Hey there,

So...is February over yet? It is? Good. Cause it was a beast.

Those twenty eight seemingly innocent days may forever go down as the most wheels off, ridiculously fun, and exhausting period of my life. Good thing it all happened before I turn 30, cause otherwise I'm not sure I would've made it through. It damn near killed me as is.

Since our last show at The Granada at the end of January, I've spent a grand total of eight days in this fair burgh we call Dallas. After kicking off the month with a bout of the flu that forced us to cancel a show for the first time ever - Amanda Newman's farewell Thursday Night Listening To: show, which I felt terrible about - I packed up my trusty Target luggage and hit the road.

Raleigh, NC. London, UK. College Station, TX. Chicago, IL. Whether it be for work (Raleigh, College Station) or pleasure (London, Chicago), I logged enough miles to weigh buying new socks and underwear against facing the mountain of laundry staring me down from the end of my now unfamiliar bed. I developed favorite restaurants at D/FW (which is kind of sad). I had hours upon hours to digest new music through my iPod (which was definitely choice).

Best of all, though - I took thousands of pictures, had a plethora of adventures that would do The Three Amigos proud, and discovered a few incredible hole-in-the-wall places that are worth adding to your itinerary if you plan on visiting London or Chicago:

1. Marathon Kebabs
Chalk Farm Road, Camden Town, London, UK

Unlike the gluttonous but grand US of A, it's next to impossible to find a place to grab a late night bite to eat or drink in London. If you're willing to venture up to Camden Town, though, you can kill both of those birds with one well-placed stone.

A seemingly unassuming kebab and hamburger shop from the street, Marathon (pronounced Mara-thin) reveals itself in a cramped back room to be a glorious vision of late night revelry. Dinner until 3am, bottles of wine as long as your money holds out, and music from the legendary Daniel Kingsnake, who - depending on who you ask - is either a heroin junkie with a guitar or a rock & roll hero in the grand Keith Richards tradition. Me? I'd say he's both.

Strung out, sweaty, and armed with a white Stratocaster whose pickups reportedly came from the late, great Jeff Buckley, Daniel played the best of Johnny Cash, Elvis, Hank Williams, and Creedence like Pete Doherty on a Chuck Berry bender. It was pure rock & roll, 80 proof and spilled out over the tables like a leaky bottle of Jack. Getting to sing with him so he could grab a smoke and rest his voice was just one short scene in a highlight-filled evening. Apparently The White Stripes and My Bloody Valentine would agree:

http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2006/06/london_daniel_i.html

As I've read after the fact, more than one Londoner has called Marathon a place for "mentalists". I'm sure they meant that as a compliment.


2. T-N-T Lounge
Corner of Lake and Halsted, Chicago, IL

After leaving the wedding reception of a friend, a group of twenty or so of us (mostly white) kids and Faheed, a driver/club owner/possible pimp we'd met the night before at a bar walked around the corner to find a place to grab a drink and regroup - and stumbled into a scene straight out of The Blues Brothers.

T-N-T is certainly not a "lounge" in the traditional sense, but it was dynamite (Hey-o! Thank you, I'll be here all week). And although I can't be certain, I'm pretty sure the needle screeched off the record player when we walked in. How best to describe this place? Remember that scene in "Weird Science" where some gentlemen ask Wyatt and Gary if they can dance with their dates? That was basically it. Ok, that was EXACTLY it. Wood-paneled, dank, and possibly cleaned once this year, a cash-only bar that served both regular drinks AND pints of Wild Irish Rose, Dimitri Gin and other flasks to pocket for your walk home - the T-N-T Lounge is quite literally the place your mother warned you about.

So, we shuffled through the doorway, and - very uncomfortably - stood around looking at each other, wondering what would happen next. "Tense" is not even close to the right word for the vibe in the room.

And then something incredible happened. The DJ - "Stan the Man" - started playing the Temptations. And then Al Green. Then Prince. Aretha. Justin Timberlake. Reggae. Deep soul cuts. Crazy mash-ups. One after another, with no hesitation in his game, Stan the Man started lighting it up like Acie Law with one tick on the clock. And in a pure and simple turn of events, the most unlikely of crowds was up and dancing. Together. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like we'd known each other forever. Like we'd met up there for this very scene to transpire. Drinks flowed, laughs were exchanged, dance moves were learned. Without trying to channel my inner Bono, those three (or was it six?) hours made very real to me how great music can unite people and make friends out of the most disparate of strangers. It really was a cool thing to see.

And then...THEN!...and I'm getting excited just thinking about it again...Stan the Man played the most devastating ballad I've ever heard before - a live cut of "I'm Catching Hell" by Natalie Cole. For six long minutes, I lived quite literally on the edge of crying out in joy and laughing deliriously, sprawled out in awe on an unplugged jukebox and having this conversation with my old roommate John:

Travis: (grinning like a fool) "Who is this!?! Are you hearing this? Holy crap!"

John: (hand on his forehead) "This is the greatest song I've ever heard!"

Travis: (clutching his chest) "Dear Lord! This is the best song of all time! Who IS this?!"

John: (grinning like a fool) "This is the most amazing song!"

Not the most sophisticated musical dialogue, sure - but in a moment like that, where you recognize greatness as it's unfolding before you - it's sometimes all you can do to soak it all in and roll mental video tape at the same time.

I'd post pictures from that evening and link to it, but it's likely someone would get arrested...or at least written out of the family will. Ryan, I'm looking at you...primarily...

3. Club Dada

Ok, so perhaps my cheap segue has been exposed as a ploy to get you to come out on Thursday night. Perhaps. Can we move on to the hardcore details already? Werd.

Thurs, Mar. 8th / Club Dada / 8:00pm / 2720 Elm St / Dallas, TX / (214) 744-3232

9:00 - JD Whittenburg
10:00 - Travis Hopper
11:00 - American Aquarium

It's our first Dallas show in awhile and the only one we have on the books for the next month or two, so I hope you can make it out.

And while there won't be any Natalie Cole or Daniel Kingsnake in the setlist, we'll do our best to capture our own moment of rock & roll goodness with our buddies in JD Whittenburg's band and American Aquarium, Raleigh's alt-country finest. We'll have some drinks, play some music, talk even more music after that, and just enjoy a Thursday night out at one of our favorite venues in town.

Seems like a pretty good way to spend an evening.

Travis

www.travishopper.com