![OCTOBER 29 – TWISTED BRANCH TEA BAZAAR, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA [SHOW #113]
Day 142. [DF] Quick recap of our remaining days in New York City: (i) After the Cake Shop show, we drove around for nearly half an hour looking for a parking spot on the Upper East Side, no easy task since it was about 3:30am and Mondays are street-cleaning days in the area. We parked on 2nd and 77th, thinking that the parking meter was a kosher spot to be at overnight, but for some reason none of us noticed the “No Standing 7am-10am” sign by the van. I awoke to Patrick saying “The van is either towed or stolen.” He was hoping stolen, since that might at least get us a little press, but alas luck was not on our side. A two-hour walk to the other end of Manhattan, a two-hour wait in the tow pound, and $300 later, we got our van back. For brevity’s sake, I’ll leave it at that, but we did manage to enjoy the time getting it back. (ii) Dave and I drove the van to our friend Marissa’s (who played at our Piano’s show earlier in tour) place in Brooklyn, where Joe and Kelly had been staying, and where parking is abundant in comparison to Manhattan, and proceeded to eat the best soup I’d had in years. Lentil, potato, and spices. (iii) Joe, Dave, and I spent the next couple of days separated from Patrick and Alli, the East River being our divide. Pretty much did nothing those days except walk around Williamsburg, see friends, get a giant bag full of free clothes from our friend Willy, and watch Ed Wood. In an effort to not spend any money, I literally spent three hours sitting in our parked van in Williamsburg, pretty much just staring out of the window. (iv) Patrick went with Alli to the premier of the new film Strange Powers about the Magnetic Fields, at which the director and Magnetic Fields held a Q&A after its screening. Patrick briefly met Corrin Tucker. The next day we went to Other Music where Stephin Merritt was dj-ing some good tunes. (v) Patrick and I spent our last day in NYC at the Museum of Modern Art, a terrific museum that is a bitch to get discounted entry to (although we managed to partially succeed with a bit of trickery), and Dave went to the Natural History Museum and looked at dinosaurs or something.
Okay, so after unexpectedly spending a week in New York, we departed on Friday morning because, believe it or not, we actually had a show to get to. Let it be known that I put my shoes on at approximately 9am [this will come up later, if I don’t forget]. We drove to Charlottesville, the drive being nice in the sense that it was good to be back in the van, a place we have spent so much time the last four months, but otherwise was a bit of a forgettable drive on my part. Entered Charlottesville to a modest dose of headache in the form of blocked-off streets and detour signs. Obama was speaking in downtown Charlottesville (right around the corner from the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar), so we were forced to park a good distance from the venue. The place has sort of a New Age-y feel with a phenomenal selection of loose-leaf teas and delectable hummus-olive-miscellaneous vegetable platters. We looked at the stage, which was covered in pillows upon carpet, and where patrons were sipping their tea cross-leggedly. Well, not everyone sitting cross-legged up there was drinking their tea. Case in point, a lady probably in her ‘60s, who, in a manner completely at odds with her well-to-do appearance and upper-class Virginian accent, asked the waitress, “Where’s my fucking tea?!” shortly before departing. In a jovial mood, we all let out a chuckle and continued on with our game of euchre. If I recall correctly, I was the weakest link of the evening.
The show was great. We played first to a seated-but-attentive-and-relatively-enthusiastic crowd, banged out a quick 8-song set, and returned to sipping our steeped-to-perfection Japanese Sencha teas. Skeletons played second. Brooklynites on their way down to Athens for the Next To Last Festival. I described them then as I will describe them now: Terry Riley-meets-Can with a dude sort of singing songs on top of what that would sound like. Dave said they might be his favorite band we had played with so far this tour. Left and Right finished the evening with some good old rock and roll (a genre which, we were told at one point this tour, is going to die once the baby-boomers are gone, they being the generation who gave birth to this fine art form).
At 12:30am we departed for Chattanooga. While the break in posts typically signals a break in our waking lives from day to day, no such discontinuity is here intended.
Sound Tech we respect: Jacob
The fill of the bill: Skeletons / Left & Right
Monument / Friends In The Band / By The Wave / Pacific Sunrise / Don’t Go / Camille Claudel / A Collage Of Impressions / Magic Circle Symphony](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lbh9gfq31m1qahyhxo1_500.jpg)
OCTOBER 29 – TWISTED BRANCH TEA BAZAAR, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA [SHOW #113]
Day 142. [DF] Quick recap of our remaining days in New York City: (i) After the Cake Shop show, we drove around for nearly half an hour looking for a parking spot on the Upper East Side, no easy task since it was about 3:30am and Mondays are street-cleaning days in the area. We parked on 2nd and 77th, thinking that the parking meter was a kosher spot to be at overnight, but for some reason none of us noticed the “No Standing 7am-10am” sign by the van. I awoke to Patrick saying “The van is either towed or stolen.” He was hoping stolen, since that might at least get us a little press, but alas luck was not on our side. A two-hour walk to the other end of Manhattan, a two-hour wait in the tow pound, and $300 later, we got our van back. For brevity’s sake, I’ll leave it at that, but we did manage to enjoy the time getting it back. (ii) Dave and I drove the van to our friend Marissa’s (who played at our Piano’s show earlier in tour) place in Brooklyn, where Joe and Kelly had been staying, and where parking is abundant in comparison to Manhattan, and proceeded to eat the best soup I’d had in years. Lentil, potato, and spices. (iii) Joe, Dave, and I spent the next couple of days separated from Patrick and Alli, the East River being our divide. Pretty much did nothing those days except walk around Williamsburg, see friends, get a giant bag full of free clothes from our friend Willy, and watch Ed Wood. In an effort to not spend any money, I literally spent three hours sitting in our parked van in Williamsburg, pretty much just staring out of the window. (iv) Patrick went with Alli to the premier of the new film Strange Powers about the Magnetic Fields, at which the director and Magnetic Fields held a Q&A after its screening. Patrick briefly met Corrin Tucker. The next day we went to Other Music where Stephin Merritt was dj-ing some good tunes. (v) Patrick and I spent our last day in NYC at the Museum of Modern Art, a terrific museum that is a bitch to get discounted entry to (although we managed to partially succeed with a bit of trickery), and Dave went to the Natural History Museum and looked at dinosaurs or something.
Okay, so after unexpectedly spending a week in New York, we departed on Friday morning because, believe it or not, we actually had a show to get to. Let it be known that I put my shoes on at approximately 9am [this will come up later, if I don’t forget]. We drove to Charlottesville, the drive being nice in the sense that it was good to be back in the van, a place we have spent so much time the last four months, but otherwise was a bit of a forgettable drive on my part. Entered Charlottesville to a modest dose of headache in the form of blocked-off streets and detour signs. Obama was speaking in downtown Charlottesville (right around the corner from the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar), so we were forced to park a good distance from the venue. The place has sort of a New Age-y feel with a phenomenal selection of loose-leaf teas and delectable hummus-olive-miscellaneous vegetable platters. We looked at the stage, which was covered in pillows upon carpet, and where patrons were sipping their tea cross-leggedly. Well, not everyone sitting cross-legged up there was drinking their tea. Case in point, a lady probably in her ‘60s, who, in a manner completely at odds with her well-to-do appearance and upper-class Virginian accent, asked the waitress, “Where’s my fucking tea?!” shortly before departing. In a jovial mood, we all let out a chuckle and continued on with our game of euchre. If I recall correctly, I was the weakest link of the evening.
The show was great. We played first to a seated-but-attentive-and-relatively-enthusiastic crowd, banged out a quick 8-song set, and returned to sipping our steeped-to-perfection Japanese Sencha teas. Skeletons played second. Brooklynites on their way down to Athens for the Next To Last Festival. I described them then as I will describe them now: Terry Riley-meets-Can with a dude sort of singing songs on top of what that would sound like. Dave said they might be his favorite band we had played with so far this tour. Left and Right finished the evening with some good old rock and roll (a genre which, we were told at one point this tour, is going to die once the baby-boomers are gone, they being the generation who gave birth to this fine art form).
At 12:30am we departed for Chattanooga. While the break in posts typically signals a break in our waking lives from day to day, no such discontinuity is here intended.
Sound Tech we respect: Jacob
The fill of the bill: Skeletons / Left & Right
Monument / Friends In The Band / By The Wave / Pacific Sunrise / Don’t Go / Camille Claudel / A Collage Of Impressions / Magic Circle Symphony
