A HARD WEEK'S WORK (for real)

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

yes. mo pics from brazil. click on dem.

FLASH FROM THE PAST

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

GEEETRRDUUN

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.