image of the baby. When I first saw the picture, I asked him, "Is that a 2004 model." He replied, "no, 2003. I got the athletically gifted package for a couple extra bucks. He's fully equipped." Marcel also loves to quote Dave Chappelle stand-up lines, like the whole "grape drink" bit. Last but not least is Stephen, the lighting designer. His tour nickname from Marcel is "cuddles," a tour nickname he received in Boston after an all-day bus cuddle session with a lady he had picked up the night before. He's been also very enthusiastic about working with MBD and the Decemberists, and has been a total sweetheart night to night. He and Justin will even be hiking it out to LA after Coachella to do the sound and lights for the MBD show at the Troubadour in LA. If you make it to the concert, say what's up to the both of them, because they are both totally nice dudes.

The job these guys are doing is phenomenal, and they represent the real work in this industry. They are experts in their fields, and are functioning on a level of extreme professionalism. The point I need to make here is that these are the people that the make shows happen, without one moment in the spotlight. All we as performers do is show up, get our stuff out, and play. True, this is a different type of expertise, but it requires a lot less total work and effort than the stuff these guys do every day. My first experience in touring came on a Linda Ronstadt tour in 2002, as the lowest rung on the crew ladder. I got to meet a different set of crew dudes, equally as amazing and fun, and found out how cool this whole thing is and how much fun it can be. I'm extremely thankful and appreciative of the efforts of these guys, as well as the efforts of our new merch girl, Katie, and have come to love the crew as friends and colleagues.

Not too much to report on our last three shows. Business as usual has been the word of the day. We are now more than half way done with the tour, and the dates have been ultimately flying by. Soon, we will make our push westward, leaving the midwest, northeast, and the dirty (durrtay) south behind. I will report back soon.

All Eyes on Imus

2007-04-13T00:19:00.000-07:00

I've been having a lot of trouble finding ways to start these darned blogs. I fear sounding repetitive, bogus, and a bit long-winded in these writings, and I'm doing my best to not say the same stupid shit over and over again. But sometimes it's easy. My topic for the day is Don Imus. What a fucking moron, right? One would think that it's as simple as that. And I know that's sort of a shallow perspective on the matter, given its dark and undeniable implications about the relationship between black and white, man and woman, and the blue state/red state mentality in our country. But seriously. For me to get into a hotel in Louisville, turn on the tv, and find six news channels tossing around the same tired, days old subject, I have to wonder: aren't there more important things going on the world? I don't just mean people dying in Iraq; I don't just mean what the Iranians have hidden under their sleeves; I don't mean what the scientists (yes, the "scientists....) are saying about the bird flu this week. There have to be 1,000 other more pressing issues out there. To quote Brian, "the world has gone Imus crazy!"

Just because he's helped wounded veterans and lobbied for betterment in the world doesn't mean the guy isn't a total fucking ass. I remember the tornado of news when Anna Nicole Smith died like it was yesterday, and I wasn't even in the country at that point. I was in England with the Diamond, and first found out by encountering a literal wall of tabloid and half-way reputable publications with the same headline, give or take a few more or less tactfully inserted. I heard Dan Rather say on the Bill Maher program (whom I loathe, and don't hold much higher than that DooshImus Maximus Imus) that our worldwide and collective values of news have decreased, while our need and fetish for instant entertainment has increased. I hold the US mostly responsible for this change, mostly because the american culture represents the face of the capitalist world. Capitalism beat Communism, and so the rest of the world has followed the dollar for many years for better or worse. Now we defer to the Euro, but this doesn't change the fact that the Europeans have ignorant people in front of cameras and behind microhpones as well.

So that's my rant for today. Since my last blog, we've played three shows: Birmingham, Tallahassee, and Memphis. In Birmingham, we drove in sensing a certain historic violence in the air. We were literally on the street where some of the worst moments in the civil rights movement took place. The images of blacks being sprayed by hoses and hounded by attack dogs were taken literally a block from our venue for the evening, the Alabama Theater. This is the second state-named theater we've played, the second one being the historic Tennesse Theater in Knoxville. Our hunch proved out to be true, as a brawl almost ensued after the show between our crew and their crew. I was relayed this information by Chris Funk from the Decemberists, who, after having gone back down to the stage to sign autographs in his boxers, shirt, and flip flops, witnessed an altercation between our lighting designer, Stephen, and the production manager from the venue. Somehow, the way Chris told the story made it out to be somehwat comedic and innocuous, but I later learned that the near-brawl was much more serious. Luckily, no punches were thrown and no one was hurt. Notwithstanding near violence, we had a great show, and had a nice evening.

The highlight from the Memphis evening came after the show, back at the "artisan" hotel. I won't go too far into detail about the hotel itself, but let's just say it was under new management......use your imagination...... When Brian and I got to our room, it was somehow deadbolted from the inside, forcing us to seek another chamber. I volunteered and hustled downstairs to get a new key. The guy at the desk took five minutes to even notice me, being held down by a phone call which only elicited the words, "uh huh....yeah....yeah.....uh-huh.....yup," but finally gave me the key to a room on the 7th floor. As Brian and I got out of the elevator, I dropped my key on the floor. I laboriously bent down with my huge duffel bag thrown about my shoulder to pick it up, bending slowly, awkwardly, and uncomfortably, until just before I could reach the key my strap totally busted, nearly throwing me backwards from the transferred force. Luckily Brian got a laugh out of it, as did I, but this means I've busted two pieces of luggage in two months. I think my luck is bad. In our room, however, we found two magical beers which appeared completely on their own outside our window. Seriously. They were sitting right below the window sill, on the outside. I shit you not. As for our dayoff, we did nothing really. We ate a wonderful breakfast, and went to a park to throw the frisbee around. Now we are here in Louisville, and I'm exhausted. Show tomorrow, show the next day, show the next day, and then Chicago. I can't wait.

I HATE ORLANDO, but not in a mean way.

2007-04-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

When I was 8, my uncle, cousins, sister, and I took a trip to Disney World. We stayed in the Polynesian Resort, a rather cheesy if not completely tasteless place with flowered wallpaper, bellhops in straw hats and boas, and even the odd hula dance. I remember it being scorchingly hot, sticky, and altogether uncomfortable. I also remember the mickey waffles I ate on our third day there which ushered in the most violent and conquering stomach flu I've ever had in my life. I don't know if I actually got it from the waffles, but from that day forward I became incapable of eating, talking about, or even looking at waffles for the next five years. The flu gripped me for the duration of our stay at the Polynesian, forcing me into a diet of water and crackers for the next week and a half. I didn't even get to check out the epcot center! All told, I think I lost about 10 pounds because of it, and the entire experience pretty much soured my taste for anything disney-related. Needless to say, this was a bad first impression of the city of Orlando.

After having three solid days off here, I can say without question that my first impression was spot-on. We drove here on Thursday from Knoxville Tennesse, a trek that took a total of 11 hours. Shara had left for Cincinnati to play with the string quartet formation of the Diamond in the Music Now festival, so we boys had the van to ourselves. Unfortunately, James had fallen ill a couple days before, so the driving was left up to Bri-guy and I. We arrived at the resort around 11 pm, and immediately unloaded our most fragile and important gear (or as we call it, GuRRRR) onto two carts. In the lobby, the scene was an ugly one. Around the ceiling were neon purple beams which resembled UV lights in tanning booths, and sunburned, exhausted, miserable looking people filled the puke-green arm chairs scattered around the ground floor. Awkward middle school spring breakers held hands and played on each other's laps while frantic, fat, dejected parents scampered around attempting to tame their wild, disney-mad children. As I said, the scene was UGLY.

We checked in and received our two complimentary cookies, quickly taking all of our stuff up to our rooms in an attempt to escape the mayhem of the "Double Tree" lobby. After the long drive, I was exhausted. I wanted to do nothing more than fall asleep in my not-so-tastefully decorated bed. Unfortunately for Brian, he had to drive all the way out to the Orlando airport to pick up his wife Noelle, whose flight had been delayed a handful of hours due to a security breach at JFK. And although I pitied his task after our 11 hour trek, it didn't prevent me from passing out after a glass of wine and a brief update to my facebook status (NUURRRD).

The next day, James and I awakened at around noon, happily sleeping in on the first of two true days off. On our agenda for the day was one thing and one thing only: JETSKIS. James had been looking forward to the prospect of some motorized recreation for at least a week leading up to our stay in Orlando. He had done the research, and gotten me quite psyched on the idea. For all of his cool demeanor and totally P R O approach to these two tours of duty, James does love to go fast on things with motors. If you read the blog from Europe, you'll know that one of our highlights was a product of James' speed-lust, as he led us into the French Alps to zoom around on snowmobiles. On this day, I would again follow his instincts, which this time brought us to Brian Lake. Only about five minutes from the hotel, this "lake" must have been man made, because it served the purposes of aquatic fun perfectly. It was large, circular, and had orange markers outlining the jetski path. The instructor was a true dude's dude with tattoos, shades, flip flops, and a cigarette in his ear, mumbling obvious guidelines and saftey directions to us in his smoky, unenthusiastic voice. Feeling safe and confident enough to not destroy ourselves, James and I took off onto the lake. I followed James out, watching him zig and zag and bank to test the handling of these righteous machines. For me, it was all about speed. None of this turning and veering stuff. I just wanted to go fast. I basically just held the throttle down and went in huge, sweeping circles for a good twenty minutes. I must have been quite a sight to see, too, because that's literally all I did for our entire session. At one point, my $6 blue blocker sunglasses flew off and were gone forever, but I didn't care. I was at the mercy of the machine. Our half hour ended quickly, but was well worth the $50 fee. James, too, had lost his shades, and both of us suffered from some serious speeed hair (picture David Bowie in the movie "The Labyrinth"). Having satisfied our need for speed, James and I headed back to the hotel with smiles on our faces.

We killed the rest of the Friday by seeing "300" at the Universal Studios cineplex, a movie which was as disappointing as it was violent. There's only so much slow-motion death a person can watch before becoming totally exhausted. After the movie, James and I opted to eat at the TGIFriday's adjacent to our hotel. The choices we had were limited, so I don't feel too ashamed to admit it. There's only so much difference between Chili's, Olive Garden, TGIFriday's, and the other novelty dinner options anyways. I ordered the artichoke & spinach dip and the "sizzlin (yes, sizzlin') chicken and shrimp" entree, while James ordered the potstickers and the "famous fajitas". Incidentally, I had never heard of these fajitas; they couldn't have been THAT famous. The food was shit, and we actually had to send for another volley of tortillas from our waitress, Nina. She had a weird accent, which James thought was South-African but turned out to be Bulgarian. Go figure. All I could think was, "Nina, what in HELL are you doing in Orlando?"

I fell asleep watching reruns of Seinfeld. Happily. It was the episode with that guy Jimmy who talks in third person about himself. On Saturday, I had a day completely to myself. Brian and Noelle had gone to Disneyworld, and James had taken the van to go visit his sister a couple hours away. I slept in, showered, and played bass in the room for two hours before venturing into the world outside. Item number one on my agenda was food. Sadly, that turned into a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza in the hotel's food court downstairs. Suffice it to say the meal was neither delicious nor satisfying. Afterwards, at around 4, I headed across the boulevard into the gates of Universal Citywalk - just like the one in LA. Here, I found a land of dollars and cents, where family fun has a price, and every single material possession a child could ever covet has a price: Dippin dots, spiderman action figures, cartoon-themed sunglasses, cellphone and ipod accessories, and the rest. I can't be too cynical on this subject because I know money exists to be spent, but one can't help but feel uncomfortable witnessing the co-opting of fun on such a large scale. After a somewhat scientific, note-taking walkabout, I found myself buying a beer at the movie theatre and wandering into the Rodriguez/Tarantino wankfest, "Grindhouse." It tested my patience and my stomach, but proved enjoyable and highly entertaining. After dinner, I went back to TGIFriday's and ordered the exact thing I had ordered the night before. I think they must put drugs in the food, because I was drawn to the place like the zombies I had seen in "Grindhouse" just a handful of minutes earlier. I got to watch the 3rd period of the NCAA hockey final, which ended in victory the team in green (i don't remember the school) with a dramatic goal with 18 seconds left before the horn. Good times.

As Sunday rolled around, I was totally over the whole day off thing. I couldn't wait to play again. We loaded in somewhat early to the Hard Rock and didn't waste much time getting down to business. Our show was awesome, and it was great to have our fearless leader back with us. Shara had a great time in Cincinnati for the Music Now Festival, and brought regards from the strings of the Diamond, Rob, Marla, Maria, and Olivier. As for our performance, we rocked it. After we played our Nina Simone tune, some dude in the audience yelled out to Shara, "MAKE LOVE TO ME....." Her response was "I just did...." I don't think I've ever heard a slicker shoot-down of a heckle in my life, if you can consider that a heckle. After our set, I went to fetch my gear from the stage and fielded a couple "YOU'RE HAAWTs" from the adolescent girls in the crowd, to which I replied "Buy a CD!" I guess it worked, because we had our best merchandise sales night of the tour so far.

I rushed home after the show to catch the season premiere of Entourage, like a total LA dork. It was ok. All I can think about now is how happy I am to be back on schedule, doing 4 shows in a row before our next day off. I think I've found that I have trouble switching gears from relax mode to full on show-a-day mode, but we have only about a month left before we are home. And so, we keep on truckin' down that proverbial road.

Norfolk, Raleigh, and Johnny Knoxville

2007-04-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

We are in now in the south. The DEEEP south. The foliage, the landscape, the accent, the heat, it's all different around here. Henceforth, I feel a bit out of sorts with things. It is now April 5, and we are heading to Orlando from Knoxville to enjoy 3 full days off. Shara left this morning for Cincinnati to play at the Music Now Festival, and we boys will be heading down to Florida alone. I kind of wish I were going up there as well, because the MBD performance at the festival will be in the string quartet formation. I LOVE to watch the Diamond in string formation. It gives a better picture of the arrangements and the classical leanings, and somehow it has the effect of transporting the listener to another time either future or past. Shara will also be performing with Sufjian Stevens, and the band Clogs. Last time I saw the string formation of MBD was at Tonic on the lower east side, a club which was a dream venue of mine when I first arrived in NY. I've played there on two different occassions since then, once with my band Tutti Quanti, and once with Inlets, but Tonic will now be shutting its doors on April 13th as a result of inflated rent and the gradual but overwhelming gentrification going on in the area. If you get a chance to see a show there before it closes, take it. You won't regret it.

Since my last post, we've travelled quite a ways. We've travelled over 3,000 miles, played 14 shows in about as many days, and have been having a great time chatting it up and jamming to the ol' i-pod in our mighty van. Having pushed hard during this first leg of the tour, 3 days off in Orlando looks like an extremely appealing concept. James has been a proponent of finding some motorized recreation during our time there, and when James gets his eyes set on fun, there is no stopping him. Our snowmobiling mission in the French Alps was a product of James' mind, and that was certainly a highlight of our time across the pond, so I'm expecting good things out of this next three days.

As for our last three shows, we've continued our diet of steady rock and all white clothing. We've been getting a lot of love from the audiences, though not as much at the merch tables. For April fool's day, we played the Norva in Norfolk Virginia, and ended up doing a SWEET techno-ified version of "tainted love," complete with glowsticks, a rave-type lighting look, and some sweet dances. Shara even rocked some dope raver shades. It seems that after almost every show there appears some youtube clip from our set, and there were three from the norfolk set.

That's two of them. Kinda cool.

After Norfolk, we got to spend a day off at James' brother's place in Richmond. When we arrived, we breathed a collective sigh of relief upon seeing the beautiful house, complete with yard, play room, pets, and home-cooked food. The house also came with 4 extremely cute, extremely rowdy children; I think our presence there may have brought out the maniac in each of them. My favorite was the youngest, Lydia, a 4 year-old with golden curly hair and blue eyes. Since the others had school to attend during the days, we got to hang with Lydia for most of our day off. We vegged out for most of the day, tossing the frisbee around, watching television, and munching on snacks. After dinner and after the kids' bedtime, Brian and I took a trip to the local movie theatre to see "Blades of Glory." I highly recommend this movie if you're a fan of retarded, stinky, homocentric hilarity (who isn't?). The funny thing about our trip to the movies is that Brian and I were LITERALLY the only two people in the theatre. We saw the 9:45 show on a Monday night, so that's not altogether unbelievable, but we must have seemed pretty gay ourselves. After all, the movie is about to male figure skaters pairing up to make history as the first male on male figure skating duo. We had a good time in spite of the campy undercurrent of our evening.

I can't remember anything memorable from Raleigh, except that I drank a little too much and the night ended with me on the floor of our hotel bathroom swearing off scotch forever. We'll see how long that lasts. On the subject of the Decemberists, they've been growing a lot friendlier as time wears on. At first, some of the band seemed a little guarded, a little terse, but since the first shows they've begun to open up quite a bit. In Norfolk, we got to hang a little bit with them in their huge dressing room, complete with hot tub, sauna, and big-screen TV, but I missed the moment when Chris, the lead guitar whiz, tossed organ/keyboard master Jenny into the hot tub fully clothed. Those are the kind of antics I like to pass on; the kind of things that just sound like fun. We've also made a tentative plan to have lunch at "hooters" in Orlando. Good times, good times.

Last night was Knoxville, and the venue was the historic "Tennesse Theatre". This was by far the most beautiful venue we've played thus far, with beautiful ornate ceilings, and a lobby fit for kings. Apparently the city dropped about 24 million bills on refurbishing, and every dollar certainly showed up on the walls and in the seats. As we drive on through Georgia and on to Florida, I'm dreading the humidity which will accompany in Orlando. If you know me, you'lll know that I cannot stand heat. It makes me crazy. Hopefully I'll be able to survive and not sunburn myself into oblvion before our show at the Hard Rock on Sunday.

Wellsley, Messiah College, Buffalo Wings

2007-04-01T12:01:00.000-07:00

We have now played 11 shows in 12 days since the beginning of this tour. Our last three were at an all female school, a christian university, and at the home and birthplace of the buffalo wing in Buffalo NY. Discovered by Frederick von Wingenstein, a german poultry breeder and closet sewing enthusiast, the buffalo wing has proved to be a staple of the american diet, and a favorite in the world of take-out and delivery. Here, I hung out with Stephanie and Susan, two rather large but totally friendly and genial stage managers studying in the theatre arts department of the University. The highlight of the evening was a small whodunnit involving the wife of the Decemberists' truck driver and a stolen digital camera, but no charges or arrests were made. It made for a funny little bit of drama in the backstage, but no arrests were made, and no charges filed.

Buffalo was the middle stop in this last trifecta, and it took us a total of 8 hours to get there from Wellsley College in Massachusetts. The Wellsley show was a lot of fun, although somewhat uneventful. It's not that often that you get to play to an entire room full of hormonal females, so we cherished our 30 minutes on stage and relished the vibe as best we could. It felt a little weird, though; I think you could smell the pheromones in the air. The only time I've been in a room with that much pent up hormonal energy swirling around is when I went to see "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" on its opening night.

The Wellsley show was business as usual, except for Brian and my awesome frisbee session in front of the Lulu Wang student center. Since we've hit our stride and gotten into the rhythm of things, our days have fallen into a rather mundane pattern: wake up, drive, drive, drive, load-in, kill time, soundcheck, kill time, play gig, load-out, watch some of the Decemberists, go home, go to sleep. The in-between things tend to stand out a bit because of the cyclical nature of our events. That's why frisbee has all of a sudden become the COOLEST. Watching James play frisbee is incredible because he's 6'4'' and takes these immense strides, handling himself like a big bearded antelope prancing around the grasslands. Frisbee really brings out the kid in people, I think. It also works for curing the boredom and accumulated restlessness that accompanies sitting in a van for 8 hours. I myself got a little stir-crazy in the backseat yesterday, but have otherwise managed to maintain some semblance of sanity in this string of shows.

Saturday's show brought us to Grantham, PA, to a Christian University called "Messiah." We played in their auditorium, which made the whole thing feel a little bit like prom. By the time the Diamond started our set, the entire thing was packed to the brim with young God-loving collegiates. Ironically, I chose this night to play my sloppiest set of the tour. The big man upstairs could not have been very happy with that. Lucky for me, god doesn't have the sharpest of musical ears (have you ever heard christian rock? how about christian RAP?)

No offense, god.

Today's show will be in Norfolk Virginia, and it's warm enough down here that we are beginning to see signs of spring along the interstate. Little flashes of purple and white and green are popping up everywhere, replacing the ugly brownish month-old snow of New England. The change in foliage has become symbolic for me of the mileage we've convered. As we travel further and further south, I find that the landscape is becoming less and less familiar. I've never really spent much time int he south at all, so this is all new to me, and I'm finding that the south has begun to feel like another country. We just ate a "Cracker Barrel", and I noticed traces of the drawl for the first time. Brian is from West Virginia, and both James and Shara logged most of their childhood hours in Texas, so it shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. Perhaps the reason for that is that their accents have been buried by years of listening to Manhattanite talk.

Tomorrow will be a day-off, finally. My plan is to perhaps see that new Will Ferrell flick "Blades of Glory," and perhaps drink a bit. These university shows have been quite tame in the booze department, so i will be looking to let my hair down a bit. Hopefully play some frisbee, too.

Northampton (pronounced NORTH-AMPTON)

2007-03-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

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?)

2007-03-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

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)

2007-03-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

yeah, more pictures.

....(cont'd, x2)

2007-03-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

Like i said, more pics.

...(cont'd)

2007-03-25T20:04:00.000-07:00

more pics from europe, sxsw

2007-03-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-03-05T09:15:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-03-04T11:28:00.000-08:00

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.

Putting the G A Y in GAY PAREE

2007-02-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

Paris is awesome. And when I say awesome, I mean AWESOME. Even the bums have it pretty good in Paris. I mean, I actually saw a group of homeless people hanging out in tents, and they even had a couch set up in front! Ok, so maybe you can't really judge a city based on the quality of homeless life, but we had an awesome time in this city. I'm now typing from the promoter's office in Tourcoing (i have no idea how to say that), trying to remember how the evening ended up last night. I'm getting little flashes of memory, but since I let my proverbial hair down and partied it up last night the picture is fairly foggy.

When we actually arrived after the 5 + hour drive from Grenoble, we were greeted at La Maroquinerie by Clemence, our beautiful and extremely French promoter. The news was not good. Apparently a 16 year-old girl had been found drunk as a skunk in the venue one week prior, and the Parisian police had handed down a stiff sentence of a 1 week shutdown. Unfortunately, they let the promoters know this on the day of our arrival and subsequent performance. After a swift check of email and myspace and facebook (G A Y), we packed up and headed off for the new venue. This place, Le Pont Ephemere, was sweeeeet. It was right on the bank of La Seine, and looked to be a sort of half art-space half venue type of deal. The crew was super pro, and the spread was extensive in the backstage. We even had a bottle of jack daniel's this time, a fact which I will address a little later. The band that opened for us was a kickass band called "The Rodeo," who played a mixture of old school country/bluegrass stuff, and had a very pretty asian looking french girl as a singer. Unfortunately, she sang in silly English, and all I wanted was for her to shut up and sing in French. Regardless of this qualm, the band was really cool. They utilized a lap steel guitar player, violinist, and used a lot of really nice percussion stuff as well. They probably have a myspace page or something like that if you're interested.

Our sound check went swimmingly, as per usual, and was made extra super by the addition of a trombonist named Ben on our cover of Nina Simone's "feelin good" (i'm not sure if that's the actual title or not). Ben was awesome. His usual gig is playing in Sufjian Stevens' band, hence his connection to Shara, who is also a tenured SS veteran. Ben also knew and went to school with Marla Hansen, another MBD and SS and INLETS veteran. Actually, Marla will be playing a solo show on Wednesday at Union Hall in Park Slope. You should check her out because her music is awesome. Sebastian, of Inlets fame, and I played on her record which will be forthcoming, and are total Marla groupies.

Dinner was served upstairs and included a delicious cucumber salad, huge shank of lamb, and dessert which I couldn't bring myself to finish. I don't like eating too much before playing, unless it's candy. I love candy all the time. By the time "The Rodeo" finished their set, Le Pont Ephemere was absolutely packed. It's funny, but I think the combined Frenchness of the audience contributed to an odd cheese-like odor in the air. Of course, I may have been imagining that....but who knows? I think the total number of heads in the door was about 350, including two of my friends from the states, Sarah and Samantha. The performance itself was superlative. Everything was tight, everything was intense, and everything brought huge responses from the crowd. I think there was even a supermodel right in the front, totally distracting me from my bass-ing. Every time I looked over I did a little double take. Come to think of it, I think her boyfriend even knew most of the lyrics to the songs. We finished with the song Freak Out, and I took it upon myself to execute a backwards somersault at the very end. I think I bruised my knee, but it was worth it. As we took our bow and walked off, I had a moment of introspection. The Parisians genuinely appreciate, respect, and enjoy this music; and they wholeheartedly ADORE Shara. Seriously. They asked for 4 encores. 4!

After the show, we hung out in the backstage for a bit with Sarah and her friends, and Sam and her boyfriend Matt. Everyone enjoyed the show, and we drank and were merry until the crowd cleared and it came time to change gears. Riding the high from the show, Brian and I destroyed most of the bottle of jack D's provided by the venue. I believe Brian's words were, "duuuude I am L.I.T." (he spelled it out just in case I didn't get the message). Shara and James and Nuno went back to the hotel, but Brian and I took it upon ourselves to get embarrassing. And that we did. We made two more stops before heading back to the hotel, one at La Flesch D'Or, and another at a bar with all red lights inside and dancing and madness. Here we met up with Sarah again, who proved to be an outstanding host to us - even though it was a school night for her. We continued our consumption, and as we exited the bar a man passed us who I was absolutely SURE was my friend Rishi, but actually turned out to be Gerard Depardieu....... ok i totally made that one up. I loved him in "Green Card," though. Brian and I got in a cab and headed home, drunk on rock and booze and Paris. It felt good to really do it up last night, even though it proved to be somewhat detrimental the next day. Luckily, I have extremely brief hangovers. I cannot say the same for my rhythm section partner-in-crime. Brian woke up making out with the toilet bowl as I scrambled to make sure I had my wallet, phone, passport, and both shoes. During the drive to Tourcoing, he even executed an extremely impressive out-the-side-of-the-van-while-going 60-on-the-highway hurl about ten minutes outside of Lille. I was very impressed. It's now 7:26, and I'm late for dinner, but Brian is still hurting badly. I think he is suffering from what experts call an UBERhangover.

Tonight's venue is awesome, and we will rock in spite of the dark and ominous skies above. We begun our tour crescendo last night, and we will continue it tonight and finish at Bush Hall in London tomorrow night. I will be home soon.

Goodbye, Grenoble

2007-02-26T05:58:00.000-08:00

Grenoble is a wonderful city. Having had two days off here, I got quite a sense of what kind of a place this is. First of all, it is a mountain town for all intents and purposes, nestled in between huge peaks of the French Alps. It has been extremely gray here, with dark brooding clouds blanketing the tops of the surrounding mountains. After our wonderful Thai feast on Friday night, we boys in the group had all of Saturday to get into trouble. After waking up around 12:30 and totally skipping breakfast, the four of us set out in our mighty van for a little tiny town called Chamrousse, about an hour’s drive into the mountains.

Cynthia guided us surely through the curves and switchbacks of the steep ascent, and we were all extremely happy to have her back on board. It’s funny, but I figure that all of the GPS and navigation systems in the cars of today choose probably the same handful of female voices to give directions. It’s a voice which is robotic, gentle, unassuming, and altogether completely annoying – to me at least. My parents have a navigation system in their car in LA, and I always end up yelling at the voice and frantically scrambling to mute it. Anyways, Cynthia did her job well on this day.

The drive itself was totally majestic. Usually I would reserve this word for times when magical beings or wizardry is involved, but the landscape of this day trip totally merits its use. It had been raining for most of the morning, but had cleared up enough that the sun was shining bright outside. We passed these tiny little villas and mini-towns on our way up the mountain, all of them looking timeless and extremely French in character. One town had a little park with a beautiful old merry-go-round in the middle that almost brought our expedition to a temporary halt, but we had to press on. James had been the biggest proponent of our Saturday adventure, urging us to escape the friendly confines of Hotel Splendid and try and do something. He was looking to discover some sort of motor-powered entertainment, like renting some 4-wheelers, or even mopeds, and figured it would be easiest to achieve in a less urban center. I, being a lover of going fast, was certainly on board. As we got higher and higher up the mountain, the drive became frightening. I rode shotgun, and was therefore face to face with a drop of about 5,000 feet directly out my window. Luckily, Nuno again proved himself a capable pilot and steered clear of danger the entire way.

The peaks which we had seen from a distance in Grenoble proper now became much more visible and much greater in scale. They weren’t like your average mountains; not like the Rockies, not like the Sierra Nevadas, not like the Cascades. These were clearly ALPS. Our ears started to pop, and Brian even became a little woozy on account of the altitude. But, after many perilous turns, we made it to Chamrousse. To our great surprise, Chamrousse was nothing more than a ski resort, plain and simple. People were walking around in silly one-piece ski suits that looked like they were straight out of the costume department of the movie “Ski Patrol.” French kids ran around awkwardly in ski boots, with parents chasing behind them shouting warnings in disgruntled pursuit. Apparently, this was no ordinary Saturday…It was a holiday.

Our first order of business was food, so we stopped in at a place called “La Cantina” to satisfy our hunger. As we sat down, I looked over at Brian to see a look of extreme chagrin on his face. I asked him if he was alright, and after a pause, he told me what was afflicting him so. He pointed up, and gestured to me to listen to the music playing on the stereo. It was your typical, run-of-the-mill American wanker blues guitar playing, complete with shuffle drum pattern and cheesy vocals. I’d heard music like this hundreds of times before but never paid any mind to it. Apparently, this was the sound of a dude named “Poppa Chubby,” whom Brian had played for during the Summer of 2002 and into 2003. Aside from the egregious and vulgar pun behind the man’s stage name (his real name is Ted Horowitz), this music was genuinely bad. Apparently he had been a reoccurring character on the downtown NYC blues scene, running jam sessions at cheesy clubs like “terra blues” and “bleecker street blues bar” and being an all around blues nazi to all parties involved. Brian proceeded to launch into a series of horror stories about this madman, each one complete with mentions of thrown chairs, physical altercations, scare tactics, passive aggression, and utter disregard for the well-being of fellow members in the band. Nuno, James, and I listened with our jaws agape as Brian continued. The waiter overheard us talking about “Poppa Chubby,” and brought over the CD, thinking we would actually want to check it out. “You like Poppa Chubby?” He asked us in his thick, smoky French accent. Brian laughed and told him he had once been Mr. Chubby’s official drummer. On the cover of the CD was a picture of this dude. He was fat, completely bald, and covered in tattoos. He looked like a man you might want to make friends with if you were in jail and hadn’t found someone to make you his bitch yet. Brian wrapped up his vignettes and we ordered our food. Nuno and Brian again ordered pizzas – Nuno’s with only mushroom and tomato sauce, Brian’s with just plain cheese – while James and I went all out and ordered double cheeseburgers.

After quickly consuming our lunch, we asked our waiter where we would be able to find some motor-centric entertainment around the resort. We had already ruled out skiing on account of our lack of proper gear and funds, but were determined to prolong our stay in Chamrousse nonetheless. The waiter went into the back and returned with a brochure for a snowmobile course right around the corner. He said that when there is snow, it is a snowmobile course, and when there is no snow they run 4-wheelers around. This news was extremely good news, and our enthusiasm was beyond obvious. This waiter, I believe his name was Marcel but I could be completely making that up, proved extremely helpful in our search for speed and gasoline-powered excitement. He called up the snowmobile place for us, and made the necessary inquiries. I overheard him in French saying that “there are four Americans here who would like to do use the snowmobiles?” and then something about the schedule being full, and then stuff I couldn’t understand. He got off the phone and told us that indeed the schedule for the afternoon was all booked up, but that the snowmobile wranglers were willing to pull four extra machines out if we could get there by 4pm. Seeing as it was 3:30 at that point, we were in business. We paid the check, but some extra Winter gear, and headed over to the snowmobile course. As we waited, we threw snowballs, made loud jokes, and gave high fives. Somehow the snow and the prospect of speed had transformed us back into little ten year olds.

After some paperwork, it became time for us to mount up. We were to follow a guide in a neon vest around this course, keep 5 meters behind the nearest machine, and avoid being totally irresponsible. Those were the rules. I was behind James, followed by Brian and Nuno in the respective third and fourth spots. For a half an hour, we booked around this course, revving the engines and cutting in and out of trees, happily zooming over bumps and little jumps. Every so often we’d have to stop and wait for Nuno, whose caution kept him a little further back. Every time we looked back at each other there was a flicker of youthful exuberance in our eyes, and a dumb smile across our faces. It was beautiful.

Once the half-hour was up, we returned to the snowmobile home base, cheering and laughing and congratulating ourselves on a job well done. As we piled back into the van, Nuno commented that this was “the best day-off on tour EVER.” And even though my touring tenure is not so advanced, I agreed. We made our way back down the mountain as dusk grew near, recovering and coming down from the fun of the day. We got back to the hotel around 7, and decided on seeing a movie around the corner. Nuno stayed home as we watched “The Good German,”a Steven Soderbergh movie with George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. It was good, and I found myself desperately trying to follow along with the French subtitles accompanying the original English dialogue. Needless to say, that activity was exhausting and made my brain hurt. Afterwards, we ate lamb kebab sandwiches and French fries. Even Brian caved in on his vegetarian leanings to dine on the sweet meat. Having stuffed ourselves properly, we walked around for a bit and headed home around 11pm. I left Brian and James and went to have one drink right around the corner from Hotel Splendid, thinking it would be an easy nightcap without any real mentionable aspects. But when I arrived at the bar, called “JS Café,” I was stopped at the door by a dude who muttered something in French which I couldn’t quite make out. I responded that I was only there for a drink, to which he replied, “GAY CLUB….” All of a sudden the bad dance music and somewhat odd vibe made more sense. But still, this dude was totally discriminating against me. And how was he to know that I’m not gay? I was even dressed halfway decently! Regardless, I had a whiskey somewhere else and went home.

So, that pretty much wraps up our Saturday off in Grenoble. Sunday was a show day, so it was back to business as usual. Shara arrived from her visit to a friend around noon, and we went to the venue around 3pm. The venue was all seats, and our set was to start at 6 (sort of like a matinee I guess). In the dressing room was a plate of various delicious local cheeses, as well as a nice bottle of wine and some other fixins. This show also proved to be our first stone-cold sellout of the tour, a fact which I found extremely exciting. We rocked, and afterwards ate a wonderful dinner with the crew at a nearby restaurant. And, seeing as our van call would be at 8am for our trip to Paris the next day, I found myself happily, comfortably asleep before midnight. All in all, Grenoble was an extremely pleasant chapter in the “My Brightest Diamond 2007 Winter European Tour” saga. Good times, good times.

Grenoble...NOT to be confused with Chernobyl

2007-02-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

Today is our first day off since the drive from Berlin to Milan, about six days ago. I'd hesitate to even call that a day off, really, because it was essentially an 11 hour drive we had to execute. There's not much real "hang-out", "chill-mode" time in that. However, today we awakened at around noon and had absolutely nothing on our schedule. Shara had risen early to catch a train to some small town in southern France to spend a couple days with an old friend, leaving the four dudes to our own devices. After a small perambulation, we settled on a kebab/pizza/crap place for lunch. Nuno and Brian ordered pizza in place of the falafel they had anticipated seeing alongside the other choices on the menu, while James and I opted for lamb kebab meals. I guess we forgot to mention that whole "sandwich" thing, because we essentially got a plate of meat and french fries - very salty, very meaty, and relatively disgusting. The highlight of lunch was when a local interrupted our mediocre meal to ask if Brian and I were the drummer and bassist in My Brightest Diamond. We answered yes, and he complimented us on a good show the night before. It felt sweeeeet to be recognized, and somehow it made the turdmeat seem all of a sudden ten times more delectable. It was a weird thing for me, because I am the spawn of a pretty recognizeable and rather sore-thumbish character. Walking around as a kid and watching people crane their necks in recognition of your dad gets pretty old, because he's always just DAD to you, not "that dude from that movie with Denzel" or something like that. I guess it felt nice to be recognized on my own for once. Anyways, forgive my lugubrious digression.

We left Fribourg around 2:30 after returning to the venue to pickup the backline gear, and to make one last idiot check of the dressing rooms. Having left nothing we hit the road. During the 3-hour jaunt to Grenoble, Brian played the Beatles the entire time. I slept in the back seat, comfortably, happily, thinking about going home and finishing with a bang in France, and finally in London. We did get pulled over on the way, however, right near the border. It wasn't the first time this has happened so far on the tour. During our first day in Germany, we were pulled over by a couple of cops who were suspicious of our tall, scary, black van with Czech license plates (i don't blame them, especially because Nuno looks like somewhat of a shady character with his thick, arabesque beard and dark skin). That was weird though, because they didn't have sirens or anything like that. Their cruiser was shaped like a hatch-back, and had one of those scrolling LCD boards in the back window with the scrolling message of "Please follow us, pull over" in like three different languages. This time, the inspection was carried out by two very gruff looking French policeman. One had slicked back dark hair and a missing front tooth, and the other had barely any hair at all, but had a face like a career boxer and a walk like someone who had spent too many years on top of a horse (think John Wayne). He also had some rad spectacles. The slick-looking one asked if the van belonged to Nuno, and he answered "no, it belongs to a friend." I thought this answer was more than a bit suspicious, but it was delivered in classic Nuno manner and therefore thoroughly diffused any fears of foul-play. After a couple more procedural questions, we were again on our way.

We checked into our hotel at around 6, having battled through traffic in the outskirts of Grenoble. Without our faithful GPS navigation unit, Cynthia, traversing the small and ancient-looking streets of this city proved difficult. Our hotel, however, is great. It's actually called "HOTEL SPLENDID," which is totally splendid indeed. I've included a photo of the view from Brian and my room, which overlooks a quaint little neighborhood and has thus far been pretty hopping with drunken student-types. For dinner, the four of us went down the street to a great little Thai place called Phnom Penh. It was awesome. James and I split a beef-for-two dish which we cooked by hand on a little grill right in front of us. I got so caught up in the actual self-cooking process that I found myself neglecting to actually eat any of the delicious beefyness. It was also somewhat of a food-fascist move, given that Nuno is a vegan, and Brian is a hesitant vegetarian. Both of them were downwind of some serious meat smoke. I say sensitive because he's already "broken veg" once twice on this trip, both times in Germany. I can't blame him considering German food is ALL meat, and delicious meat at that. Plus, he's only been a vegetarian for about 5 months and talks about it kind of like it's AA, but i respect the move nonetheless. I've included a pic of the beef with Nuno sucking on the fumes in the background. To top it all off, Brian and I shared a banana split (such a cute rhythm section move), and Nuno had a friend banana thingy that looked delicious but gave him a tummyache.

So, here I sit, typing away on my laptop in room 27 of Hotel Splendid. The town has grown quiet, and Anchorman is on TV in french. I know this movie well enough to actually understand the dialogue, which is hilarious. WHAMMY!!! We have tomorrow off as well, and will be looking to either do some skiing at one of the local resorts, or find some place to rent some mopeds and get crazaaaay. Hopefully I'll find a way to avoid breaking my wrist or an important tooth.

ODE TO LOTAR

2007-02-22T11:43:00.000-08:00

So, last night in Winterthur Switzerland we were approached after the gig by a dude named Lotar. Is that not the coolest name you've ever heard in your life? It sounds like a name from another dimension! Or like he just stepped off of a viking ship in search of a town to rape and pillage, aflame with the vigorous fires of vikinghood. He had long, curly hair, and spoke English proficiently with a slight tinge of German.

I've been informed by the locals that most people in Switzerland speak at least two languages fluenty, and many speak three. Those languages include French, Italian, and German, and are used closest to the borders of their respective regions. There is even a fourth language, called Romanche, which is a combination of all three. I am told that it is only spoken in a tiny region of the country, near the border of Austria and close to the border of Italy. That's crazy, right? What if there were an alternate language in the US which combined elements of say, English, Ebonics, and Spanish? World would collide! I have trouble picturing the sound of Romanche, and unfortunately no one at the dinner table tonight spoke it either. Speaking of dinner, Switzerland has treated us extremely well in the food department. Last night and tonight we had essentially home-cooked meals served to us, with wine and water and soda, and even dessert! And all the other people who have joined us, including the opening acts, soundpeople, and promoters, have been totally enjoyable...which somehow amazes me. I usually despise foreigners, even though in this case it would be i, technically, playing the part of the foreigner.

After hanging out and drinking for free with Lotar and a couple of his vikingly compatriots, Brian, James, Nuno and I went back to the hotel as Shara went to spend the night at a friend's house a couple minutes away. Brian and I split a room, as did Nuno and James, and I ended up going to bed watching "Raging Bull" in German. As if that movie weren't brutal enough to watch in English, having to watch in German just flat out gave me nightmares. Something about not being able to understand the dialogue and having to make all connections to the plot based on facial expression and action made it complete mad. Brian agreed with me, and we both went to bed somewhat uncomfortable.

Minus the night terrors, I slept like a brick. We got up for breakfast around 10, and headed out at around 12:30 for our next destination, Fribourg. This is a quaint little city towards the French region of Switzerland. When we walked into the venue and began loading in, I was immediately shocked to see a giant skull-shaped disco ball hovering over our stage. I jumped at the sight. I'm telling you, it's about 5 feet long and about 3 feet wide, and extremely deep. It's a serious stage prop, worthy of a cameo in "Spinal Tap" itself (picture the mini stone henge being lowered onto the stage, except that this time it's actually a huge skull-shaped disco ball). Needless to say, this was a mildly hilarious first impression of the venue. Luckily, everyone on the sound and lighting tips have been totally pro, and this place has a super-sweet wireless connection which I am now happily exploiting. The hospitality has been superlative, with a great spread worthy of sandwich-making and carrot-dipping. There's even a tap in our dressing room! A whole tap with good beer! Right here! For FREE!! Yeah. That's cool. Hopefully tonight we will meet more eccentric people with names like Lotar. And of course, we will rock.....BENEATH A HUGE DISCO BALL SHAPED LIKE A HUMAN SKULL. Nuff said.

PS- Sorry for the gratuitous exclamation points on this one. But seriously. It's shaped like a human skull.

And on to Switzerland

2007-02-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

Ok. Here's the deal: we have one week left on this crazy thing called tour. That is, one week until our last show at Bush Hall in London. I will be staying in London for an extra couple of days, attempting to let my hair down, party it up, and basically unwind for a bit. Seeing as things are beginning to wind down, I'm struck by a faint melancholy about the prospect of finishing up. I'm not sure what kind of culture shock I will experience when I get back to NY. The worst part will surely not be in terms of returning to America World (sounds like a theme park, right?), but rather getting back into the daily grind of being a bum and not having anything particularly important or productive to do during the day. I fear that it will be exhausting going back to that lifestyle....I kid, of course. But seriously, I have no doubt that I will have some sort of comedown from this whole experience. Hopefully you will all be there to help me drown my sorrows in laughter and maker's mark.

Our shows in Italy turned out being the best of the tour. And I know I seem to say that after almost every performance, but this time I say it purely in terms of the audience response. Milan was AWESOME. The people there were drunk, merry, loud, and extremely ITALIAN. I guess they say as a people the Italians are a passionate type, and I can now confirm that first hand. After our set, we hung out with the owner of the venue drinking shots of Jameson and talking about nothing in particular. We even tried to get in on a game of foosball, but to no avail. They really take the foosball seriously in Italy. It's not like in the states, where one just spins the handles as hard as he can and tries to bonk the ball into the goal from the goalie position. It's a sport of tact and great finesse over here. Almost like real soccer, except that the players are of course mounted on sliding poles. We got to smoke a little doobie in the upstairs room with the owner and some of his compatriots, laughing and smiling the whole way. People are seeming to really appreciate this music, which is a very rewarding thing to watch happen. After our encores, Brian and James and I usually get right to work breaking down the stage as Shara works the crowd with grace and class like I've never seen before. She looks her fans straight in the eye, is sincere and engaging, and shows no rock-star attitude whatsoever. All of her rockstar stuff she leaves on stage, like a true P R O.

We left Milan happy as clams, having enjoyed a field day on merch sales and free booze. Turin was our next stop. The drive itself only took about 3 hours, but was made much more difficult by the fact that our GPS unit (affectionately nicknamed Cynthia) chose to clock out. We were essentially driving a bit blind for the day. Turin is the Italian equivalent of Detroit, the motor city, because it is the base of production for the Fiat automobile line. The streets are filled with cars and the air clouded with fog, and the drivers here are some of the worst I've yet seen on the continent. Brussels might be tied with Turin for having the worst drivers in Europe, but I'm not going to hold it against either city.

The show in Turin was weird, but well-attended and well-executed on our part. I blame the weirdness on the worst opening band I've ever come in contact with in my life. I was sitting down watching their set thinking to myself, "wow, I must have eaten something wrong because I actually feel like throwing up. Wait a minute, all I ate today was an apple and a ham sandwich, so this band must actually be making me want to vomit." I guess it's wrong to talk shit about a band opening for you, but I can't help it. They were absolutely fucking terrible. I can't even go into why or how they ended up being so bad, but they pulled it off with flying colors. Since it was a late show, we got done at around 1am, and got back to the hotel around 2. Brian and I had to fend off advances from two Mojito-ified british ex-pat university students, but we escaped alive.

We departed Turin in the morning without the help of our faithful Cynthia, and set out for our show at Salzhaus. This drive was absolutely breathtaking. Between moments of unsatisfying sleep, the views were pristine and epic to a degree I've never experienced before. It's all lakes of glass and mountains covered in snow and beauty and wonderment (and other stuff....) I felt like I was in a scene from Lord of the Rings for about 4 out of the 5 hours of our trek. It actually kind of made me understand the whole neutrality thing in Switzerland here. I guess the mindset must be something along the lines of, "It's too pretty around here to fight anybody. Let's just sit around here, eat chocolate and play with pocket knives. And maybe make some cheese with holes in it." The drive was a bit long, but we arrived just in time for soundcheck. I'm now writing from the backstage area, fully fed and content with life for the most part. I am a bit homesick, though, and I'm torn between emotions about the final days of the tour. Until our last show, I will put on my P R O face and plow through. Hope everyone is doing well. I've included some photos from the drive and from the beautiful sunrise in Berlin. Enjoy.

Goodbye Germany, HELLO ITALY

2007-02-19T10:35:00.000-08:00

Seeing as I only have a little bit of time, I will try to make this short. I have fully recovered from my unfortunate sickness, having spent about three days completely out of it and wishing I were either dead or home. I fought hard, drank lots of water, refrained from boozing, and was overall responsible about my plan of attack. The unfortunate thing about that, however, is that James has caught whatever bug I had and is now so much worse for it. I am feeling a little bit of survivor's guilt on that subject, now watching James stumble around zombified with fever, headache, cough, and the rest as I jump around happily and with renewed energy. I guess that's the way it works, though; sort of a family affair.

Our show in Berlin turned out being one of the best yet, as we rocked for a crowd of about 120 in a dingy, run-down club called the Mudd Club. Mom and Dad were in attendance, smiling and applauding away after every song, and so was Mr. Earl Harvin himself (drummer on the MBD album and all-around P R O). I found myself a little nervous before the set on accounts of Earl's being there, wanting to make sure I played perfectly and rocked efficiently. Upon meeting him, I found that Earl is just a normal dude. He was extremely personable and friendly, and I sort of felt like I was meeting Magic Johnson or something. I was even conscious of my voice going up a couple octaves as I introduced myself.

After the show I went back to my parents' hotel and ordered a HUGE room service burger that tasted like a German version of an American classic. Still delicious, though. I found Berlin to be a city without a true identity outside of its historical underpinnings. Apparently the entire former East Berlin has been revamped so heavily that it bares little to no resemblance to its past form. Obviously, i had no say on that matter, but was drawn anyways to its architecture, and especially the huge amount of graffiti on every block. In some ways it reminded me of places in NY like the lower east side: sort of grunged out, but with lots of personality and a palpable vibrance to it. Shara and James and Brian went out for a bit after the show, partying up Berliner style. Needless to say, I was sad to have missed out. But having my parents in town was AWESOME. I got to do some much needed laundry, switch out my broken suitcase for a functioning one, and I got some general TLC from Mom and Dad. My lady awakened me with a phone call at about 7am, and as I rolled over in my cot bed to look out the window, I saw a BEAUTIFUL sunrise - one which I will not soon forget. I will post a pic of that sunrise in the next blog, as well as some pics from the drive through Switzerland and into Italy. VERY pretty stuff.

We have four shows in the next four days, and so I will be pressed for free time in which to blog, but I will do my best to keep updates happening. I am in Milan now, which is a city made up of an entirely too fashionable populous. I'm doing backflips trying to keep up.

Blitzkrieg to Berlin

2007-02-17T07:44:00.000-08:00

So, it’s true what they say about the highways in Germany: there are no speed limits, and no rules. The autobahn is a place where natural law rules out over common decency and logic; where motors rev and brake lights seem a figment of a past universe. I’m riding shotgun with Nuno at present, and I again will commend him on his responsible and competent piloting of our craft in the face of tremendous aggression. We have been hanging out mostly in the far right and middle lanes as moderation dictates, all the while watching Audis, Bmws, Mercedes, and even the odd ambitious Peugeot shoot by like bullets fired from guns. This is our Blietzkrieg to Berlin, so to speak.

We left our hotel in Frankfurt around 9:30 this morning, and I’ve quite enjoyed the drive thus far. The German countryside is extremely scenic, and marked in many places by dense forestry – so dense that at times the sun struggles to pierce the canopy to shine on the soil. Also something worth noting is the abundance of those huge three-pronged windmills, made for catching and storing wind energy. I wanted to call them propellers, but windmills is probably the more accepted term. These huge structures pepper the horizon in numbers, and are quite a feat of engineering. It’s a good thing to see this, because it means people over here are getting the picture on alternative energy. I can only think of a couple places in the states that employ these, most memorably near Palm Springs, 3 hours east of Los Angeles.

I’ve taken over DJ duties for our trek today, spinning a variety of Black Sabbath, Michael Jackson, The Doors, The Cold War Kids, The Beastie Boys, Blonde Redhead, and a mixture of others. It’s been a pretty good little mix in my opinion. I even tried to listen to the WolfMother (one word? Two words?) album, but couldn’t really get through it. I liked them live a lot more than recorded, I’ve concluded. Right now we have about an hour and a half left our drive, and are now in straight up old-school eastern-bloc territory. I love it. I feel like a communist…..er something.

One thing that I have found somewhat disturbing today is the frequent Mcdonald’s sightings along the autobahn. I figure if you have people driving over 100mph (I don’t know what that is in Km/hr), you shouldn’t encourage any impulses which would cause a quick change in direction. The thought of a delicious Big Mac could lead to utter catastrophe if not checked by the proper amount of road awareness. Seriously though, I don’t want to see a Mcdonald’s once every thirty minutes. It’s just the same as driving up to Boston and being bombarded by golden arch after golden arch the entire way. It’s distracting! And fattening! Call me a hypocrite, but I did in fact just enjoy a delicious bratwurst for lunch at a little petrol station. Bratwurst is everywhere in this country, and I love it. I guess Germans might even think of this cuisine as their own localized version of Mcdonald’s, purely on account of its ubiquity and its cultural underpinnings.

Despite the abundance of Brats, I have yet to see anyone where leiderhozen. This upsets me a bit. Although, some of the towns we passed today on the ol’ autobahn must have had some proud leiderhozen wearers. These towns were small, quaint, and each one looked like it could have been the original birthplace of Augustus Gloup, that poor boy who got sucked up into Willy Wonka’s chocolate river piping system. I’ll never forget him.

and then the fever broke....

2007-02-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

I am happy to report that I woke up this morning feeling markedly better than I have at any point in the last two. You have no idea how happy this makes me. I went to bed early, having consumed plenty of liquids as per usual, and dreamed of trying to kill this huge rat that was extremely fast, furry, and elusive. It totally grossed me out. Perhaps this rat represented my sickness? I don't know. I'm no Freud.

Being in Freud's home country, however, I have been observing the locals here with a keen eye. Given that Frankfurt is such a shopper's wonderland, as I mentioned yesterday, everyone is tidy and well dressed in smart attire from head to foot. No one spits or shouts or even honks while they drive their mercedes through the streets. This of course made me feel especially repulsive, as I am a fountain of phlegm and snot right now. We didn't really do anything much last night, aside from eating a bit of pizza and perambulating a bit. Nuno and Brian and I were all extremely beat, so we went to bed relatively early to prepare for today's pre-show chores. I had to fetch a new pair of bass strings, Nuno inquired as to a repair on our valiant steed, and Brian was determined to clean some of his show clothes. As it turned out, my errand was the only successful one to my great surprise.

Tomorrow we have a 5 hour commute to Berlin, where I will be able to rendezvous with my parents. They are serious MBD groupies, and are just about that age where the word retirement comes into play. When I gave them the schedule of the tour they very glibly said, "Oh you're playing in Berlin? We've been wanting to go to Berlin! Maybe we'll show up for the show!" Needless to say, I'm excited to see them. My parents have been amazing to me since I've graduated school. Whereas most of my friends have immediately found themselves in jobs and hating every day of working those jobs, I have been busting my ass playing music, forefitting my nights in favor of rehearsals, lugging my "gear" around for shows that rarely pay more than $30, and basically being an all-around bum. This tour will represent the first time in my life that I'll be able to pay my own rent for a bit and still be able to buy some miscellaneous items. That's kind of scary, too, because I know that this type of tour will not be the norm for me...yet.....

My Mom and Dad used to come to all of my sporting events and such when I was a kid, so having them at shows provides a similar sort of solace and comfort for me. I know there's never going to be a moment when they come backstage and say, "oh it was great, but I didn't really like that fill you played in the 7th bar of the outro for Dragonfly" or "your groove was really lazy in Workhorse....you should really work that out and pep it up a little bit," but it's not even about their approval and enthusiasm that makes it nice to have them in attendance. It's more that I can be satisfied knowing that I am making them proud not only because this music kicks ass, but also that I've been working hard to get to this place. I also have to say here that I am extremely LUCKY -in more ways than one- to be in this position. Sebastian, one of my best friends and most fruitful collaborators, recommended me for this post back in the Summer. He and I started playing music together in my band Lemming, and then I signed on to play bass for INLETS, which is his personal brainchild. He'll be making fun of me tomorrow for talking about him in blog form, but I still figured I'd give him a shoutout since he is the reason I'm here. He also is a tenured veteran in MBD (check out the youtube from joe's pub....he's playing lead guitar and bells on something of an end). If you haven't already, I implore you download the INLETS debut EP FOR FREEEEEE (yes, freeeeee) at www.luvsound.org. He will also be doing a radio performance with INLETS for WFMU on feb 26th, and a show at the famous Brooklyn hipster hangout Union Pool on feb 24th. Check that ish out.

In other musical news, Nuno played me a Portugese band called Linda Martini in the car today, and I loved them. Check them out on myspace. Also check out a band called Critters Buggin that Brian showed me. Good stuff. That is all I have for now. Hope you are all enjoying yourselves in the frozen tundra that is NYC, or wherever you may be.

frankfurt

2007-02-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

I had no idea that our day off in cologne actually fell on the first day of this city's version of mardi gras. It was absolutely insane. Picture literally thousands of Germans dressed up in all kinds of whacky and ridiculous outfits, all of them with beer in one hand and a bratwurst or sausage in the other. Seriously, this is not an exaggeration.

We checked out of our hotel around noon to find ourselves in the middle of some totally parallel drunken universe. People were making out, peeing on the streets, puking, and lining up to use the 50 euro public toilets. Remember what I said about Germans all seeming on the verge of snapping and going nuts? Well apparently my observation was spot on.

As for last night, the show last night was an odd one. We had a great time playing to a crowd of about 40 seated, quiet, German 40-somethings. Apparently there was a huge football match on that night which may have held the attentions of most of the younger would be MBD supporters. The highlight of the show for me, however, was breaking my low E string (AKA the most important string on the bass) and having to play the rest of the set on just three strings. I broke it on the song 'bring me the workhorse', and had to then do my best to play 'No Quarter' without embarrassing myself. It remains to be seen whether or not I succeeded. Our load out was easy, and I went to bed watching a program called 'Deutschland Idol'.... It was the German version of American Idol, and was essentially completely the same as the American version except that the judges and contestants spoke German. Seriously, even the in-between segment music was the same. I even figured the judges had the same personality types, even though I could not understand a word they said. The oddest thing about the program, however, was that the contestants did American songs. One did a heinous, frightening version of Sweet Home Alabama in a sort of Eddie Vedderesque voice, another did Barry Manilow's song Mandy, and there was even a valiant attempt at Bill Wither's Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone. I think I may have had night terrors about the Barry Manilow tune.

We checked out around noon, immediately finding ourselves in the middle of the fray of Carnival. I took lots of photos, but since I'm now writing from an internet cafe and can't download the pics I sent myself, you'll have to use your imagination until I can post them. After soaking in the local debauchery, we made the two hour trek to Frankfurt. This city reminds me of Beverly Hills, the German version. Literally all I have seen here are stores. I've seen about five H & Ms, two Nike stores, three Mcdonald's, a Foot Locker, and a Pizza Hut. It's weird. On the upside, the architecture of the downtown financial buildings is quite spectacular, with one building that sort of reminds me of something out of that Batman Returns movie (yes, the one with Dannz DeVito as the Penguin...). I'm going to wait on making any offensive judgements on this city until tomorrow, until then, assume that I'm having a pretty good time. That is, aside from my fever, whooping cough, 3 stringed bass, and one wheeled suitcase.

Klon, Koln, Cologne?

2007-02-14T12:10:00.000-08:00

So, I am writing now from the venue one hour before our set. I think the name of it is Gerbaude 9, and it's all extremely east bloc. Reminds me of a place where vampires might come to hang out on saturday nights. There is lots of concrete, lots of bad graffiti, lots of stickers from performances past, and lots of Germans. Germans are a funny lot, I find. everyone is extremely friendly and full of smiles, but it seems as if they are constantly on the verge of snapping and totally flipping out. I'm aware of the fact that this is pure conjecture, but seeing as it is my first time in the country I might as well put my first impressions out there.

Even in spite of the dingy, grungy, run-down vibe of this place, I was surprised to find a pretty healthy wireless connection and an unbelievable spread in our dressing room. Seriously, we felt like royalty when we walked in. For dinner we ate green curry, and made sandwiches with excellent cheese, quality lunch meats, and a variety of healthy juices and teas (this aspect of the spread was immediately appealing to me, the sickly member of the bunch). I expected to see some sauerkraut and some kickass brats, but they were nowhere to be found. Our opener tonight is a very Tori Amos-y German singer/songwriter with an extremely gregarious manager whose name I can't recall. As we finished up our sound check with "No Quarter," I looked over to see him bobbing his head with a huge smile on his face. After we finished he informed me that he had been in attendance at the only two Led Zeppelin shows ever to take place in Frankfurt, his hometown. I believe his line was, "that is one of ze cool tings about being oold..." Having obviously never seen a Zep show myself, I agreed. Three of our shows so far have had similar types of gentle, sensitive openers, which is funny considering that our set ends up being extremely loud and aggressive. That's always a funny contrast for the audience I figure. I have only about 45 minutes before we hit go-time, so I figured I'd just give a little update on things.

An observation: time on tour seems to pass more quickly than time in real-life. The past five hours at this venue have seemed a quarter of that. I blame the delicious spread in part for this phenomenon, but I also attribute it to the strenuous nature of this whole tour thing. One's mind seems to turn off in the interim between sound check and performances. It's weird. I wonder if that is true for real day jobs, and the time between lunch and going home. Feel free to respond to this question with your own opinions. I'm genuinely curious.

ILL in Amsterdam.

2007-02-14T07:52:00.000-08:00

It’s now February 14, Valentine’s day, and we have just left Amsterdam for Klon Germany. I neglected to write yesterday on accounts of a wicked flu I picked up somewhere between Manchester England and Brussels. Let me just say that to be sick on tour is to be completely and totally miserable. I woke up on the 13th with a fever, body aches, and a wicked case of the loose lung which rendered me completely useless for the entire day.

The team was extremely supportive the entire day however, allowing me to take leave from load-in duties and being all-in-all just completely sweet. It’s hard though, because I was raised to think that if you’re not helping when others are working then you’re doing something wrong. Brussels had treated us extremely well, because the venue had paid for our stay in a super nice hotel, complete with complimentary breakfast, free wireless, and unbelievable water pressure in the showers. I actually thought of that Seinfeld episode when Kramer buys the ultra high water pressure shower head off the black market and gets blown back upon trying it out. Even in spite of the good hospitality, I woke up the next day with a case of the DEATH. I laid out in the back of the van for most of the trip to Amsterdam, saying nothing outside of my periodic wheezing and sniffling. All I could think to myself during the trip was, “and we have a show to play tonight? AND tomorrow night? SERIOUSLY?” Shara had a radio interview/performance at a Dutch radio station at around 2:30, but I stayed in the van to lick my wounds as rain began to fall outside. The whole scene was a bit depressing, and even a little pathetic on my part.

We arrived at Paradiso at around 3:30, and were welcomed by a team of cheerful stage hands, all of them smiling and speaking sweet dutch-accented English. I think Dutch as a language is one of the strangest sounds my ears have ever heard. It sounds like someone trying to make fun of both English and German at the same time. Dutch also makes me think of the Swedish chef from the muppet babies – a truly delightful association. Team Diamond wouldn’t allow me to do any of the heavy lifting for the load-in, which is lucky for me because my muscles felt like they had taken the day off in a big way. It was hard for me to even stand up for most of the day. To combat my unwanted road-induced illness, I drank about 5 bottles of water, a whole liter bottle of orange juice, and three or four glasses of tea in the afternoon. Needless to say, I peed like a racehorse about once every hour for the entire day, a fact which made me somewhat self-conscious during our three-plus commute from Brussels.

During sound check, I sat on the side of the stage with my head hung low and my eyes barely staying open. What a sad scene I must have made. I’m not usually one to get headaches when I’m ill, but my head throbbed constantly all day. After our check, Brian escorted me to the pharmacy to pick up some medicine, only to find that the wall with the cold and flu remedies was a a labyrinth of Dutch. I had to ask the lady behind the counter for a recommendation. She pointed to a specialty ibuprofen and a thera-flu type powder thing to be used in hot water. Afterwards Brian and I meandered for a bit and made a stop in one of Amsterdam’s many fine coffee shops. I sadly behaved myself for fear of exacerbating my malady as Brian smoked half a doobie of some chronicles. Our set was an early one at Paradiso, starting at around 8pm in the upstairs room. The funny thing on this evening was that Wolf Mother, one of the “it” bands in the world right now, was playing the main stage beginning around 10pm. Our show was extremely well attended, packed all the way to the back, and the crowd was the best one we’d had yet. We even managed to sell about 80 cds and a good bit of merchandise. The show itself went very well, and I guess the adrenaline kicked in for me somewhere along the way because I felt just fine during the whole performance. Shara had told me to take it easy and not strain myself too much, but that’s hard to do when you’re playing music that genuinely moves you. The crowd ate up every song, whooping and hollering and begging for more after each tune. And sure enough, by the end of the set I was soaked with sweat. As we exited the stage, we gave our self-congratulations and wished Shara luck on her encore. She did that Prince tune, “why don’t you call me anymore?” and came backstage again. But the crowd still wanted more. They were not yet satiated, and had not had their fill. So she went out again and did another encore, this time doing one of the album tunes, “the good and the bad guy.” Again she exited the stage and came backstage where we again applauded her. But again, the crowd wanted more! They love them some Shara Worden in Amsterdam. So, she did one last encore before we had to break down the stage and retire to watch Wolf Mother.

The Wolf Mother crowd was outrageous, reminding me of the year 1976 as depicted in the classic film “Dazed and Confused.” Long hair, denim jackets, handle bar moustaches were abound, not to mention the few conspicuously high-on-mushrooms members of the audience. This was quite the scene. I really dug the show, even though it was the loudest music I’ve ever heard in my life, and there was a gargantuan Dutchman of about 6’5’’ in front of me for most of the time. Apparently “down in front!” is a phrase not often heard in Amsterdam. Luckily, we got to store most of our gear in the Paradiso so that we could do our load-out the next day. Shara, Brian, James and I left the venue to find a late dinner, and we settled on a little Thai place called “Mai Thai.”

After dinner, we met Nuno in front of the venue and headed to our hotel, only about three blocks from the venue. The hotel was stupidly called “Hotel Art Gallery,” and we were greeted wearily by the grumpy night reception guy. This place provided the cherry on top of an impossible day for me. Our rooms were on the 4th floor, and because there were no elevators, we caravanned up the 3-foot wide staircases laughing at the absurdity of the situation. We huffed and puffed, dragging our luggage behind us all the way. As I got to the fourth floor, I looked back to see James holding a broken suitcase wheel….. “dude, is this yours?” Yes, of course it was mine. This is the kind of day it had been for yours truly. After all of my troubles with whatever sickness I had picked up, my suitcase wheel had busted on the last volley of stairs in an impossibly narrow staircase in a cheesy hotel in Amsterdam at 1am. If there is a god, he/she/it was certainly having a laugh on this one. Tomorrow we will continue on to Germany.

brussels. brussels. brussels.

2007-02-12T16:21:00.000-08:00

After my last post, I had what felt like a near-death experience. After having driven almost the entire length of England, the Diamond found itselff aboard yet another ferry, this time heading to mainland Europe. To be more specific, our ship's destination was on the north-eastern corner of France. The process of mounting a ferry in Europe is strange if not totally frightening. You wait in a line of about three to four-hundred cars, bunched closely together in formation, and drive slowly up a ramp onto a massive boat. This morning, however, would prove to be a very challenging voyage across the channel. The rain during our drive down to the dover cliffs ceased only for about fifteen minutes during our entire trip, and only seemed to worsen as we boarded our ferry. Brian and i took a brief moment while still docked to snap some pictures, with the wind abusing us and the turbulent water rocking the boat beneath our tired and road-weary feet. As soon as we embarked on the one hour voyage across the channel, I realized this would not be an average boat ride.

I tried to distract myself from the ominous swaying and ebbing of the massive vessel by watching an episode of Tina Fey's new NBC series, 30 rock, only to find that comedy provides no solace for a fear of dying. I sat in my seat trying to contain my panic, only holding back from screaming because the other passengers on board seemed totally at ease. There were young children laughing and running around as our craft swayed violently to and fro, crashing into the manic surf beneath us. As i looked up briefly from my i-pod, i watched a young girl of about 7 vomit gracefully into a barf-bag. We were extremely lucky that the voyage was only an hour long.

Finding ourselves on solid ground, i silently rejoiced in my saftey as i fell sound asleep. I awoke with Brussels surrounding me, and with no namesake cookies in sight. Go figure. The venue was fantastic, complete with strange roadies speaking in tongues foreign to my ears, and with hairdos i had never seen before. After soundcheck, i killed time by calling home and napping in our backstage area. The show was the most well attended yet, and was even complete with a lighting guy. He utilized a lot of different looks, and even threw a strobe light in at the end of "freak out." Needless to say, the show rocked. Tomorrow, we head to Amsterdam. I couldn't be happier about that.

no sleep til' BRUSSELS

2007-02-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

It’s 2:45 in the morning, and I’m writing from our van as we jet south to catch a ferry from the port city of Dover. This will be our hardest day of travel of the entire tour, and we will most likely arrive in Brussels somewhere in the early afternoon. I’m told that our hotel has a pool, sauna, and Jacuzzi, so there is a silver lining in there somewhere, even if we’ll only be able to enjoy it for a slim hour or two. I just finished the first shift in the shotgun seat attempting to keep our faithful pilot Nuno awake and on his toes, a chore which proved positively enjoyable. I think Nuno and I have a lot in common: we both have beards, we’re both extremely laid back, we both love music and travel, and we are both photography buffs. Come to think of it, that means that every single one of us in this van right now have a lot in common with Nuno. Of course, Shara lacks the beard…

Nuno is from Portugal, in a town not more than a kilometer (approximately 2/3 of a mile, for those of you not familiar with the metric system) from the beach. Portugal is apparently referred to by fellow Europeans as the “California” of Europe, a fact which goes far to explain Nuno’s laid back demeanor. It has been raining since we left Manchester, hard enough that the pitter-patter on the windshield has made it hard to hear the i-pod playing over our van’s speakers.

In the silences between our front-seat chatter, I got to thinking about the show tonight. It was completely out of body for me. I don’t know whether to accredit it to Brian’s being there, or to Shara for playing her most solid show yet, or for the city of Manchester for providing such a positive and enthusiastic audience. Whatever the reason, we kicked serious arse tonight. It felt like every song had a near perfection to it. And, of course we KILLED No Quarter again. No question. To think that this is our first show together in trio formation is scary, because it makes me think about the next 44 shows we are yet to play over the coming months. We have 15 left on this tour, then the SXSW show on march 16, and then it’s on the road again with the Decemberists.

As tired as I am right now, I have a strange manic energy happening in my bones. I even volunteered to stand my post next to Nuno for the duration of our early morning journey, but then thought the better of the idea and took a seat in the back next to Brian. The droning hum of the highway is almost deafening right now as I sit with my laptop, but I’m happy. Brian just leaned over to me and said, “I know this may sound sappy, but this is exactly what I want to be doing right now. Even if it’s 3am, we’re going to our next show. This is awesome.” Sappiness aside, I couldn’t agree with him more.

I will now try to catch some ZZZZs.

Wow. I just jostled about on the floor of our van for a good hour and a half trying to find a position suitable and comfortable enough for slumber. I don’t know if it worked, but I do know that we have somehow, someway arrived at the cliffs of dover at the southern tip of England, thanks to Nuno’s stellar work behind the wheel. I am dedicating today’s blog to him. And let me reiterate that Nuno is the MAN. I don’t know Brian is even alive right now given that he just arrived on the continent yesterday morning and had a show to play last night. He wins the trooper award for the week. In spite of maximum trooper status, we’re all a bit batty right now seeing as it’s 7:30 in the morning and we’ve successfully driven straight through the night. Once we are on the ferry at dover, we will still be about three hours away from Brussels. By the time I get to a wireless connection and publish this update, I will be one more time zone further east, and therefore one time zone further away from home. What I’m trying to say here is that I miss my peoples. Please send me email if you’d like, as I’d love to get some word from the states. Today’s girlfriend haiku reads:

A LONELY BOTTLE

OF BUSHMILL’S IRISH WHISKEY

AWAITS YOUR RETURN

sunday, sunday, sunday.

2007-02-11T12:03:00.000-08:00

I have found that days off on tour are splendid and welcome respites from the stress and constant hustle of being on the road, but having said that, I’m ready to play again. And this time, Mr. Brian Wolfe will be back on duty after missing our first three dates in Dublin, Belfast, and Glasgow. Brian is a surgeon on the drums; he cuts with a fine blade and has a steady hand capable of performing the most intricate of maneuvers with both ease and flare. I couldn’t be happier to have him back on as my rhythm section partner in crime. Even though Binzer did a fantastic job filling in during Brian’s absence on the first three dates, playing with Brian again sort of feels like coming home. I’m very excited. We had a nice, leisurely sound check, and I wore a bent grin on my face pretty much the entire time.

Having logged time in the Diamond with now three different drummers, I can say that Brian has a sort of style and panache that makes this music feel just right. It’s not too flashy, never too slow, and always squarely and comfortably in the pocket. To be “in the pocket” is a hard thing to describe, however. It’s a term used most often to refer to the interplay between the bass and the drums in an ensemble, and is always mentioned alongside words like groove, or feel. Being in the pocket means that not only are you playing completely together, completely rhythmically fused, but also that your dynamics and the intensity with which you attack the notes make sense in an aesthetically pleasing and harmonious manner. This will probably make me sound like a “puff,” as Joshua Ben Joseph frequently called it, but I would compare it to having really good sex. Mom, Dad, please pretend I just compared it to something else.

After a completely enjoyable though relatively uneventful night on the town with Joshua, his friend Dom, and a couple of other Mancunian locals, I went to bed happily last night. For some reason I woke up early, around 8, and watched BBC news for an hour before a sudden impulse to exercise overtake me. I found this fairly odd, for I’ve been off that whole exercise thing for quite a while. I cranked some tuneage on my laptop and did a bunch of crunches and sit-ups and pull-ups until I felt the burn. After achieving the burn, I regretted the crunches and the sit-ups and the pushups. I showered and got dressed and headed downstairs to find some breakfast. In the lobby I found Nuno, Brian, and Nuno’s girlfriend sitting around in chairs discussing things. I greeted Dr. Brian Wolfe warmly, asking him about the funeral services for his Grandma, and bid him adieu as I searched for breakfast. There was a nice little place right around the corner from the hotel where I happily ordered a garlic and prawn omelet (yes, it sounds disgusting). I returned as Shara and James came out of the elevator, and soon found myself again sitting in the nice little place right around the corner. My comrades ate as I watched, and we chatted eagerly about a variety of topics not really worthy of mentioning. Afterwards, around 2pm, we met Nuno at the venue and began our load-in of the gear. Colin, the soundman at the Life Café, was extremely friendly and professional, which made the sound check both painless and fun.

After sound check, I explored the neighborhood a bit, stumbling across a charming pub named something ending in “Arms.” I was tickled to find that on the big screen was a soccer (football?) match between Arsenal and Wigan Athletic. I thought of my good friend and fellow member of The Kiss-Off, Oliver, who adores English football. I ordered a Guinness and headed to the upstairs area to blend with the locals with the score 1 – 0 in favor of Wigan. Most of the faces of the spectators in the place were a bit chagrined; evidently there was more than a few Arsenal fans in the building. After a few futile efforts, Arsenal finally scored on a bit of a fluke own-goal in the 82nd minute, which drew a volley of cheers from. I joined the cheers, feeling like a bit of a phony because I don’t really care about the Premier League all that much. I’m a bigger fan of Football American style. However, Arsenal scored again seven minutes later on a beautiful cross and stunning finish by a guy named Rosicky. “Magical stuff!!” was the commentator’s choice of words. I agreed, smiling and cheering along with the rest of the footee fans.

That pretty much brings us up to date on today’s events. And, though somewhat unexciting, the day shot by as if out of a cannon. I guess that’s the way it works, though. Unfortunately, we will be driving straight through the night after the show in order to make a 7am ferry over to Belgium, and our next destination, the city of Brussels. I’m excited to find out whether or not they have actually cookies there like the Pepperidge Farm Brussels cookies, which are extremely delicious. ESPECIALLY when dipped in milk. I am somewhat sad to leave Manchester, only because it is a city made of visible history, and is full of total drunks. I hear that’s sort of par for the course around these parts. Anyways, tomorrow will take us onto the mainland of Europe, and Tuesday will bring us nothing short of AMSTERDAM. I hear marijuana is legal there.

paragraphs!

2007-02-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

thanks to louise, who just showed me the light on how to make page breaks happen. hallelujah? (sp?)

god bless days off X2. funny stuff.

2007-02-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

After last night’s somewhat botched attempt at meeting the locals, today proved entirely more fulfilling. I woke up gladly around 1pm, slightly hung-over but entirely well rested, and began my day. I walked towards Manchester Metropolitan University, taking pictures and I-podding it as I went, looking of course like a total sore thumb. I don’t mind looking foreign, especially because they seem to love yanks here in Manchester. I didn’t really expect that to be the case, but every person I asked regarding fun bars or interesting places to visit was entirely friendly and non-anti-American. I spent a little bit of time in the Manchester University Museum, which had an exhibit on the T-Rex, my favorite of the dinosaur family. Also at the museum was an exhibit entitled “Wild Britain,” featuring the not-so-exotic wildlife of the UK. It was made up of mostly birds and weird regular animals with funny names, but nothing really special. I left around 4 to make phone calls back to the states, waking my parents in LA to discuss the recent happenings in Glasgow and Manchester.

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped in at a bar called The Thirsty Scholar. I chose this place because there is a bar in NY on either 1st or 2nd avenue with the same name. As soon as I approached the bar to order to a pint, a cue ball-headed man named Joshua struck up a conversation. He began by saying, “you look good, man. How are you?” He didn’t seem homosexual to me, so I was in no way suspicious of his motives. He did, however, seem to be noticeably intoxicated. Now, I’ve heard a lot about the tendency towards day-time drunkenness around these parts, but until today hadn’t had a chance to confirm this rumor. Also, this interaction would prove to be my first actual conversation with a member of the Manchester community. My conversation progressed with this friendly, bald, drunken man, whose name I soon found to out to be Joshua. Fully, it’s Joshua Ben Joseph (upon rendering that info, his comment was “yeah I’m a big Jew…”). During the course of his ramblings, I found out that he is a musician/poet, a tarot-card reader by trade, and altogether a totally paranoid and partially psychotic human being. Four or five times he would begin sentences with, “I wouldn’t say this if I were sober, but I’m PISSED….so…..” and then finish them. He was a combination of totally confident in his place in the world and totally paranoid about it. In terms of his art, his conceit is to set the works of famous British poets to music in singer/songwriter form. He invited me to the third anniversary of the “Green Bohemia” evening tonight at a bar/venue right around the corner entitled the Green Room, and I gave him my solemn word that I would be there. Joshua needed someone to vent to today, and I was happy to be there for it. He kept on interrupting me when I would attempt to respond to his ramblings, only to then apologize, rubbing his bald head and closing his eyes, cursing his drunken imposition. He apologized at times for being too loud –which he was not- and for talking too much, and for spilling his guts out to a total stranger. He also repeated himself a lot - a trait true to a true drunk. He shook my hand four times, introducing himself and asking me my own name each time. I doubt he’ll remember it upon reuniting this evening. He also confessed to having a bit of a drinking problem, which I found both innocuous and somewhat tragic…as well as obvious. After last night’s scientific silence and observation, I was happy to meet a Mancunian (as they call themselves here) with a penance for conversation. Another thing he repeated was that many people meet him and ask him if he’s a “puff,” which is English for gay. His response to this subject: “But I’m not a puff. I may look like one, and I may dress like a puff, but I’m not a puff. I have a girlfriend! I love women!” He bought me my second round, a Maker’s Mark neat, and introduced me to a fellow musician friend of his named Kevin Fox. Kevin, upon shaking my hand, reached over and fixed my tie, bashfully muttering, “I’m sorry, I just had to…” He, too, proved to be a musician of the singer/songwriter type, and promptly gave me his promo CD. Both Kevin (Kev), and Joshua, are extremely talented. I implore you to peep their myspace profiles: myspace.com/joshuabenjoseph , myspace.com/kevfox . I sat and chatted with these two jolly lads for a good hour, taking some pics, drinking some pints, and generally having a good time. It’s now 9:19 here in Manchester, and I will soon be joining up with this merry crew again for a “proper” Manchester night. Hopefully my first impression of this city will be rectified. Tomorrow will mark the arrival of Brian, MBD’s drummer for these next two tours, and I am very excited for this. We will also again have a show tomorrow, and I greatly look forward to it. More information to come.

thank god for days off.

2007-02-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

Seeing as we had no show in Manchester last night, i got to let my proverbial hair down for the first time since the tour started. We arrived at the hotel at around 6:30pm after suffering through a pretty tough bout of traffic on the M6, Manchester's version of the BQE. Our hotel is perfect, located in the heart of the Manchester downtown area, and for the first time i have the room completely to myself. I felt like a bit of a child once i got settled, jumping on the bed, having a pillow fight with myself, and even taking some silly pictures in the mirror. I dilly dallied (sp?) for a good three hours in my room before heading out into the great beyond known as Manchester City. The rain had let up by the time i left the hotel, although it was still bitter cold and a bit damp. I tried to mark a couple of initial landmarks right off the bat: the Manchester Public Library, Town Hall, and of course the address of my hotel on Lower Moseley Street. I chose a direction and went with it, initially looking for Peter street because of a recommendation from the zoftig red-haired lady at the reception desk. I didn't end up finding Peter Street, and instead found myself following the meandering drunks all walking in pairs and groups towards their Friday evening destinations. After a good twenty minutes on foot i became restless. When i saw a neon green sign for a place with the familiar title of "copa cabana," i aborted my walk and went inside. As i went down the flight of steps into the entrance of the club, i heard the all too familiar sounds of Tito Puente and his latin jazz orchestra. Not live, of course, but blaring over the PA. It actually could have been one of a million different other latin jazz artists, but the stereotype serves to prove my point here. Picture bongos and cowbell and trumpets blaring. This place was god-awful lame. Luckily I got to do my best fly-on-the-wall impression and stand at the bar ordering jack daniel's neat and pints of Carlsberg until i was tipsy enough to tolerate the ridiculousness of my environment. I stood at the far end of the bar, nearest the exit and the coatcheck, sipping gingerly and watching latin music videos on silent with a smirk on my face. I was conscious of a certain scientific attitude which overtook me, almost as if I was conducting field research for some experiment on the nature of a foreign world. Manchester is certainly that, above all else. The conclusions i came to in this ridiculous place, decked wall to wall with macro-sized neon Corona bottles and half-priced mojitos, did not bode well for a first impression of not-so-jolly Manchester: the people at the cabana dressed like idiots, danced like morons, and could be thought of as being generally attractive. For example, i saw a dude wearing a pink collared shirt with a picture of Che over his left breast, with the word "rebellious" written in arc from shoulder to shoulder on the back; i saw a man with a funny nose and what looked to be jerry curls, even though he was white; i saw a lot of tight, short, nylon dresses, a lot of gratuitous and tasteless makeup, and a lot of super-faux hipster hairdos. And, of course, a fair share of really bad dancing reminiscent of Elaine Bennis. PIcture me at the end of the bar, watching this scene unfold with a grin on my face and a drink in my hand. QUITE the scene. I can also say without a trace of trepidation that the music videos playing on silent on the monitors were the most ridiculous and comical pieces of entertainment - if you can call it that - that i've ever seen. The one that i first noticed upon entering depicted a ballet class. Between the shots of the ballet moves was footage of a bearded latino dude singing passionately behind a piano. The footage of the dancing class was ridiculous enough on its own, but the dancers soon began to sing along to the song of the man behind the piano. Before i knew it, the dancers and the singer were together in the dance studio, dancing like idiots and singing together. The second video one was even more vapid and uninteresting. It started out with a closeup of the volume knobs on a fender guitar amp being ever-so-carefully turned up, and then zoomed out to show the flaming troubadour and star of the video inside a subway station with his mustang guitar. I couldn't help but picture the process of filming this piece of trash, with the director in the background shouting directions and encouragement, and the singer trying his best to look his most creative, emotional, and enveloped in his rocking. R I D I C U L O U S. As he played, a train pulled up. Passengers disembarked, and there were closeups of the passengers' reactions to the song and to the deutschbag singing it. Some looked confused, some looked interested, and some looked like they didn't know what on earth was happening. The video progressed, sadly, to other scenes of public performance. The guy set his amp up in a cafe and began to sing. Then he moved into a library and began to sing. You can imagine my facial expression while watching all of this nonsense unfold. The other video i care enough to describe involved a lady singer in a chef's outfit chopping vegetables and preparing a meal in a domesticated kitchen setting. Her makeup was running to illustrate her tears and whatever emotional strain was contained within the lyrics of the song. The video then cut to a man tied up in the bedroom, struggling to free himself with a look of terror on his face. Keep in mind, however, that these fucking stupid videos were played on mute, and Tito-Puente-esque crap was playing in the background. The video ended with the man freeing his hands, but not his legs, hopping to the balcony of the apartment, and jumping off the balcony. After that, it cut again back to the singer chopping vegetables and crying (and lip-synching in spanish....). I guess i blame American culture for creating this pseudo-artistic medium which so blatantly bastardizes the essence and conceit of music, and turns it into this superficial mockery of coherent creative expression. FUCK M T V!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. After a few more drinks and a few more terrible Latin Music videos by artists like Paulina Rubio and Shakira, I happily left the copa cabana without having muttered a word to anyone except the bartenders. I gathered myself, and picked a new direction to explore. Soon i came to a late night eatery selling pizza, fried chicken, "kebabs", and hamburgers. Happily, I paid 4 pounds for 1 piece of friend chicken and a chicken shwarma. I had to shout my order to be heard over the massive thumping of the subwoofers from the club next door, bumping what sounded like a combination of hip-hop and British grime rap. I ate quickly and happily, still thinking of bogus music videos and how they have ruined the music industry en masse. Since this eatery was actually NEXT DOOR to a club, i figured i would minimize my foot traffic and check it out. I've never really been a club type, as any one of my friends will confirm, but as i said before i was on a mission of scientific observation. I was determined. I don't remember the name of this next place, although it must have had something to do with roller skates because you could rent them out for a small price at the coat check. Maybe it's just me, but i'm of the opinion that combining alcohol consumption and being on wheels is a terrible idea. I mean, if drunk driving and drunk bicycling are illegal, shouldn't drunken rollerskating be illegal as well? They're not even rollerblades, which require a good deal less balance and physical coordination. They're rollerskates............which are really fucking hard to successfully operate without incident. My worries were confirmed when a hefty chick with blonde hair ran into me, cracked my shin, and fell to the floor giggling with jiggling, inebriated delight. Needless to say, I was not pleased. I had a couple drinks at the bar, snapped a couple of pictures of the club, bought a 1 pound shot of blue alcohol from a rollerskating shot-girl wearing bunny ears lined with blinking lights, smoked my first cigarette in 2.5 years, got my coat, and moved on not a moment too soon (the cigarette came out of my pure confusion and restlessness.... don't worry, mom and dad). As i departed, i aimed for the landmarks i had established on my way. I stopped at one last place near our hotel, the Obsidian Bar (don't ask me why i remember the name of this one and not the rollerskate club with the bunny eared shot girls). Here I drank one glass of Maker's Mark, because it was the first time i'd seen it over here in the UK. It reminded me of home, and warmed my soul. Speaking of home, i've found myself relatively homesick these past days. Perhaps it's the dreary grey of the Manchester sky, or the long drives, or the 3 hour sound checks with a drummer we'd only just met, but i'm lonely here. I miss home, i miss my friends, i miss the green sour patch kids, and i miss the firehouse. This all hit me like a ton of bricks as i left the Obsidian bar and limped back to the hotel thinking of NY. I went to bed texting my love across the pond and sulking about bad timing and postcards.

go bruins

2007-02-09T14:26:00.000-08:00

yeah....that's poppa smurf watching UCLA beat USC. Represent. And as for the no paragraph situation, take it up with the blogger website. They don't allow that.....SO un-P R O. Mitchell, deal with it, you finnicky bitch.

me and my manchest-er

2007-02-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

I hate reading anything that's not split up into paragraphs, so i apologize for not having that happening here....mitchell, that apology is for you....Pardon my momentary digression. Onto more urgent and pressing matters involving gray skies and flocks of sheep. My prediction of a killer show last night came true as i knew it would, as we pulled off a scorching and altogether wicked rendition of No Quarter as our encore. Another more comedic highlight of the performance was a botched monitor to stage jump during the song "freak out" (of course) by yours truly, as i landed in a puddle of my own mansweat, thereby slipping and falling on my ass. To recover, i executed a full backwards summersault into a prone position right in front of my amp, making it seem half way intentional. I believe we may have even captured it on tape, but i may move to destroy the evidence in order to salvage a bit of dignity. We also got to drink free single malt scotch the whole night, which proved worthwhile and delicious. Thank you Scotland. After the show, we headed back to our hotel and chatted together about the status of the world. The topics covered included global warming, the state of the music industry, and again why George W. is such a fucking monkey. Binzer seemed most passionate about the state of the environment, expressing the opinion that the U.S. as a country is on the whole more ignorant and blithe about waste management and recycling, and that the world is essentially going to hell in a handbasket. We all agreed. In terms of the music industry debate, i made the argument that creative pursuits have historically functioned in cycles, and that we are in for some sort of our own renaissance, as well as a change in the way musicians are capable of making money. I guess that's a bit of my blind optimism at work, but i really have no other choice but to be optimistic at this point. After all, i couldn't possibly do anything else....i don't have the patience, knowledge, wherewithal, or tolerance for authority that building a career in other field would require. Much to my parent's chagrin, I will probably and hopefully be a bassbum for life. As for the subject of George W. being a monkey, i need not delve into that realm. It's too easy. On a sadder note, i found out on BBC news this morning that Anna Nicole Smith has passed away into the great beyond. My condolences to Howard, her dog Sugar Pie, and anyone else in the Nicole-Smith clan. One wonders, however, if there is really anybody left in her family to mourn her. She was a hero to redneck, big-breasted, stupid women everywhere. She proved that even if you are too high to speak or sit up straight, you can still be famous and marry 80 year olds for their money; a true inspiration. This all seems to me like the first official death at the hands of "reality" TV, as we all guiltily watched her sad opera of the macabre unfold on E, as a fat woman, and then her subsequent transformation -with the help of TRIMSPA- back to the form she held during her soft porn days. I think she may have been one of the first naked women i ever saw on showtime as a kid, in a movie entitled "Skyscraper." If you haven't seen it, do, because there's a wicked sex scene or 45 in there that should provide an apt tribute to her creative contributions to the world. If you take offense to my tone, I understand. But she lived her life in a way that makes the cliche of the American Dream even more cliche, and almost makes me feel dirty. Actually, no. It makes me feel downright sinful for ever having seen Naked Gun 33 1/3 (or was is it 2 1/2). To be fair, i love those movies. And OJ was in them, so that's great too. Having one's morning start with that headline sets an odd precident for the rest of the day, as i'm sure you'll agree. Actually, i'm not sure when you all found out about that news given the nature of the time difference across the pond, but i'm sure the NY Post had a field day with the story. Anyways, we all arose around 10am slightly hungover from the single malt and the late night politics, hungry for a real breakfast. Binzer's flight left Glasgow at around 2, so he needed to be out by around noon, giving us a bit of time to eat kickass bacon egg and cheeses (yes, they have those here too). After breakfast, we sadly parted ways with the righteous Binzer and took to the streets of Glasgow for a lazy perambulation. Since Nuno, our faithful tour manager and resident road warrior, carried the responsibility of Binzer's ride to the airport, the walk consisted of myself, Shara, and James. The two of them are such a happy and extraordinary couple that it made me miss my own lady back home. Yes, i'm going to get sappy for a second here. Sue me. We stopped off in a little coffee shop for some warm beverages, and i took that opportunity to give Randi a ring, awakening her with kind words and sweetness. blah blah. I'm in disbelief right now, because she is the best thing that's happened to me in a while, and she has come along in a period in my life where almost everything else is going swimmingly - almost all of my boys from high school have made the migration east to the apple, i've found myself in several bands which are sustaining and validating my endeavors as a musician, my family is healthy and happy, and the world is still round. For my departure, Randi wrote me a haiku for every day I'd be away, laminated each one, and placed them in an amazing little box with a compass in the middle so i'd be able to symbolically know where home is. Tell me that's not the best gift a girl has ever presented a boy and i'll tell you are a fatuous ignoramus (look it up...). Nuno returned around 12:30, and we proceeded to load the gear, which we had luckily been able to leave at the venue over night, from the venue into the van. We got on the road at around 1:00 for jolly old England and our next destination, Manchester City. The drive south through the Scottish countryside was pristine as i had expected it to having made a similar trek on my first visit here, even in spite of the grey overcast skies and the spots of rain. My highlight of the drive happened as we stopped off for gas (petrol, as they refer to it in the UK) and got a chance for a sweet photo opportunity with the silliest flock of sheep i've ever seen in my life. I walked up to the fence with my camera and they began to sheepisly (!)retreat until i offered up a vigorous BAAAAAAAAH......which seemed to freeze them in their tracks. I got a couple great shots of the silly creatures, with each one of them looking straight at me in a funny little formation, and each of them with a full winter coat of fluffy, goofy wool. I tried that whole mantra that Babe the magical shepherd pig learns in that movie, but they didn't seem interested. For the record, if you haven't seen the movie Babe, then you're not my friend. As we got closer to the border with England, the weather grew even more dark and depressing. Today's guest DJ was James, who spun an eclectic mixture of stuff. My favorites included the Archie Bronson Outfit, Psapp, I love you but I've chosen darkness (yes, that's the actual band name), and the solo work of one Earl Harvin, who is the studio stud responsible for the drumming on the MBD album "Bring Me the Workhorse," and the forthcoming album "1,000 Shark's Teeth." I recommend checking out this stuff, because it's all fucking amazing. Earl's stuff is available on myspace at myspace.com/earlharvin. Represent. I took a little snooze for the last leg of our trip, dreaming of things i can't now recall. I have today and tomorrow off in dreary Manchester, and as it is now friday evening and around GO TIME, I will be signing off to make my best attempt at getting embarrassing at the surrounding water holes. I will do my best to get a feel for the scene, and perhaps meet some locals. Perhaps some yocals, too.

glasgow....without a picture of my actual passport.

2007-02-09T12:44:00.000-08:00

this is repost of glasgow without my REAL passport....I totally forgot to consider the identity theft issue. Today's show is going to be off the proverbial hook. I know it; i have what the experts call a "feeling." Scholarly types might even call it a premonition. We left Belfast this morning bright and early, waking up at about 7:30 to make a 9am ferry to ye' old Scotland, and our next stop in the city of Glasgow. In the summer of my 8th grade year, my family dragged me along on a two week vacation to this wonderful, magical, gratuitously green country, even in spite of incessant whining about having to miss a two week stint at basketball camp. I pretended to be having a shit time for about the first three days, cold shouldering attempts at familial communication and being an all-around bratt-ola. My sister was ill, too, so of course we all got sick together. A family affair. Even in spite of these facts, Scotland amazed me not only in its beauty but also in the fact that much of my LITHGOWness comes from here. We even visited a castle entitled "LinLithgow." As i said, this is a magical place; even more magical than it appears in that Mel Gibson movie "Braveheart" (you might recall the line, "THEEEY MEEY TAAAKE HOURR LOOIVES, BUT THEEEY WIIILL NEEHVER TAAKE...........you fill in the rest). I think they filmed that in New Jersey, anyways. Hollywood comparisons aside, i'm am ecstatic to be here. The ferry across the Irish Sea was probably the most picturesque and beautiful boat ride i've ever been on, the sun bursting through the dark and ominous clouds illuminating spots of the turbulent waters with a golden glow. I sat out on the outside deck for a good thirty minutes contemplating life and the meaning of things, as well as taking my second roll of film and trying not to be blown away by the vigorous winds buffeting my rosy cheeks and complicating my already unruly hairdo. As we arrived at the port and drove our car out of the holding bay, we were stopped at the checkpoint behind a van filled with literally dozens of little puppies, shouting and panting and talking amongst themselves. The man responsible for the puppy van looked a bit like Santa Claus himself: chubby, rosy cheeked, bald, and with an amazing smile. As the neon-clad checkpoint police inquired as to the nature of his visit to the land of Scotch I snuck out of our towering black carriage and snapped a couple of photos. They should turn out nicely. When it was our turn to have our vehicle and persons examined, we found the police to be surprisingly gregarious and even comical. They didn't even insist to strip search me after checking out my totally fucking whacky passport photo, which i have attached to this post. We and the PO POs shared a laugh over the topic of fender guitars vs. gibson guitars, as well as whether or not Shara could sing as high as Kate Bush (which she can....Kate Bush has NOTHING on Mrs. Shara Worden). As we drove along the coast towards Glasgow, we passed marvelous old stone buildings crumbling with the inevitable effects of age; we passed miles of stone walls, bevies of sheep, and many haggered old men walking slowly through tiny towns which seemed to be stuck in some other time, some other century, and hoping to stay that way. It was a beautiful drive. The DJ responsibilities for this little jaunt fell on Binzer's shoulders (formerly referred to in day 2 as Binder...), and he carried them well, throwing on a healthy dose of Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti", and a band called "Millionaire," which is my new favorite band. I fell asleep on my huge polar bear coat listening to the all-too-chill-mode sounds of AIR, and when i awoke we were just arriving at the venue. I opened my eyes to see MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND in massive red letters on the marquis in front of the ABC club, a very hip venue in the middle of Glasgow proper. Flanked by a subway and a restaurant called the Blue Lagoon (think Brooke Shields, naked and incestuous), ABC is the biggest venue we've had yet, and has a very smart little lighting concept of red and blue LEDs. The stage is fucking perfect, too. Not too big, not too small, and not too high at all. We loaded in our gear with the help of the faithful Craig, who also gave us our first taste of the Scottish accent. Think Sean Connery....."WALKOM TO THe RAWK..." Our sound checks as of these first 3 gigs have been running on average of about 2.5 hours, a somewhat tiresome number, but today felt great. I guess the prime reason for this was that we finally got to work a cover of Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter" off of the album "Houses of the Holy" - one of my favorites from the ZEP catalogue. Let me just say that this show is going to seriously kick some toosh. Call it a premonition, call it what you will, but it will be our sendoff to Mr. Binzer, who will be leaving first thing tomorrow morning. Luckily tomorrow and Saturday will be our first days off, and will land us comfortably in the confines of Manchester. My mother tells me this is the home of the railroads; she's an economic historian, so i have no choice but to believer her. I guess that brings us all just about up to date on the MBD thang. Also, i'm going to post another version of my night in Dublin - one which is, in my opinion, entirely more coherent and sober. You can be the judge of that.

DUBLIN......the day after AND sober version.

2007-02-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

Day one is in the books, and I do declare that Dublin treated me extremely well. I was able to fully confirm the rumor that Guinness tastes ten times more fabulous and delicious when consumed near its source at the St. James Guinness brewery in Dublin, and I got to ra ra ra rawk at the world famous “Wheelan’s,” a venue setup in a style similar to the House of Blues but much more intimate. Shara opened up doing about five songs solo to make up for the fact that Binzer, our stunning and phenomenally gifted drum substitute, had learned the material literally in one day. It’s always a great thing to watch Shara perform her music alone. It comes out of her body in a way that gives me such goosebumps that it’s frightening. She is an artist whose music comes out of her in a way that makes her almost unreal, and she feels it in such a way that it forces you into some other realm where time suspends and your heart seems to stop beating. She’s only about 5’1’’, but has a voice like a giant and a stage presence which falls somewhere in between Bjork’s quirky innocence and Nina Simone’s boisterous and commanding physical self-assurance. During this solo intro, you could hear a flea fart as the crowd watched in complete silence, hanging on her every word, some of them even mouthing the lyrics to each of the songs. One girl in the front row actually looked like she was on drugs during Shara’s rendition of Prince’s “how come you don’t call me anymore.” Binzer and I came onstage after this beautiful, quiet, delicate performance, and proceeded to rock the house with reckless abandon alongside our fearless captain. After our set ended, the Dublin hospitality proved itself to be superlative beyond any shadow of a doubt. The crowd had been genuinely respectful and appreciative of the performance, even in spite of being completely shit-canned drunk – a fact which surprised me. After we finished our load out, the rest of the Diamond retired back to the hotel as I stayed at Wheelan’s. Three pints of Guinness and a shot of Jameson later (when in Rome….), I found myself in the backstage area with about ten friends of the opening act, Jennifer something. I can’t remember her last name, but she was excellent. In tow were a few ex-patriot Americans about my age give or take, living in Dublin for a change of pace and a sense of adventure. We sat around talking for a bit, smoking hash and discussing how everyone in the world hates George W., until all of a sudden a peculiar thing happened. Aidan, who had played the djembe in Jennifer’s group, busted out a guitar and began playing David Bowie’s “In the Port of Amsterdam.” He sang loudly and Irishly, strumming the guitar with a fire and a passion, closing his eyes as he played. Before I knew it, this turned into a full-on sing-along a la 1967 San Fransisco, with every single person in the room singing along with every word, even harmonizing the melody. Eric Cartman popped into my head for a second as I thought to myself, “fuuckin hippays!” I didn’t know the words, so I just sort of sat there with a grin on my face. Seriously, picture a room where every single person is jolly drunk on a Tuesday evening in Dublin and singing along to David Bowie. I felt like I was in a scene from Brigadoon or some other exultant musical. I was seriously sitting there waiting for everyone to get up and bust right into a coordinated dance routine, complete with a BIG FINISH! Needless to say, that didn’t happen. There’s no such thing as spontaneous synchronized dance routines. After this joyous little moment, I took my leave to our hotel and bade farewell to my newfound inebriate pals (and yes of course we exchanged myspace friend requests). We’re on our way to Belfast today, and if it’s anything like Dublin, Ireland might just become my new favorite spot on the map.

belfast, belfaster, belfastest

2007-02-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

yeah, nothing really happened today. i spent about a half an hour in the car writing a blog about my evening in Dublin only to later find out that i had already written about it. woops. i guess it's harder to remember things when you drink alcohol. anyways, just a couple of observations on Ireland, as I will be leaving here tomorrow: for starters, they use the number 0 to denote the first floor of a building. this has provided me a generous amount of confusion and befuddlement. also, they talk way weirder in belfast than they do in dublin. thirdly, there is no thirdly....................................... also, one correction: our sub drummer's name is BINZER not BINDER, and he used to play for a band called the frames. they are awesome. check them out. more to report later. nate

dublin, version 2.0

2007-02-06T17:15:00.001-08:00

yes, they do know how to party in Dublin. If anyone tries to tell you differently, punch them him in the fucking shnoz. Yes, tonight was the first show of the tour, and yes it was with a drummer shara and i had never played with before, but it was straight up P R O - no bones about it. Plus, his name is Binder.......but not like the 3 ring kind. It's pronounced closer to bender, like the robot on futurama, but with an i......SO irish. Anyways, the show was awesome. Everyone was in top form - even the audience! you could hear a pin drop throughout the entire performance. To make up for the fact that Binder only had 1 day to learn the material, Shara did about a 5 song solo set before we jumped onstage. She had a certain swagger going though, so by the time Binder and i came onstage the audience was already puddy in our hands. The main highlight of my night tonight came after our performance, in the VIP room (N.B. vip room sounds WAY cooler than it actually is...). The opening act of the night, headed by an irish singer/songwriter named Jennifer, was great, but gained outstanding marks after proving to be worth while drinking associates. As i slowly consumed the bottle of complimentary red wine provided by the venue, i witnessed a couple of funny things. First of all, one of the late comers to the party - steve? - entered with a story of the ages. Apparently, he had gone out for "A SINGLE PINT" with friends on a Friday, and woke up at Schipol international airport in Amsterdam on the following Sunday with no real recollection of what happened or how he had ended up there. To top it off, he found 400 "quid" (pounds?) in his pocket and got to hang in the DAM for two days because of it. The topper of the story, however, is that he decided to fall asleep in a photo booth at the train station in Amsterdam............... apparently some frisky germans donated a couple of euros so that he would have photographic evidence of his drunken stupor - a nice move if you're asking me. And apparently he was strip searched upon his return to Ireland the following Monday. He didn't seem to mind too much. Before i had the chance to make a clean getaway, the evening erupted into a full-on sing along.......David Bowie, the Beatles, that song with the chorus that goes "on the roooad agaaain.....on the road agaaaain......" Furthermore, I forgot to include that this crazy cadre of weirdo Dubliners had a bunch of good hash and an instinct towards the dramatic. It was a good time. Tomorrow, our tour will take us to Belfast, in Northern Ireland. Apparently this is the birthplace of the irish car bomb. One of my favorite all time alcoholic beverages. nate

Dublin, DAY 1

2007-02-06T04:34:00.000-08:00

Let me begin by making a correction. Yesterday i said that i believed Newark International Airport to be the shittiest airport in the U.S. But, after a three hour delay before getting on my flight to Dublin, Newark has been downgraded to Fifth Ring of Hell status. Seriously. FUCKING PURGATORY. The only redeeming factor about the delay was that i got to watch the end of a very exciting Nets vs. Sixers game, which ended in OT with Vince Carter missing a 3 for the win. (c h o k e) All in all, my travels across the Atlantic were without incident once i was actually on the plane. The flight attendant was extremely sassy, and the steak (of the salisbury variety) was tolerable. And of course by tolerable i mean that it didn't kill me on the spot. The movie on the 6 hour flight was The Queen, and i also had the privilege of watching SPINAL TAP in its entirety thanks to my room mate Michael's uncanny knack for downloading shtuff from the internet. Big up zutto. Nothing gets a person more excited for maximum rockout than watching SPINAL TAP. ELEVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let me inject here that when my Mom first saw ST she didn't quite put together the fact that SPINAL TAP was not a real band. Way to go mom. After a small little snooze on the plane, i awakened to a beautiful orange sunrise out my window and a beautiful array of cumulis clouds gracing the horizon. I shook off my gin & tonic airplane hangover and got a nice glimpse at the Irish countryside beneath me. All of the little plots of land looked like little oblong puzzle pieces hastily put together and topped off with a layer of frost, interrupted only by patches of trees and shrubbery (SHRUBBERY!!). My travel partner for the trip was James Worden, Shara's hubby and the logistical mastermind behind the Diamond. As we disembarked and got our luggage, i realized how much i like accents in general - especially the irish accent. I've found my self saying "HUH" and "WHAT" and "SORRY HUH WHAT'S THAT YOU SAY?" a lot. Not only do the Irish speak like drunken toddlers, but they also drive on the other side of the road. I had heard about this UK phenomenon, but had never seen it in practice. Suffice it to say it's quite confusing visually; an optical illuuuusion. As James and i drove to the hotel in the cab, we heard a very familiar sound........MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND!!! ON THE RADIO!!! Shara had taped a live radio spot just as we were landing, and we were lucky enough to hear the song "golden star" blasting on the cabby's radio just as we approached our hotel. If you've ever seen that movie That Thing You Do with Tom Hanks and that other guy from those other movies, you can imagine my excitement at hearing the Diamond on the radio. I was giddy like a school girl, as per the usual. One final new development for today: Shara found a sub to play drums in Brian's place for these first three shows...........but there won't be ANY rehearsal time outside of our soundchecks. so, that's nerve wrecking and exciting at the same time. I'm sure the dude is fully competent. I guess that's what you call being a stone cold P R O. Anyways, i have guinness to drink and i'm sick of hearing the fucking Red Hot Chili Peppers in this internet kiosk. OUT

Goodbye NY, Hello Dublin?

2007-02-05T12:08:00.001-08:00

In about an hour, i will be leaving fair Brooklyn for the friendly confines of the Newark International Airport. Some refer to this place as hell, some call it the shittiest airport in the world. I'm partial to the latter moniker. It's not that i dislike the airport itself, it's just the fact that getting there from Brooklyn requires a trip across a bridge, through the hustle bustle and traffic of chinatown, into the holland tunnel, and then finally onto whatever sleezy gel-slicked hairdo of a highway gets me to the check-in counter. It's colder than penguin balls outside, so of course i'll be bringing my huge polar bear coat and my scarf and all of that jazz. I hear this is supposed to be the colest February in 30 years! I'm not sure what the weather will be like in Dublin, our first stop on the tour, but i'm hoping that i'll be able to pull the old "WHEN IN ROME...." and get too drunk to correctly register temperature. My flight out of Newark leaves at 8:10pm, and lands at about 7:30am, giving me an entire day to explore the home and birthplace of both Guinness and Lucky Charms. My bags are packed, and I am ready. On a bit of a sad note, Brian Wolfe, our faitful drummer, will be tagging along in a couple days because of a death in his family. This means that I will be on the bench for the first two shows of the tour, watching my fearless leader and captain of the My Brightest Diamond crew perform the set solo. Anyways, i figured i would make this the official prelude blog to the My Brightest Diamond euorpean excursion. I will do my best to keep a daily thing going for all of those interested in the tour and in My Brightest Diamond. Tomorrow, i will tell stories of Dublin Ireland and hopefully find a pot of gold somewhere....or at least a bottle of bushmills.