The Poison Control Center

MARCH 18 – BUON GIORNO COFFEE, GRAPEVINE, TX [SHOW #173] [JT] Around noon we walked down to Waterloo Records to catch some shows happening there.  The Generationals were playing outside on the parking lot stage and they were good.  Jack White was hanging around and deejaying music out of a yellow truck parked by the sidewalk.  “He’s just as ghost-white in real life as he is in pictures” I said to the others.  Inside the store we watched Toro Y Moi, whose album we had been grooving to in the van recently.  The live band was good too, and the store was packed with people, all locked in to the performance.  By mid afternoon we had to pack up our things and head for Grapevine, a town in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.  We were a good twenty miles north of Austin, ahead of the Friday rush-hour traffic when Devin got a call on his phone.  It was Corey from the co-op, saying that my trumpet had been located.  So we turned around and drove back into Austin to pick it up.  An hour and a half later we were stuck in the thick of rush hour, trying to get out of Austin.  The stop-and-go traffic continued for a long ways north on I-35, well past Waco even. We finally reached Buon Giorno Coffeehouse after the grueling drive around 8:45pm, when the Chicago band Very Truly Yours was playing their third-to-last song.  Our good friends from Ames, Mumford’s, were already there.  We had managed to fit them onto the bill since they did not have a show for the night.  We went inside to catch the end of the band’s set, and they were a fantastic pop band, great songs with a very good jangle-pop sound.  We set up our equipment next in the small area opened up for the bands and Mumford’s played a 4-song set and killed it.  We then played last and our set was brief since the shop had to close at 10pm.  The people there were really enjoying it so they let us play one more song past hours.  Our area friends were there:  Cliff and Kelly and Willis from Denton, Justin from Dallas, and our Cleveland friend David who had just moved back to Dallas recently.  Loading our equipment out back, we all marveled at Chris Lyng, Mumford’s snaky bass player, who was up on top of their tour van hula-hooping.  James, the drummer, was tossing up more hoops at Chris, and he was catching them without dropping any hoops already spinning.  We were hooting and applauding until we got yelled at by a shop employee to keep it down. Back at Joey’s place we and Mumford’s stayed up late visiting with Joey and his fiancé Kendall and some of their friends while listening to records.  Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was playing and Patrick noted “We’re in Grapevine listening to ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine,’ my least-favorite Marvin Gaye song!”  James was in the kitchen cooking up a curry dinner for the bands.  I put on the soundtrack to True Stories, which I had not heard before.  “It’s so crazy that you picked that record,” Joey told me. “Yeah,” said Kendall, “we just watched that movie last night.”  [It must be noted, that when Joey and Kendall are married next month, her new name will be Kendall Anne Kendall, which we all think is an incredible name] Sitting on the living room floor, I heard the front door open behind me.  I look up and it is none other than Normandie Wilson from California.  We were both shocked.  She and I got to know each other when we were on tour in Red Pony Clock a few years ago.  Tonight she and her boyfriend, Juan, had come up from Austin and stopped to crash at Joey’s on their way to Columbia, Missouri.  It was great seeing her again and reminiscing.  Out in the back yard we were hanging out with Phil and Dom from Utopia Park and swapping stories when Patrick came outside with the huge jar of pickles that he picked up from the store that night.  “Okay, we’ve got a bet going on,” he announced.  All of the pickles were gone except for one, and about 42 ounces of pickle juice remained.  “If I chug all of this pickle juice in one minute, Emily will give me a $5 Target gift card,  James will prepare a 3-course vegan meal for me, and Normandie will write and record a song about the occasion.  Are there any other wagers?”  “If you do this, I will ride with you in the van tomorrow,” I added.  Everyone broke out their cameras and phones to get footage, and Phil kept time on his phone.  He gave the go-ahead and Patrick lifted the jar up to his mouth and began to guzzle while we all cheered.  He barely stopped for a breath and we all watched in amazement as the final drops went down.  “Thirty-eight seconds!” Phil yelled.  And we were all cheering. It was getting late and Joey was winding the party down.  As some people started settling down to sleep, the Mumford’s and Utopia Park boys and I took Joey’s suggestion and went out to the top deck of the Grapevine Medical Center parking garage to catch the amazing view of the city at night.  Joey met up with us with his bicycle and a few of us rode it around and coasted down the spiraling garage levels.  A security guard did not like the looks of eight dudes walking around the Medical Center property at 4am, and shortly after we got back to Joey’s place there was a policeman at his front door.  But Nate and Joey talked with the officer and all was well, and we rolled out our sleeping bags in the back yard to sleep out under the open sky.  At 6:20am we felt a strong rain showering down on us and we all jumped up and grabbed up our wet sleeping bags and pillows and ran for the house.  When I reached the wall of the house I stopped.  I wasn’t raining anymore, yet I could still hear the water.  It was Joey’s sprinkler system!  “I’ve never been so furious,” Dom told us the next day.  It was a rude awakening for sure, but I couldn’t help but chuckle as I went out to the van, soaked, to sleep off the rest of the approaching dawn. The word we heard:  “If you have each other’s faces tattooed on your asses I’ll pay for it” –Joey, to Patrick and Devin The pad was rad:  Joey & Kendall Sound Tech we respect:  Joey Lasta but not leasta the Barista:  Lisa The fill of the bill:  Very Truly Yours / Mumford’s Monument / Some Ordinary Vision / Give It A Try / When The World Sleeps / Magic Circle Symphony

MARCH 18 – BUON GIORNO COFFEE, GRAPEVINE, TX [SHOW #173]

[JT] Around noon we walked down to Waterloo Records to catch some shows happening there.  The Generationals were playing outside on the parking lot stage and they were good.  Jack White was hanging around and deejaying music out of a yellow truck parked by the sidewalk.  “He’s just as ghost-white in real life as he is in pictures” I said to the others.  Inside the store we watched Toro Y Moi, whose album we had been grooving to in the van recently.  The live band was good too, and the store was packed with people, all locked in to the performance.  By mid afternoon we had to pack up our things and head for Grapevine, a town in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.  We were a good twenty miles north of Austin, ahead of the Friday rush-hour traffic when Devin got a call on his phone.  It was Corey from the co-op, saying that my trumpet had been located.  So we turned around and drove back into Austin to pick it up.  An hour and a half later we were stuck in the thick of rush hour, trying to get out of Austin.  The stop-and-go traffic continued for a long ways north on I-35, well past Waco even.

We finally reached Buon Giorno Coffeehouse after the grueling drive around 8:45pm, when the Chicago band Very Truly Yours was playing their third-to-last song.  Our good friends from Ames, Mumford’s, were already there.  We had managed to fit them onto the bill since they did not have a show for the night.  We went inside to catch the end of the band’s set, and they were a fantastic pop band, great songs with a very good jangle-pop sound.  We set up our equipment next in the small area opened up for the bands and Mumford’s played a 4-song set and killed it.  We then played last and our set was brief since the shop had to close at 10pm.  The people there were really enjoying it so they let us play one more song past hours.  Our area friends were there:  Cliff and Kelly and Willis from Denton, Justin from Dallas, and our Cleveland friend David who had just moved back to Dallas recently.  Loading our equipment out back, we all marveled at Chris Lyng, Mumford’s snaky bass player, who was up on top of their tour van hula-hooping.  James, the drummer, was tossing up more hoops at Chris, and he was catching them without dropping any hoops already spinning.  We were hooting and applauding until we got yelled at by a shop employee to keep it down.

Back at Joey’s place we and Mumford’s stayed up late visiting with Joey and his fiancé Kendall and some of their friends while listening to records.  Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was playing and Patrick noted “We’re in Grapevine listening to ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine,’ my least-favorite Marvin Gaye song!”  James was in the kitchen cooking up a curry dinner for the bands.  I put on the soundtrack to True Stories, which I had not heard before.  “It’s so crazy that you picked that record,” Joey told me. “Yeah,” said Kendall, “we just watched that movie last night.”  [It must be noted, that when Joey and Kendall are married next month, her new name will be Kendall Anne Kendall, which we all think is an incredible name]

Sitting on the living room floor, I heard the front door open behind me.  I look up and it is none other than Normandie Wilson from California.  We were both shocked.  She and I got to know each other when we were on tour in Red Pony Clock a few years ago.  Tonight she and her boyfriend, Juan, had come up from Austin and stopped to crash at Joey’s on their way to Columbia, Missouri.  It was great seeing her again and reminiscing.  Out in the back yard we were hanging out with Phil and Dom from Utopia Park and swapping stories when Patrick came outside with the huge jar of pickles that he picked up from the store that night.  “Okay, we’ve got a bet going on,” he announced.  All of the pickles were gone except for one, and about 42 ounces of pickle juice remained.  “If I chug all of this pickle juice in one minute, Emily will give me a $5 Target gift card,  James will prepare a 3-course vegan meal for me, and Normandie will write and record a song about the occasion.  Are there any other wagers?”  “If you do this, I will ride with you in the van tomorrow,” I added.  Everyone broke out their cameras and phones to get footage, and Phil kept time on his phone.  He gave the go-ahead and Patrick lifted the jar up to his mouth and began to guzzle while we all cheered.  He barely stopped for a breath and we all watched in amazement as the final drops went down.  “Thirty-eight seconds!” Phil yelled.  And we were all cheering.

It was getting late and Joey was winding the party down.  As some people started settling down to sleep, the Mumford’s and Utopia Park boys and I took Joey’s suggestion and went out to the top deck of the Grapevine Medical Center parking garage to catch the amazing view of the city at night.  Joey met up with us with his bicycle and a few of us rode it around and coasted down the spiraling garage levels.  A security guard did not like the looks of eight dudes walking around the Medical Center property at 4am, and shortly after we got back to Joey’s place there was a policeman at his front door.  But Nate and Joey talked with the officer and all was well, and we rolled out our sleeping bags in the back yard to sleep out under the open sky.  At 6:20am we felt a strong rain showering down on us and we all jumped up and grabbed up our wet sleeping bags and pillows and ran for the house.  When I reached the wall of the house I stopped.  I wasn’t raining anymore, yet I could still hear the water.  It was Joey’s sprinkler system!  “I’ve never been so furious,” Dom told us the next day.  It was a rude awakening for sure, but I couldn’t help but chuckle as I went out to the van, soaked, to sleep off the rest of the approaching dawn.

The word we heard:  “If you have each other’s faces tattooed on your asses I’ll pay for it” –Joey, to Patrick and Devin

The pad was rad:  Joey & Kendall

Sound Tech we respect:  Joey

Lasta but not leasta the Barista:  Lisa

The fill of the bill:  Very Truly Yours / Mumford’s

Monument / Some Ordinary Vision / Give It A Try / When The World Sleeps / Magic Circle Symphony

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