Day 5 – Thursday 3/27 – Molly Bloom’s II, Amityville, NY

Another late start, accompanied by Millburn deli’s finest concoctions, more lollygagging and internetting, and a 4 o’clock departure. We drove down through Staten Island and stopped in Brighton Beach for some "domashnyaya kuchnya," which means really tasty Russian food. Dan ordered in Russian, and the meal proved to be a highlight of the tour – dumplings with sour cream, lamb shashlk, and meat stew. Awesome. Bellies full, we loaded up again and rolled out into gnarly traffic and onto long island. We found Amityville to be one of the weirdest town we’d visited, full of deteriorating 60’s architecture, weird people, and one very startling air-raid siren that went off unexpectedly and briefly next to the bar. Molly Bloom’s was a nice place, with a big stage, soundsystem, and projector screens with ice hockey on. Some other folks showed up to play too – a pair of acoustic pop-song players, a singer songwriter, a metal band called HUMAN, and a comedian cum beat boxer. We hung out for hours and introduced ourselves to Patty DT, our promoter.

We didn’t get started until 12:15 or so, but it was a good vibe and we had lots of energy. We had to cut our set short because the sound-man said it was getting late, but Patty asked for one more, so we launched into King Crimson and had a great time with it. Afterwards, it turned out that Patty and her assistant had taken about 100 photos, so hopefully we’ll get to see those soon. After a load out and a brief conversation with our hosts, we hit the road around 1:30, making it back into Jersey around 3. Dan got sick.

Day 6 – Off

Notably, we had some delicious barbecue in Union, NJ and realized that Night t the Roxbury isn’t nearly as funny as it used to be. We also wrote a promising new song in practice.

Day 7 – Saturday 3/29 – Dr. Watson’s, Philadelphia, PA

We left around 4:30, only to realize that we had forgotten about half of our gear, and had to spend about 45 minutes backtracking to go get it. We still mjade it to Philadelphia with plenty of time and found the bar with little difficulty. It was a big place, with the stage and second bar upstairs with a couple of pool tables. There was a very shitty comedy act going on late in the bar, which pushed back setup – which became pretty rushed. They had a nice drum kit and decently loud PA, but the monitors didn’t really work, as I found out later when I couldn’t hear myself.

We were happy to see that our Bassist’s brother’s friend Jake came, as well as Mike from Hans the Double. He told us to play covers, and that we did – in our short set (30 minutes) we played two – Aeroplane and Another Brick in the Wall. Both went over better than our originals, though the packed bar was very friendly to everything we played, even if we were pretty loud for the space.

It was a fitting end – a loud, solid version of Sally Looks Like God, played to a bigger crowd than we’d previously seen on the tour, bursting with energy and the promise of two pitchers of tap beer for the band and our friends. After the beer, some mingling, some philly cheese steaks, and some more music upstairs, we reloaded the van, listened to some Philly dude rap in the alley behind the bar, and drove north again. We stopped at a diner for some shakes and blueberry pie at 1:30 in the morning and all was complete.

’til next time…
Fin

Day 3 – Goodbye Blue Monday!, Brooklyn, NY

We woke up at the wee hour of 11 at Mike’s place in Boston and decided that we needed to go to guitar center to replace the tubes in Dan’s amp. As we were leaving, we realized we couldn’t find the camera, so we called Mike, who told us it was in the back of his car. So we set off towards Tufts University using some of the sketchiest directions ever given, courtesy of Mike. After being lost for about an hour in Boston traffic and almost being obliterated several times by Boston drivers, we finally retrieved the camera. Finding guitar center was an equally harrowing adventure, but we finally set off towards Brooklyn by about 3 PM.

We rolled up to Goodbye Blue Monday four hours later on a street directly under the New York subway tracks. Not the kind of place to leave a van full of music equipment unattended. The venue was definitely a ferociously indie-hipster joint, but had a cool vibe, with lots of posters featuring classic erotica novels. We unloaded into the bar and met Annie for dinner at a restaurant that can only be described as a "meat place". Like, they put a big hunk of meat on a tray with a couple of rolls, and I ate it. They also had the most extensive collection of whiskey I have ever seen, but unfortunately I knew I would be driving later.

When we got back to the venue, we switched places in the lineup with another group so we could play earlier, allowing Annie and her friends to leave before midnight. The first act of the night was a guy from Arkansas who played percussion on a bunch of pots, pans, and other oddities hanging from a snare stand while singing in mostly other languages in a sharp, high tenor. He played for only 10 minutes, but it was very cool. We played next. We were warned by the sound man that the venue was "not a rock club", so we played a pretty low-volume set. We were pretty solid, and Annie and her friends loved us, but it was hard to ignore the lukewarm reaction of the bar’s usual clientele—after all, we were still a rock band, however soft we played. The third act was a post-rock/electronica duo that featured interweaving acoustic and electronic rhythms and heavily echoed vocals. Very cool, and much more to the tune what Goodbye Blue Monday is used to. I left at that point to drive Annie and her friends back to their subway stop, picked up the other guys, and tried unsuccessfully to retrieve a lost cymbal stand from the Trash Bar. We left for Jersey around midnight, and although we were delayed about an hour by a horrendous traffic jam at the Holland tunnel, we made it back to suburbia just fine.

Day 4 – Wednesday 3/26 – Café Arabica Morristown, NJ

After a late start, we rolled into Millburn NJ and grabbed a sandwich. Charlie’s concoction of chicken cutlet, mozzarella, pesto mayo, etc was most impressive. Dan got a sort of southwestern griller that was pretty good but nothing compared to the behemoth across the table. Dan returned the broken power tubes to guitar center and replaced a monster, but the Jettsons were kicked out for jamming out on the expensive gear at maximum volume. After more apathy and a neighborhood run, the band left for the hamlet of Morristown, crossing paths with at least a dozen squadcars in a 20 minute drive. Café Arabica was easy enough to find, a cavern of a room with a lounge-y feel, some attractive waitresses, and smoking indoors. We were on our own for setup, but everything went along smoothly, with our hosts taking care of us well. The dude who played after us – John Gambino – helped us set up after a fashion, so around 9 o’clock we kicked off our set.

We started with Charlie’s new song, which went well, marking the beginning of what would prove to be a tight, mid-to-low energy set (we had to be very conscious of volume in the space). After an hourlong set with two covers, we retired to a 7-spice hookah and the company of our friends from Jersey who had come to see us. Our pay proved to be the shisha, two falafel wraps, and a turkey roaster. We returned to Short Hills unfulfilled in the Ben and Jerry’s icecream department and enjoyed the pleasure of too many homemade chocolate chip cookies accompanied by a Warren Miller ski movie.

Day 1 – Sunday 3/23, Trash Bar

After a weekend of resting up, rehearsing and writing, we got ready to leave New Jersey and take to the road. Unfortunately, our pilgrimage to the Millburn deli was stymied by Easter Sunday, and so we had to grab a bagel instead of infamous sandwiches. We jammed a bit more and put our gear in Charlie’s van. After another bitchin’ meal, we hit the road through the most industrial-gnarly area of Jersey, through the Lincoln tunnel, and out in the blinking afternoon sun of Manhattan. After a few wrong turns, we made our way over to Annie’s apartment in Gramercy and dropped off our personal effects. After a quick cup of coffee, we saddled up and rolled out to TRASH BAR, in a more rundown area of Brooklyn.

The Bar was super cool, with the concert space tucked into a room in the back with old hardwood floors, an open bar, and a dingy old stage that looked straight out of the late 70’s punk scene. The band before us "Fall Back Plan" ran their soundcheck and put the PA through its paces. They were real good – professional, and huge sounding (they’re in Boston today filming a TV special). We hung out with their guitarist and singer for a while before it was time for them to take the stage, a polished set – I was especially impressed by the precise lock in the rhythm section - check ’em out.

After a quick line check, we kicked off our set with a new addition "The King and The Queen," which was the beginning of what would prove a loud, energetic, but sloppy show. We had a great time, with an especially strong version of 21st century schizoid man, and the best "Sally Looks Like God" we’ve ever done. The soundman was super cool and recorded a really great-sounding mix of the show (though the bastard made me pay for it). We had an exceptionally low draw, but our buddy Lucas came out, and someone we don’t know paid to see us too – mystery audience member, we love you. After the show, we went back to Annie’s place, hung out, snacked, and played this cool bootleg classic Nintendo system for a while before watching half of Animal house and passing out.

Day 2 – Monday 3/24, Great Scott

Today begins the haul to Boston. We had to get up at 7 to put the van in a garage because of Manhattan’s parking rules (it cost $17 the fuckers). We grabbed a few more hours of sleep before grabbing some grub and hitting the road again.

Got to our bassist’s brother, Mike Freundlich, apartment around 5 or something; it was a beautiful day, like 50 degrees. We ate Indian food – not too spicy, but not bland; I’d say the lamb was a 5.3 on a scale of 0-2p. After some acoustic noodling on some of Mike’s guitars, we made our way to the venue to unload around 7. Great Scott is cool rock venue – large room with nice curtains, a solid PA and a decently priced bar.

The Pleasureboaters came on first. They showed up about two hours late and played for 20 minutes. Shirtless and pathetically out of shape, their drummer bawled eccentrically while frantically laying down some solid drums for the hardcore indie noise. The guitarist/vocalist was a screamer – but really talented, though strangely tempered. His antics were certainly questionable – muttering the name of the band and where they were from several times ("We’re the Pleasureboaters from Seattle……Washington") and once mentioning that he "fucking hates playing guitar." However, all that aside, they played a great show. People were digging on the creativity and culmination of the trio.

Next were Jungle Love and the Animal Crackers, a band made up of Berkeley students. They were tight, funky and professional in their delivery of mostly blues styles. Everyone in the band impressed me; the sound was essential and spot on throughout the show. This is one of the best bar bands I have seen. They played for about an hour and it flew.

We came on around 11 and played to about 15 or 20 people. We opened with "Sally Looks Like God" and followed by a classic Dead Jettsons set. We ended up playing a song we wrote a few days ago by our bassist, and it went over really well. This show was a lot less sloppy than our show in Brooklyn, with a few extra songs, including a cover of Aeroplane. As we always do, we got better, louder, funkier, smoother and tighter as the show went on, and when we closed with 21st century into The King and The Queen it was fucking killer. We all wished we were able to have gotten an instant live from this show because it was so tight, but I get the feeling we are getting tighter ever show we play, so we can get one in a few days and it will be alright. After the show, we sampled the local produce at Mike’s friend’s house. It was of acceptable quality… so we went to sleep peacefully shortly thereafter at Mike’s place.