Atlanta was the first time we've every played at the Drunken Unicorn. Really cool place. A band called Textbook opened and were damn good. Total Drive Like Jehu worship, which is never a bad thing. And they made this way cool poster:
Our set was one of the best we've done in recent memory. And then goddamn Cinemechanica came and pulverized it into the earth with one of their typical, retardedly intense and complex displays of genius. Goddamn Cinemechanica.
Anyway, lots of people liked what we did and happily purchased CDs, shirts and the like. All-around great show.
We were originally going to stay with Colin Mee (brother to Danny), whose band Deerhunter crashed at Bogle's when they came through with the Liars. It ended up being easier to push on to Athens, which turned out to be a very nice move.
We played the Secret Squirrel the last time we came through, and we played there this time as well. The place has really turned into something special. It's a DIY performance space. Frequently that's bad news, but not in this case. The sound is good enough, there's an actual stage, and they always buy a keg on nights when shows happen.
Cooler than any of that is the fact that there are a couple of very large apartments directly attached to it that are occupied by the people who run the venue, a Cinemechanic or two, other musicians and some regular, nice Athens folks. One of the apartments was fairly trashed from being the site of constant after-parties, jam session and such. The other one was clean and quiet. The folks living there were totally okay with us inabiting their space for two days and three nights (we had a day off after Atlanta because you just can't get a show in those parts on a Sunday).
So on Sunday we essentially did nothing. Walked around a little. Watched the Mavericks game at a bar. One of the guys we were staying with came home on crutches with his leg bandaged because he had been running after a guy holding a rake for a video project, the guy had fallen, and he fell on top of the guy and the rake, which puctured his lake pretty deeply.
On Monday, we had an appointment to get my amp fixed. The repair guy worked out of a room at the rehearsal spaces that Cinemechanica use. "Yeah, this is pretty fucked up, dude," he said after popping the back off and having a look. He told us to come back in an hour and he'd see what he could do. We wandered around downtown for a little while, bought postcards, got coffee, went back and it was operational. And at a good price, considering the speed with which the job got done.
Sat around and downloaded tons of albums until showtime. The first band was Jail Moves, which featured a guy we know from We Vs. the Shark, the guy who owns the Squirrel, one of the girls who lived in the cleaner apartment and a couple of other folk. Weird fun music. The Thomas Function from Alabama played next and did energetic, tight guitar rock. I missed Marriage, who played next, but was told that they were outta sight. Caspar & the Cookies was somewhat silly, indie pop stuff. Kind of what I think of whenever I think of Athens pop music.
The space was HOT as FUCK and I felt like I could barely move for the show. There were many, many more people watching than the last time we came through. It was a big crowd for a Monday and we totally went over.
It was so rad to load out of the space, stagger DIRECTLY over to a nice, quiet couch and pass the fuck out on it. That is exactly what I did.
Basically, these past few days and nights have felt like vacation. Relaxed, wandered around, talked to folks, and generally enjoyed Athens. The place reminds me of Austin if you took all the shitty things about Austin away, and the people we stayed with were first-rate.