Adam Louis Schatz

Please feed your eyes and ears at these shows me & Brice...

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:30:33 -0400

Please feed your eyes and ears at these shows me & Brice Rosenbloom put together.

My Friends Are Really Talented: Invisible Familiars

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:34:31 -0400

Shaking Through: Invisible Familiars from Weathervane Music on Vimeo.

Father Figures played NPR's Tiny Desk

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:28:31 -0400

check it out! We’re playing Death By Audio in Brooklyn on May 8th with Leverage Models and Cuddle Magic. Consider yourself invited.

Landlady is making an album in Woodstock. We have a studio pie....

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:01:47 -0400

Landlady is making an album in Woodstock. We have a studio pie. No one can stop us.

Landlady drum corps, Ian Chang and Booker Stardrum

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:41:25 -0400

Landlady drum corps, Ian Chang and Booker Stardrum

“Martha, you sour grape, if I miss this putt we’re...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:04:53 -0400

“Martha, you sour grape, if I miss this putt we’re getting a divorce”

Photo

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:36:53 -0400

“This is a horrible movie. That dolphin hasn’t moved...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:20:15 -0400

“This is a horrible movie. That dolphin hasn’t moved for an hour. I’m leaving. You should stay. “

I recorded a cover of a song by JEFF the Brotherhood

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 10:45:28 -0400

enjoy! I’m performing a solo Mrs. Adam Schatz set tomorrow night at Cameo Gallery, 9pm. Lots of other great folks are playing. Come on out.

DUDES IN VANS #11: I Came, I Saw, I Didn't Puke On Stage

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:12:00 -0400

(Me, Mikey, & Adam at the Hometapes show, the best thing I was at and a part of in Austin)

The Man Man tour was in the final legs, the sick were healing the end was in sight and the band was sounding tight tight tight. Ithaca, NY was a blast, a rough around the edges and rough inside the edges club called The Haunt that’s also a mediocre bbq restaurant. We ate, we played, they cheered, we slept.

I woke up. The next morning, not feeling very good. My bandmate roomate Bryan also did not feel very good. And thus began our day, a day that felt long and unncessary. We drove to Northampton, through lots of bumpy sideroads. My stomach wasn’t pleased and my brain followed suit. I focused on the horizon, the band offered me the front seat which was 100 yards from the back seat where I had been posted for most of the tour.

We get to the club. We soundcheck. We sit around. I puke. I tried to puke earlier in the day. But it wasn’t happening. It waited, I waited, I puked.

Pineapple. But it was okay, I felt a little bit better, less mysteriously sick and more pronounced all around. Yet there was still a show to play, with a band that requires me to move around a whole lot.

I was speaking to drummer Chris Pow Pow Powell about my feelings because that’s what friends do, and I said, had he asked me a year ago what I would do to play in Man Man, I’d reply “Anything. I’d kill to play in Man Man.”

And if he had asked me at that very moment what I would do to not play in Man Man, I’d say “Absolutely anything. Anything at all to avoid having to play this show tonight.”

But in that position unless there’s a limb missing or a lot of blood bleeding, the show must go on, and on it went. I’ve had ailments before that have subsided the moment I started playing, and this wasn’t quite the case but I still made it through to the finish line. I went to bed and woke up or more or less good as new. The tour finished in Boston, my hometown, New York, my hometown, and Philly, the band’s hometown. It was a perfect conclusion after maneuvering through countless college towns in the US, to rock faces off in some of the most familiar and welcoming settings and for excited folks who had never seen the band like this before. Our mom’s liked the show. It was a success for that reason alone.

After two days off in New York I departed for Nashville to spend two days working with Those Darlins on a bunch of new music, and to play a dress rehearsal for our South by Southwest show. Their new songs are really killer, a bit darker than anything before, and I’m going to be back there in April to play on the album.

Onto Texas. Denton came first, a really great festival called 35 Denton that ropes in bands on their way to SXSW, and the show ended with the crowd breaking through the security barriers to get 3 feet closer to the stage. The wily positive ending was needed after butting heads with a remarkably incompetent and unnerving sound guy named Bob, responsible for our 3 hour Texas Soundcheck Massacre.

(Breakfast in Denton. Members of Man Man & Sinkane took on too many plates of things chicken fried and otherwise)

BLAMMO flight to Austin from Dallas, roughly 40 minutes long, beginning my 9 day experience in Austin and the famed South By Southwest music festival. I had been once before in 2008 with the Teenage Prayers. I was 19 with a gigantic beard, and had an amazing time seeing bands and eating tacos.

The festival has grown substantially since then, with the first 4 days being dedicated to the film festival and a technology conference (read: social media social media social media) and the 4 following days being all about music. Sort of.

There are stages everywhere, Austin is remarkable in that there has to be more concert venues per block than bars without stages. The celebration of music is an important thing, but come SXSW almost every non-venue building is turned into a stage for bands and brands to strut. But in the past batch of years the brands have been coming first, with Doritos erecting a gigantic platform in the center of town, Oreos buying wraps across the backs of pedicabs, and some of the most surreal sponsors plastering their name across every single official festival show (FreeCreditScore.com being the most out of place. Comedian Kyle Kinane noted that during his show, noting that in the audience there has never been a more concentrated amount of unpaid student loans in one place).

With the arrive of the brands came the explosion of unofficial parties, local wizards AND other companies not officially tied but still wanting to make a splash, finding space wherever they can, branching into East Austin and beyond to throw parties that didn’t require a festival badge (highly overpriced as it is), allowing tons of people to come to the festival without a ticket and still see a lot of greatness.

So it’s a double sided laminate. There is an truly amazing amount of greatness happening in Austin during SXSW, all of my friends bands played and I got to be blown away by them in a warm climate. We all got to hang out in once place and damnit, if Doritos were going to be wherever we looked then at least we could make fun of them together.

But there was also an overwhelming overpopulation issue. The main blocks on Sixth Street were like Mardis Gras but without the colors, and the music pouring out of every crack in every building was often less than listenable.

Those Darlins played on the Red Bull stage, the only reason being that it actually paid. Most of the showcases at the festival, attractive to so many bands because it’s their chance to “be seen” by magic industry folks, don’t pay a dime. Expenses are not covered, and bands not accepted to the festival still come to town on their own dime to play some parties thinking and hoping that it can make some sort of a difference. But they come down in droves, both officially booked and unofficially hoping to still get a piece of the pie.

OR just to have a really great time, which is possible, and did happen. You either have to go insane and be okay with going insane (blissfully) or you have to be realistic, slow down enough to really enjoy things when they’re great and spend as much time with people you enjoy as possible, rather than bouncing around to the next thing that’s supposed to be better because it’s where you’re not.

The show thrown by homegrown homespun and love filled Portland record label Hometapes embodied all of that. That whole label and all their bands are tremendous and worth your time and mind. There weren’t just bands. There were nachos too.

(the outdoor cat who pressed against the porch glass by the floor I slept on for most of the week, generously provided by Nashville heroes Thirty Tigers and Those Darlins manager JT)

I had nowhere to stay after the first few nights, so I bounced around from floor to floor, ended up in a Karaoke RV until 7am with Eugene Mirman and Brett Gellman, watched Iggy Pop still destroy a crowd with his microphone, danced to the Specials, ate taco after taco, saw my friends Small Black, Delicate Steve, Brazos, Anamanaguchi, Sinkane and Matthew E White all serve it up and knock it down, got officially converted to the joys of electronic music by Flying Lotus and Daedelus, and loved Foxygen even though they were burnt out and bled dry by the festival and the whole grind of what it takes to be a band chasing success in the United States of America.

The trip ended at Sam’s BBQ, alone, eating some tremendous brisket and counting the seconds until my room in the Microtel five minutes from the airport opened up for me to sleep in until my 6am flight out the next morning. The airport was full of exhausted people who engaged with rock and roll for a living, going home to get sick, get better, then plan on doing it again next year.

DUDES IN VANS #10 There's A BBQ Stain On My Shirt

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:54:58 -0500

There’s a BBQ stain on my shirt. Obviously.

(the Bottletree in Birmigham)

As the Man Man tour ventured northward I began to feel anxious about the lack of that particular cuisine in my system thus far. I’ve always had a romantic relationship with the stuff. Ribs were my favorite food for a long time as a kid. There’s no southern blood in my family tree as far as I know, but maybe I was adopted. Or maybe the mailman’s from Dallas.

Whatever the reason, I’m chemically driven to ingest meat smoked for long periods of time, rubbed and sauced, thrown between bread and placed in the proximity of the occasional vegetable that is the definition of an empty gesture, though usually cooked in mass quantities of butter.

And we were almost out of the south without getting down with BBQ proper. We had some in North Carolina but it was a bit highbrow. I could do that in New York. Enter, Birmingham Alabama.

The show at the Bottletree was really great, a sold out crowd in a great space. But we rolled in late that evening, sound check and then retired to the airstream, so I had no concept of Birmingham, no personal interaction, nothing nothing nothing. So the meal the next day was important, for that reason alone, to give me the right to say that I had actually BEEN to Birmhingham, and not just played a show in the dark and left in the van to lather rinse repeat in a new town.

Research kept turning up Saw’s, a small BBQ place on a nice strip of town. It was daytime and we were walking on a street rather than shuttling direct from hotel to club, so already the brain is getting woken up. Then comes the nose then comes the stomach. Holy moly Saw’s. It’s a small rectangular space, walls coated in standard BBQ kitsch. There’s a long line but it moved fast. This was vinegar based BBQ, not my #1 favorite but good gravy was this good. Killer pulled pork & ribs and all of it really. I bought a T shirt. Which is kind of the ultimate stamp of approval. I think if you really like a clothing store you should then be given the option to buy a commemorative sandwich. Right?

A Man Man fan met us to eat, he had been at the show the night before and had some other interactions with the band in the past years. His name was Elijah and the first communication came from Antarctica, where he had been working. He wrote to the band saying he was a big fan and listening to Rabbit Habbits after adventuring to the deep freeze south to work construction down there (read, be as far away from his ex as possible, in the solace of negative triple digit temperatures and penguins). The band talked to the label and the label sent some albums and posters to him in Antarctica. Where he had to work in 10 minute shifts outside because it was that cold. Penguins died. Mourn for them.

But Elijah survived, and upon his exit from the land of the ice and snow he took the Man Man merch, rolled it up and shoved it into the wall of one of the plants he worked in, a time capsule that confused aliens will find centuries from now.

Oxford, Mississippi was nice, though we barely saw the town. I went across the street from the venue (pizzeria) to the book store to be able to claim I did ANYTHING in Oxford. I have way too many half-read books with me, so I bought these stickers that say “This Book Belongs To” or “From The Library Of,” which I have begun to have fun with.

The Oxford show was underattended and many of the people there came from Memphis or Atlanta, folks frustrated that we weren’t playing their town but desperately wanted to get out to a show. It certainly feels good to play for and talk to those people.

Food was grabbed in Memphis on the way out, at a soul food spot called The Four Way, celebrating it’s 65th year in existance. A super understated but big cafeteria layout doing meat ‘n three’s like the best of them. I had a fried catfish sandwich that was spot on, but bandmate Bryan’s fried chicken truly destroyed.

This was on Sunday and the place was populated with the post-church community, featuring some of the finest insane hats we’d ever seen. Behold:

St. Louis came next, a sold out show after a night off in a city I’d never been to or wanted to be in. But this audience was a whole new level of great, so psyched and SO loudly appreciative from the first notes. Many photos were taken and autographs signed (my Man Man name had been Brother Nikola given my Tesla lookalikability but starting with St. Louis I changed it to Brown Sugar, as a bbq homage). It’s all still very new to me and the fans are incredibly sweet and often young and always pumped beyond belief.

Brown sugar. Pappy’s BBQ half a mile away from the Firebird venue in St. Louis. These ribs. Awooooogah. Deep fried corn and sweet potato fries. The end. Best ribs I have ever had. Sweet sauce, hot sauce, house sauce, all were good but none were needed. This was dry rub mastery. Brown sugar on the fries and the ribs and and and and and and

My shirt speaks the truth, the disregard for public decency in the face of taste and an escape from the rock club for a moment. Someone’s smoky work doing a number on me before I do my “job.” It makes the most sense like this.

We’re now driving to Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s snowing and I have three pairs of socks on. Maybe I won’t eat again until I get to Texas in a few weeks.

DUDES IN VANS #9 Dudes In Airstream Trailers

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 15:52:46 -0500

I’m in an airstream trailer, one of two hospitality pods parked behind the Bottletree in Birmingham Alabama. I’ve been hearing about this place for years as the best place to play in the country. The story, as it was told to me tonight, was that The Bottletree was invented a while back by the drummer for Alabamaband Man Or Astro-man? when their touring slowed down and he wanted to create the ideal venue. Fact or fiction, it feels right on. It’s the perfect size, a healthy blend of kitsch and authenticity on the walls, silly ass record covers lining the bathrooms, and once again, two airstream trailers in the backyard for the bands.

The interior is all wood and shag and other material from the past, + the beer, whisky, and TV that make it all gravy for a band a week into a tour. Rather than muck around another venue, we watched Airplane! Heaaaaven.

We made it through the Carolinas, Wilmington & Charleston were both great. My favorite donuts in the world are in Charleston in a place called Glazed. They were closed on Mondays which is insane, so I’ve got serious blue munchkins for the rest of tour. Next time.

Florida came next, Jacksonville and then Tallahassee. Neither places were on my list of “Gotta go there” or my list of “Maybe I’ll go there” and despite great shows I still have very little attachment to the state. Being in a larger posse with a gigantic van means less runing around and away, so I didn’t get a chance to get into the legitimate Florida nature, and was instead confined to the stripmall universe. I did get new socks and running shoes however. And from what I hear, running shoes are a gateway drug into actual running. More as this develops.

Food is my favorite thing to eat. On the road I tend to do it very well, with a bit of research and personal insistence iin the regular that we do it right, things work out. Unless you’re in Tallahassee. And it’s 3 am. And the show is over and the monitors didn’t really work and the only beacon of hope is 100 feet from the hotel. A beacon of hope called Denny’s.

Table for 8? antastic, no wait. Actually we’d like to sit on the other side of the restaurant, because it smells like vomit over here. Thank you kindly.

I did something I’m not proud of. But it was the final puzzle piece to my Florida night. I ate a grilled cheese with mozzerella sticks jammed in the middle. I don’t remember much of it, willfully. The next morning I made sure we atoned for our sins at the Maple Street Biscuit Company. Closes at 2, we arrived at 1:30. Fried chicken sandwich with pecan bacon cheddar cheese and sausage gravy on an A+ biscuit. This felt right, and my arteries agreed. Here’s the compare and contrast.

We took the 70 degree weather in Florida for granted and the chills returned in Baton Rouge, so close yet so far from New Orleans which was a bit of a heartbreaker. A crabcake sandwich at a place called Chimes proved redemptive enough, a fried mash of crab, crawfish and shrimp, good golly it was great. Write it down ladies and gents.

Which brings us back to Birmingham, to the Bottletree, to the airstream trailer and canteloupe plate and all around exceptional human energy that every other venue on the planet could learn a thing or ten from.

Tonight will be my 8th show with the band, my shirt needs washing but the operation is getting smoother. And it is some operation. My workstation in the band involves my standard Schatzophone (two tiered pedal boad with a mixer realistic concertmate ham radio mic saxophone mic and lotsa loopers and delays and whatnot), marimba, drum & percussion station and guitar. It’s a light as driftwood guitar made by Silvertone that is my newest jewel, acquired but not yet purchased from the generous Steven Buono. This band is my first time playing guitar on stage, a stressful ride every time it happens but it gets easier.

It’s all getting easier, the grabbing and tossing of instruments while singing and improvising transitions between songs. By the return to the East Coast family we should be sharper than ever. There are no breaks in the set. There is no banter. The moments in the set where I can chug water have to be carefully calculated and its all to easy for me to calculate wrong and then knock over an instrument while reaching for it too last minute. It’s some weird messy science no one cares about.

From the first notes to the last it’s an adrenaline adventure. Unlike any band I’ve ever been in, even the slow songs aren’t the breaks you’d think they’d be. It’s all glue and oil. Luckily it’s fun. Luckily we’re still in the south. And I’m always hungry. I need to wash my shirt.

Samples From The Grammys As A Song

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:46:30 -0500

something I made out of samples I recorded in front of the TV watching the Grammys in the green room before Man Man played in Charleston, South Carolina

DUDES IN VANS #8 I DREAM OF SKIING AND CURSING AT CHILDREN

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 13:28:27 -0500

I learned that the Weather Channel gave winter storm Nemo it’s name without the approval from the Global Masonic Weather Council or whoever they are. Not as official as the hurricane naming system, but hell even bad weather needs a PR person. I like to imagine that everyone on the Weather Channel tries a little bit harder with their makeup and posture during these moments, the few times a year when everyone in a region I really paying attention and they can shine.

We picked a good time to drive south. My dad sent me a photograph of our back porch covered in snow. I had a dream last night that I was skiing, and woke up in sunny Wilmington, North Carolina, the pulled pork still hanging out in my stomach from the night before.

Charlottesville Virginia was the night before that. One of my new favorite towns. It’s center is consolidated and the goodness of it is closed off to cars. Before soundcheck I wandered into a Chinese antique shop and left with some sort of plastic bagpipe sounding snake charmer instrument. It has 3 pipes creating multiple tones, and it’s pretty awesome sounding even when you don’t know how to play it. It debuted on stage that night during Black Mission Goggles (that’s a song).

Before the show I went to a place called the Blue Moon Diner, recommended by multiple reliable sources. I ate a banging meatloaf then met some childhood friends of my dearest Nikki Darlin, who were both a joy to spend time with. While I was waiting for them, a face I recognized entered the building, Anna Vogelzang, a musician who I first met at a high school battle of the bands in Boston, moved to Pittsburgh, now in Madison, hadn’t seen or spoken in forever. But she was playing at the Blue Moon that night. We hung out, my new friends arrived, we hung out more, then the other band playing the Blue Moon showed up, BOOM, Sasha Pearl from Hudson, NY, who I had met earlier this year through my Buke & Gase pals up there.

A three way collision of unsuspected acquaintances and histories all in Charlottesville, VA. I don’t know why or how but it felt noteworthy. Or maybe it was just the meatloaf.

The shows have been getting better and better, playing guitar on stage has been becoming incrementally easier, and I’m not getting tired of playing songs for people who know all the words. A 10 year old girl was pushed up to the very front last night by her young young parents. She was disinterested for a majority of the set, but the closer Engrish Bwudd had her jumping and singing along, a number particularly built to envoke our inner childlike wonder. It felt great that she was diving into the rock show experience. Then we reach the point where I scream “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE” and I have to live with cursing at a child for the rest of my life.

Charleston, South Carolina tonight. Beautiful streets and one hell of a donut at Glazed. Onward!

DUDES IN VANS #7 Man Man In A Giant Van

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:14:51 -0500

This is the biggest van I’ve ever been in. A dodge sprinter with 6 pilot seats and a back bench. Then a back wall, dividing the trunk / gear den from where the dudes are. There’s five of us in the band plus a sound engineer plus a tour manager / merch salesmith plus a video dude shooting the tour to promote the new record when it comes out this summer.

This is Man Man and I played my first show with them last night in Washington DC at the Black Cat.

I used to go see Man Man all the time. By design, the music is primed for a younger audience and so 18 year old Adam Schatz in Newton, MA had his face melted off in 2006 watching this band play for a small amped up crowd at PA’s Lounge in Somerville, with his friend Kevin Keegan.

Driving back from my audition with the band in October I called Kevin to tell him it was looking like I’d be joining the band. There’s no shame in making your friends proud of you.

The following summer of the Somerville experience I went to the first Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago and saw the band again there, this time knowing the songs and the words and the antics. I watched the stage and wanted to be a part of the action. I moved to New York and saw them at the Spiegeltent—a traveling circus tent venue docked at the South Street Seaport—, at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, and at the SXSW festival in 2008.

Last night was my first time playing in the band and it was excessive amounts of fun. It’s my first time being hired on a steady basis to do something I love. It’s definitely my first time playing in a band I was such a big fan of and it’s my first time being subjected to the true essence of fandom. It’s something you dream about the moment you pick up an instrument (you meaning me) but this is a group with history and a catalog and miles and still a drive to put on a hell of a show, a drive directly smashing on the front lines with a crowd full of kids eager to devour one hell of a show. The scream along, the eye your every move, they give you the benefit of the doubt with the new songs they’ve never heard before.

It rules.

I’m not shoulder to shoulder with my best friends in my childhood car. It’s a new experience for sure. I’m also not sleeping on couches, but I’m also not calling the shots. It’s more of a machine than I’ve ever been a part of and I’m excited to see how I deal with that role.

But mostly I’m just excited to do this over and over and get paid anything at all to do it. That’s a small miracle. Shmealth insurance. This is what matters.

DUDES IN VANS #6 LAKE TAHOE, A CASINO AND BIG SUR

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:30:10 -0500

to see all the photos I took this tour, the slideshow lives here: http://schatzattack.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=27484672&AlbumKey=LMddRC I

I’m on the airplane back to New York City after just under two weeks in California. People like it out there for a reason, I like it out there for a reason, and I’ve had substantially inappropriate amounts of fun with my friends perfoming music and consuming tortillas with other things on them and in them. New Years Eve was the best New Years Eve I’ve had. We (Zongo Junction) played over 2 hours of music to a sold out party at the top notch Pizzaiolo in Oakland, the only downside being that we had to play for most of the night rather than dance dance dance. A ska rendition of Auld Lang syne rang in 2013, and we earned the three days off that followed. PART 1: CRYSTAAAAL BAAAAAY!! After recovery was an adventure to the Crystal Bay Casino in Crystal Bay Nevada. A hometown best friend of mine Kevin has been working in Carson City as a botanist and came out with another friend of ours to meet us in Tahoe, where we went sledding on a massive hill near Rose Mountain. I was protected by the blue jumpsuit Kevin had just acquired at the thrift store in tahoe, all but my feet, punished by by shoe supply being the sole (GET IT???!!) existance of a pair of Converse Chuck Taylors. Glorified socks, hella* soggy. *hella and all associated Northern California slang are property of the People’s Association of Fools & Avocados. Kevin:

We hustled our way up the hill, immediately out of breath due to the high altitude and the fact that most of the past week had been spent seated in cars or two stepping on stage. Very little incline. Unadulterated merriment was had. We drank Sierra Nevada in the Sierra mountains. Some rappscallion teens almost took out our whole party with one mass sled assault. Noah (bass) narrowly avoided an ankling by one punk, and cartoonishly dove out of the way, saving his beer.

Lake Tahoe is beautiful and one of a kind. Kevin is the smartest of smarty pants and dropped some knowledge on us about the depth of the lake (1600 feet) and how the Sierras and the lake itself formed (something something tectonic plates something something pushing something lake something). His memory is his strength and was to our benefit. Kevin also brought me up to speed on the local happenings in Carson City, Nevada. A man in Carson City had recently moved from his home into assisted living. After the house was sold and resettled, from his new location this man remembered a very important detail about the house. Since the 1960’s, he had been storing dynamite in the walls. Kevin did not know why this was, but we can only assume the reasons were the following: - Communist take-over - Bob Dylan going electric - Disco take-over - The laser disc - Grunge Take-over -The IPad Mini The man called the authorities and the dynamite was delicately removed. Over such a long time, it deteriorates, and something as simple as nailing a picture into the wall could have set it out. Boom! That was the fun story. There was another one, something something murder suicide in the woods something something.

I had never been to a casino before July 2012, when I ventured spontaneously to the Riviera Casino & Hotel in Las Vegas from LA with my friend Tim (the Teenage Prayers) when we learned his cousin would be playing bass with Andrew Dice Clay’s kids to play Andrew Dice Clay onto the stage. Boom! On that trip I forgot to yell “VEEEGAAAS!” when we decided to go, and I’ll never forgive myself. The Riviera was a small shitty casino. The Crystal Bay Casino in Crystal Bay Nevada is a much smaller much shittier casino. One day I’d like to visit one of the magnificent monstrosities from the movies, but given the 10 minutes it took me to lose $60 in black jack at 3 am, I’m going to steer clear of them until my sugar mama takes me (accepting applications at all hours). After our day of breathing in the fresh moutain air, we load our equipment through a fog of cigar smoke, past a sea of daytime gamblers (the saddest) and weaving into the performance area. It was actually a great stage, with amazing sound, the stage itself was built by hand by our sound engineer. But it was still supremely strange. We were given 11 hotel rooms which was extraordinary after floors and couches for so long.. They forgot to install doors on any of the bathrooms. So, for future travles to the Crystal Bay Casino, it’s BYOD.

The show was free, and we were the only band. The room was large, and when we began, we outnumbered the audience. But by the fifth song, we had a strong crowd building, and by the tenth song, we played an encore. It was one of the most drastic evolutions I’ve ever been a part of. Something something nowhere to eat something something something went to the casino across the street something something 12 mini corndogs something something something hit me bust hit me bust hit me bust something new PBS documentary on Paul Simon & Graceland in Charlie’s hotel room at 3 am something something zzzzzzzZzzZzZzZzzzzz.

PART 2: SEBASTAPOL The next day we moved back west to play Sebastapol, an old hippie escape town north of San Francisco. It was the final show of the tour, on an oddly shaped stage that forced us to reconfigure how the band was normally positioned. But we had nothing too lose and a big crowd to lose nothing for. A woman writing for the Sonoma Ebony Gazette individually proposed to all of us, booed at the fact that it was the last show of the tour (we’re tired lady!) and wins the blue ribbon for making the most of us uncomfortable at once. The room was full of classic northern California weirdos, Charlie’s parents, my brother who had just returned to the Bay where he lives now, and some other wildcards. We played a long set while the captain of the weirdos leaned against the wall near the stage with a long plastic tube device pointed towards the ceiling. Every so often he would pull a trigger, shooting a cloud of fake 10 dollar bills into the air, falling over the dancing audience. If that man is not currently the mayor of Sebastapol, he is definitely a candidate for next term. PART 3: DAYS OFF Days off are few and far between but we did have a few on this trip, due to the routing making us able to only play so many shows in the area and plane tickets being cheaper a few days later, so we killed a night in Big Sur, a magical natural wonderland that I had heard of but never seen. Charlie’s uncle had a house there that he normally rented out for most of the year, but it was somehow available. So we allowed ourselves to do a bit more driving for the benefit of our brains and hearts, subjecting our spirits to the greatness of Big Sur, a drive down highway 1 into the sunset, traversing up a hill in the texas-chainsaw darkness. A few wrong turns and murder jokes later we ended up well out of cell phone range at Uncle Tony’s house on top of a cliff. We ate and drank and watched movies and did anything but perform music. In the morning the rooms we slept in (in beds!!!) bore windows showing off the cliff we were stargazing on the night prior, with the pacific ocean at the end of it all. Before our return to San Francisco leading to our return to New York leading to our return to our normal lives (nonexistent) we walked along the water. I’ve been to some places but never seen anything like this, the far end of our country in it’s most spectacular. Huge rocks, congregating birds, it sounds like any old coast but it really isn’t. And I can’t explain it but if you’re within 200 miles, make the detour. We ended things as a team, opting to spend more time with each other despite it being a day off, despite not being forced to by profession or circumstance or scheduling. We still like each other and we played a lot of music for a lot of people. We must be doing something right.

lightpainting with the North Star above Big Sur

DUDES IN VANS #6 LAKE TAHOE, A CASINO AND BIG SUR

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:27:37 -0500

to see all the photos I took this tour, the slideshow lives here:http://schatzattack.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=27484672&AlbumKey=LMddRC

New Years Eve was the best New Years Eve I’ve had. We (Zongo Junction) played over 2 hours of music to a sold out party at the top notch Pizzaiolo in Oakland, the only downside being that we had to play for most of the night rather than dance dance dance. A ska rendition of Auld Lang syne rang in 2013, and we earned the three days off that followed.

PART 1: CRYSTAAAAL BAAAAAY!!

After recovery was an adventure to the Crystal Bay Casino in Crystal Bay Nevada. A hometown best friend of mine Kevin has been working in Carson City as a botanist and came out with another friend of ours to meet us in Tahoe, where we went sledding on a massive hill near Rose Mountain. I was protected by the blue jumpsuit Kevin had just acquired at the thrift store in tahoe, all but my feet, punished by by shoe supply being the sole (GET IT???!!) existance of a pair of Converse Chuck Taylors. Glorified socks, hella* soggy.

*hella and all associated Northern California slang are property of the People’s Association of Fools & Avocados.

Kevin:

We hustled our way up the hill, immediately out of breath due to the high altitude and the fact that most of the past week had been spent seated in cars or two stepping on stage. Very little incline.

Unadulterated merriment was had. We drank Sierra Nevada in the Sierra mountains. Some rappscallion teens almost took out our whole party with one mass sled assault. Noah (bass) narrowly avoided an ankling by one punk, and cartoonishly dove out of the way, saving his beer.

Kevin also brought me up to speed on the local happenings in Carson City, Nevada.

A man in Carson City had recently moved from his home into assisted living. After the house was sold and resettled, from his new location this man remembered a very important detail about the house. Since the 1960’s, he had been storing dynamite in the walls. Kevin did not know why this was, but we can only assume the reasons were the following:

- Communist take-over

- Bob Dylan going electric

- Disco take-over

- The laser disc

- Grunge Take-over

-The IPad Mini

The man called the authorities and the dynamite was delicately removed. Over such a long time, it deteriorates, and something as simple as nailing a picture into the wall could have set it out. Boom!

That was the fun story. There was another one, something something murder suicide in the woods something something.

The Riviera was a small shitty casino. The Crystal Bay Casino in Crystal Bay Nevada is a much smaller much shittier casino. One day I’d like to visit one of the magnificent monstrosities from the movies, but given the 10 minutes it took me to lose $60 in black jack at 3 am, I’m going to steer clear of them until my sugar mama takes me (accepting applications at all hours).

After our day of breathing in the fresh moutain air, we load our equipment through a fog of cigar smoke, past a sea of daytime gamblers (the saddest) and weaving into the performance area. It was actually a great stage, with amazing sound, the stage itself was built by hand by our sound engineer. But it was still supremely strange. We were given 11 hotel rooms which was extraordinary after floors and couches for so long.. They forgot to install doors on any of the bathrooms. So, for future travles to the Crystal Bay Casino, it’s BYOD.

PART 2: SEBASTAPOL

The next day we moved back west to play Sebastapol, an old hippie escape town north of San Francisco. It was the final show of the tour, on an oddly shaped stage that forced us to reconfigure how the band was normally positioned. But we had nothing too lose and a big crowd to lose nothing for. A woman writing for the Sonoma Ebony Gazette individually proposed to all of us, booed at the fact that it was the last show of the tour (we’re tired lady!) and wins the blue ribbon for making the most of us uncomfortable at once.

The room was full of classic northern California weirdos, Charlie’s parents, my brother who had just returned to the Bay where he lives now, and some other wildcards. We played a long set while the captain of the weirdos leaned against the wall near the stage with a long plastic tube device pointed towards the ceiling. Every so often he would pull a trigger, shooting a cloud of fake 10 dollar bills into the air, falling over the dancing audience. If that man is not currently the mayor of Sebastapol, he is definitely a candidate for next term.

PART 3: DAYS OFF

Days off are few and far between but we did have a few on this trip, due to the routing making us able to only play so many shows in the area and plane tickets being cheaper a few days later, so we killed a night in Big Sur, a magical natural wonderland that I had heard of but never seen. Charlie’s uncle had a house there that he normally rented out for most of the year, but it was somehow available. So we allowed ourselves to do a bit more driving for the benefit of our brains and hearts, subjecting our spirits to the greatness of Big Sur, a drive down highway 1 into the sunset, traversing up a hill in the texas-chainsaw darkness. A few wrong turns and murder jokes later we ended up well out of cell phone range at Uncle Tony’s house on top of a cliff. We ate and drank and watched movies and did anything but perform music. In the morning the rooms we slept in (in beds!!!) bore windows showing off the cliff we were stargazing on the night prior, with the pacific ocean at the end of it all.

Before our return to San Francisco leading to our return to New York leading to our return to our normal lives (nonexistent) we walked along the water. I’ve been to some places but never seen anything like this, the far end of our country in it’s most spectacular. Huge rocks, congregating birds, it sounds like any old coast but it really isn’t. And I can’t explain it but if you’re within 200 miles, make the detour.

We ended things as a team, opting to spend more time with each other despite it being a day off, despite not being forced to by profession or circumstance or scheduling. We still like each other and we played a lot of music for a lot of people. We must be doing something right.

lightpainting with the North Star above Big Sur

DUDES IN VANS #5 CAL-EH-FOUR-NAY-A

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:25:00 -0500

PART 1 (written while driving into LA)

Driving into LA we hit some signature traffic, but as the sun set, it let up. Mikey is in the front seat and on ipod duty, piping Missisippi Heavy Water Blues by Barbecue Bob. LA looks amazing in the dark and people who say they don’t like LA haven’t seen it in the dark while listening to Barbecue Bob.

We play tonight at the Mint with Turkauz, our old touring buddies, a 10 piece maxmilist funk experience. They’re insanely fun and after a niight with them my voice is gone my head hurts and my legs are sore. It should be a good one.

San Francisco was last night. It felt like we were running a marathon without having trained for a marathon. The set was close to 2 hours, to a big crowd that might as well be a hometown welcome committee since a chunk of Zongo Junction are bay area natives and this is the third year in a row we’ve done a show at Slims around this time. We keep getting better, which is a fun, to keep updating the town on our progress as dudes.

California is colder than you think it is.

PART 2 (more stuff happened, written from a couch in LA again)

Played LA. Drove to San Diego. Played San Diego. Drove back to LA after the show. Driving to Santa Cruz in a minute. To play Santa Cruz. Not heaps of sleep these days.

LA was great. Los Angeles is a place people tend to refer to in the extreme.

“I have to be in LA” (for work)

“I hate LA” (I hate a few specific people in LA) (I hate an idea I have about LA)

“The tacos in LA are better than any tacos anywhere else and you’re dumb for thinking otherwise”
(I like tacos and have never been to Mexico)

But I really like LA, and not in an extreme way. I like LA in a weirdly well rounded and varied way. The first time I went out there was when Previously On Lost (my band with Jeff Curtin that wrote rapid harmonized recaps of the TV show Lost.) played some shows out there. Because that’s where Television is made. And we wore suits and leis and sang songs on the boardwalk with a giant poster of JJ Abram’s head. A year or so later ABC’s marketing team flew Jeff & I back out to stay in a crazy nice hotel and talk to us about things that didn’t happen and go to a magic club and eat copious amounts of room service.

Father Figures toured through LA two summers ago and we played at the now gone Echo Curio, a perfect den of weirdness, where our show was introduced by an unbilled unannounced uninhibited rasta shaman.

Many friends of mine have moved out here since I first visited. A few of my dearest are about to come out as well, to act & write respectively. Kind of obvious, but I wish them the best and they’re sharp as tacs so I’m not worried.

My old Teenage Prayers bandmates Tim & Kyle live out here with their wives and families.

All these perspectives coupled with the tortilla & al pastor reservoir that has canals leading towards every quality taco truck in the city makes it a highly enjoyable place, no matter who you are or what you are. There’s mountains in view. And a lot of water.

The show was great, with a really psyched crowd in a perfect size room (small enough meets big enough meets a sound system that can handle five horns and bass bass bass). I had people there from a lot of sides of my life, many not based in LA but who happened to be out there, which is kind of the best. Family friends of mine from Newton were out there extended family vacation style, and they all came. Mother father brother sister cousin friend, dancing proudly in the front row, parading a blend of positive style and honest not giving a damn. It helped electrify the room in a great way that was seeming not LA at all / what LA can always be if you stop complaining about how LA “is.”

Turkuaz generously let me sing Coming Up with them, a song by Paul McCartney off one of my favorite albums “McCartney II.” Here’s some evidence.

We slept at a friend’s house in Venice beach. I woke up early to meet New York friend Stacey for coffee and beach walks with her friend Sarah, who laughed a lot. It was not enough time in town at all but it was seriously solid condensed time. I ate a pretzel baguette on the beach. My new favorite beach activities are:

1. eating pretzel baguette
2. reading
3. staring at the horizon and wondering what fish are eating what other fish
4. swimming
5. not drowning

PART 3- SAN DIEGO / SANTA CRUZ / SANS GAS

See LA. Similar feelings as to the show. Only it was colder. And we didn’t get to hang out in town at all. We did eat at a Mexican restaurant (running theme) run by a couple who’s children were the wait staff. Girl, age 8-10, Boy age 5-6. Hilarious and quite efficient. At this point our body is probably 50 % water, 20% horchata, 15% meat, and then all the other stuff. Whatever.

We drove back to LA after the show to sleep for a few hours, then drive six more to Santa Cruz to play for a classic calavade of hippy remainders and friends who commuted the hour and half south from the Bay area. The sound man’s name was Brent and he had the voice of a delicate flower, and was a beast behind the board.

A girl who’s friends called her “sexy Lexy” but who I call “whaaaaat…” paraded on stage during our third song with a platter full of whisky shots. But we still had at least three more minutes of the song to go. She sort of walked around the stage while we glanced at her uncomfortably, then she rested the drinks down and left. We toasted between songs and then played a lot more music a bit looser.

Another night drive, churning back to Berkeley to sleep at our homebase, band founder Charles (drums) childhood home. Me & Charles rode with Mikey (guitar) and his girlfriend Jenny (Jenny) who met us out in LA and they rented a car. We were driving in the rental car, an Altima with a nice interior and a button ignition. And apparently an inappropriate short duration of time between when the “out of gas” light comes on and the “out of gas” thing happens.

Luckily we were only a few blocks from the house, albeit on a steep hill, and we got the car in neutral for Jonah (bari sax) to push us up with the Toyota minivan.

No stopping us now! Next up is 2 1/2 - 3 hours of music for a New Years Eve party in Oakland. But first a full night’s sleep for once in our miserable lives.

DUDES IN VANS #4: Making up for missed time

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 14:17:38 -0500

INTRODUCTION: DEAL WITH IT

This is going to be a big big long post. Deal with it, I have trouble doing the daily recap thing. Two days in a row and I nail it. Then I eat some reeses cups in the van and wake up a week later having played a bunch of shows and forgotten to write about them.

But I haven’t forgotten anything that happened. I have a weird encyclopedic memory around performances, I’ve got most details committed from age 13 onward. Ususally not the important details either. This will maybe read like a run on sentence, please deal with it.

I’m in the airport, 20 minutes from boarding a flight to San Francisco for a week and a half of shows and days off with my Zongo Junction bretheren. It is likely to be very very awesome. I’m listening to the Velvet Underground & Nico 45th anniverssary box set my brother got for me. Once I listen to that album in stereo, mono, live and reherasals I will either be more in love with it than ever before or never want to hear again. Either way the music is doing its job.

The news on the TV up and away from me says a tornado just ripped through Mobile, AL, where I drove through a week ago.

Yikes.

PART 1: ZONGO JUNCTION COMPLETES OUR MISSION

After my last transmission, Zongo Junction took on Columbus, Chicago, Madison and Oberlin and had memorable days all framed by kindness, brought on by total strangers and total family.

Columbus was a bummer of a show. It rained. No one was there. Like, really no one. It was the only show of the tour like that and it felt not very good. We still had a small pack show up throughout and we still got them dancing and those sorts of challenges always do seem to prove the strength of the band, but you have to work twice as hard that way and our muscles were drained. And we had nowhere to sleep.

We debated between just driving towards Chicago and getting a motel or driving to Cincinatti where we knew someone who could maybe fit some of us, which was a bit out of the way but also a real place that existed.

Then Jonah Parzen-Johnson-Baritone-Hospitality spoke up, having heard from his father about a friend of a friend of a mailman who knew a woman in Columbus with a large nice house that was waiting for all of us. Our ears perked up, bringing some joy on top of the flat beer and unique pizza that was seeping into our bloodstreams.

We go to the house. It’s really big and really nice. And really Christmas. Ornaments and decoration presents everywhere (meaning empty wrapped boxes). There was a golden dog running around and it was 1 am. We had three rooms to spread out in and the carpet was seriously soft, which you learn to appreciate after getting to know more than a few floors.

It becomes clear that the kindly hostess had failed to inform her husband that ten people where crashing their home. He was asleep. He woke up. The rest of this story was told to me by Noah (bass) so the details aren’t precise but for everyone’s sake please imagine the father wearing an Ebeneezer Scrooge style pajama, candlestick in hand, nightcap on head, frown on face.

He opened his bedroom door to see Noah, a stranger, standing there. And he sniffed out that there were many more of us.

“What in the world is going on…” He said.

Noah explained. All was well. We slept and woke up to a pile of donuts and conversation and posed around the Christmas tree. Even the Jews.

We barrelled into Chicago and did a radio interview for the internet radio station Fearless which was fun. Radio is my favorite medium and I like to talk, and internet radio tends to encourage an increase in absurdism. I believe you can download the interview here: http://www.fearlessradio.com/component/k2/item/3315-zongo-junction

The Chicago show was massive. Really really really strong. I have some family out there and so does Jonah, but there was also a large group of strangers excited to hear us, and it really is a city prime for what we’re doing. Tons of people, tons of dancing, a weird older woman with 3 times too much makeup was planted in front of the pool table like a rejected mannequin for three hours, and we all slept in beds.

Madison, Wisconsin brought us to the first college show of the tour and the first nigh of Hannuka. Channukah. Chnarsnuker. My Uncle and Aunt live in town and had us over for brisket and beers and napping, then we played in a gigantic cafeteria. Percussionist savior John Doing grew up in the area as well so it was nice to inject some hometown heroes into the mix of college students. Joe’s (alto) parents drove in from Minneapolis as a surprise for the show and brought some cookies called monster cookies. I ate too many and can never eat them again until I see them again and then I’ll eat all of them.

We woke up to snow. Amazing amazing snow. Some kids went sledding. We did not. We loaded up our vans, in the snow, with California plates.

Ross & I in Madison building our workstations:

Back to Chicago for a night off and Hernukkath dinner again with the Parzen-Johnsons, sangria, fried chicken and latkes.

“Shalom”, said my digestive tract.

Jonah’s Grandma’s 90 something year old boyfriend acted younger and looked like this:

Oberlin College next, it was basically finals week but a small crowd brought it. We were tired, luckily it was the last night of the tour. We had made some money, sold a lot of CDs, met some new friends and a human mannequin who we hoped to never see again. And now it was over.

For everyone but me, and Ross. The next day we were dropped off in Pittsburgh where Father Figures picked us up, for our 10 day tour.

PART TWO: FATHER FIGURES AND WHY WE DO THIS

Ross (keyboards) and I had six hours to kill in PIttsburgh with car and no ear muffs. It was seriously cold, we were staying with my friend of my friend Stacey named Charlotte who was renting a really beautiful big house so she could prepare for and make a film in Pittsburgh. We told Charlotte the next morning we would do a read-through of her script, all five of us, and she was psyched. But we had six hours to kill until Ian (drums), Spencer (upright bass) and Jas (tenor sax) arrived in my minivan to kick things off. We walked around the neighborhood which was loaded with insane houses. No two residences were even remotely alike. They were all built up and down these huge hills, with big stone public staircases running between them to cut between the streets. We got way lost trying to work our way round to Carnegie Mellon area but we saw a lot of nice things on the way. We ate sandwiches and shopped for comics that we didn’t buy (the only way I know how to shop for comics) then walked back. It was the most excercise we had gotten since we left for tour.

The guys arrived and we piled into Scott my grey 2004 Toyota Sienna too make our way towards the Shop, the first venue for the first show of our first real tour of the year. We didn’t get to play very much because we’ve all gotten increasingly busy, we all play in a ton of bands and Ian (drums) was on the road pretty much the whole fall with Body Language and then Matthew Dear and now us. But we make time because none of us are in another band like this band (and collectively we’re probably in 30 bands) and nothing makes us feel quite like the way we feel when we’re in this band.

It’s not entirely easy to explain if you’re not in it but only five of us are in it so I’ll try. There’s a lot of magic and a lot of mind reading. We learned to improvise together, went to jazz school together and accepted digested and rejected whatever we felt like from the curriculm, always banded together at the roots to make some music that was truly our own. Born out of a semi-regular party at coffee shop Spencer (bass) used to work at in 2008, Father Figures used to improvise for hours for an audience, record ourselves, then talk about every single thing we liked or didn’t like. And that’s continued for years, we would write more and more and more and find ways to seemlessly integrate the improvisation, improvisational cues (worked out with Wayne Krantz and mostly abandoned now as they have become a part of our bloodsteams) and compositions that on the surface sound fairly genreless. It’s more about the connection than our influences and audiences can sense that. We can play with electronic groups, dance DJs, jam bands, straight forward rock bands, noise groups, psych bands, drone dudes or jazz brains and it always seems to work. It’s been tested over and over through out our almost 5 year history and it’s too fucking fun to stop.

So we don’t stop, we find time, I book the shows and make sure it happens. Even though we hadn’t written a new song in a year and a half. It was happening. And it started at The Shop.

The first apparent difference between the Zongo Junction tour and the Father Figures tour was that when we would arrive to the venues with Zongo Junction, it was usually obviously that it was a venue, and almost uniformly a nightclub.

Now, it was quite the opposite. The Shop may have had a sign but in my memory it had the opposite of a sign, a void that ensured no one would know itw as there. There was a metal band rehearsing inside but the door was locked. Eventually the woman who booked the show with me showed up with her son, very frustrated about things that we did or didn’t do but mostly didn’t do and she was just frustrated in general. The sound guy was going to play an mp3 through the system to make sure it worked and then leave.

This would not be last time I ran sound for us while we played on this tour.

But it was a great show. I had only booked it a few weeks prior, some local gentlefolk came to the rescue, songwriter and superniceguy Kirk E. Campbell played some great pop songs on his guitar, then Sleep Experiments made some beautiful drumless music, two guitars and a vocalist setting the stage expertly for our first sounds.

In settings like that, we hit loud right from the start. So we did, and it was a blast. We were back. Folks were excited. We sold some stuff to strangers, including our EP on USBeak, a little creature I invented and designed with my friend Teresa, a small buddy comprised of felt, cardboard, stuffing, gumption and hot glue, compee with eyes, eyebrows, and a gaping mouth revealing a protuding 1 gigabyte USB tongue, armed with our Bad Bad Birds EP and a few live tracks. We made $64 from the show. The bands didn’t take any (another running theme of the tour) and the sound guy took nothing because he didn’t exist which was cool.

We ate a pizza and slept at Charlotte’s house. The next morning we were faced with the pack. 5 guys, bags, sleeping bags, an upright bass, two saxophones , my effects box, my amp, Ross’ keyboard, Ross’ amp, a box of 17 vinyl records and a bag of USBeaks and a bag of Beak supplies in case we ran out. And two keyboard stands. Behold:

Off to Oberlin, OH we went, my second show at Oberlin in three days. We were booked to do a workshop / masterclass on improvisation for students in the jazz program, then play a show that night at the coffee house venue they have.

We’ve done workshops before but never for kids so close to us in age. Not really kids. One of the kids was a 5th year, so, two years yonger than us? Oof. We talked over what we would talk about in the car. Our approach to collective improvisation, spontaneously composing forms rather than just taking solos, following a 16 bar phrase (taught to us by Krantz) and then showing what we meant and having them play as well. It went exceptionally. I over-spoke at times but in general everyone had a lot of awesome questions and seemed to really enjoy us playing for and talking to them. Kids would improvise in small groups and we would give them feedback and they would try again, always sounding singificantly more together the second time, which felt great.

The workshop basically paid for our tour. Colleges can pay for this sort of thing, as hard as it is to believe, and it’s the only sustainable approach for now, until we become the house band for a psychedelic version of Star Search.

The show was a little stale, the sound was tough and I was beginning to realize my saxophone was breaking, developing a few leaks in the upper notes that made every note on the instrument twice as hard to play. Sound would come out but I felt like I was going to rupture my spleen in the process. I had to make it to Nashville where there was a repair shop. ‘

Crashed in Columbus. Booked it to Louisville. Shopped at a pawn shop run by a cross dresser. Bought a cool old cheap microphone to add to my pile of cheap old microphones. In the future maybe they will be as good as currency. Two grundigs for 2 dozen eggs. I hope so.

We ate at Hammerheads on recommendation. If you’re ever in Louisville, this place is explosive. Amazing new bbq with slight doses of class. Fried mac & cheese balls. Disturbingly good pulled pork. Everything was served on a slab of wood.

The show was at the Haymarket Whisky Bar. The show was in the back room of the Haymarket Whisky Bar. No real heat. We were our own sound guys. We waited in the cold for a few hours but then folks started showing up. We played with two experimental bands in town who were super nice, and there was a really good crowd both for them and us due to a big spread in the LEO Weekly Louisville paper that included an interview with me and a big ol’ photograph. It was one of the first times I’d experienced press actually getting people out to a show, which speaks for the greatness of the Louisville people and the lack of anything else to do that night. But we sold a ton of beaks and met kid from a local school who would work on bringing us back.

We finished the show and we drove. 3 hours til Nashville, where my dearest Nikki Darlin of the band Those Darlins had a house waiting for us. Just moved in, super clean, futons & pull outs and slightly warmer weather than where we were coming from.

Nashville is a special place to me, because of the Darlins who live there (I’ve known them going on four years, played on their albums, played live with them when I can, and really loved each of them to the fullest, including their manager & label runner JT who helped set up our Nashville show). The past two Fourths Ofs Julys I’ve taken a weeklong vacation to Nashville to not touch the internet or my phone and live life at the proper pace for once, flanked by hot chicken alcohol rock and roll and genuine human kindness. There’s a parade. Every time I return I meet more people I like and they seem to like me. It is the only other place besides New York that I would live in.

So there was a lot riding on this show for me, because most of those people had never seen me perform, especially like this. Saxophones are few and far between in Nashville, and our band had two of them, instead of singers. People were either going to be confused and turned off or floored, flattened and psyched. I had a feeling as to which was it was going to lean, because of my local yokel friends and the bands we were playing with being loud devious rockers.

Country music was consumed at Roberts & Laylas on music row and hot chicken and hot fish was consumed at Bolton’s. If you’re not familiar, Hot Chicken is the only cuisine Nashville has proud on its back, fried chicken with chili and other spices in the batter for skin and put on top as well, giving it a dry sincere heat that slams you authentically in the mouth throat and stomach. Done right it is really really really great and Bolton’s & Prince’s are both famous for doing it right.

Jessi Darlin & Brother Emmett

The show was truly great. Probably the best of the tour. There was a significant amount of love coming from the audience to the stage. If you’ve been an audience member I know you know the feeling of love pouring out of you towards an artist you like as they perform, but I need to make sure it is clear how much that can be really felt by a band.

We were in our element. We were in a rock club. Everything was amplified. You felt the drums and the bass on your fingers and toes. The room was full of people. Jessi Darlin was in the front row with her wide eyes open wide. I knew a lot of people there but I also didn’t know a lot of people there and it felt so good. Brittney, insanely talented singer for the Alabama Shakes was in town and was also in the front. She bought a USBeak. To know her music sounds the way it does and to have her love our band really speaks to hw possible it is for our brand of weirdness to coexist and maybe even find some momentum.

It felt so great to bring what we were doing to Nashville, where we were repeatedly informed they did not get stuff like this ever. Said big dude with piercings and a leather jacket. Said nice guy lawyer. Said scraggly rocker. Said my friends. Such a treat and we have to come back. We have to. I stayed up late which was required but foolish because it was a 9-10 hour drive to New Orleans the next day.

We should have done this tour in 15 days and we did it in 10.

Before 2012 I had never been to New Orleans. Driving towards the city, this would be my third time there this year. Similarly to Nashville, I’ve met a pocket of people there who I really love, but it’s less based around recreation and more around severe talent and a different musical pace than everywhere else I’ve ever been. Music is in the streets and the water and the liquor obviously, but it goes beyond that. There’s less of a clash and a attitude among the creatives I know down there, not afraid to play trad jazz or skronky noise, or electronic dreamscapes, or act in a local production of Sweeney Todd, as actually happened while we were there.

So again I knew Father Figures was being thrown into an existing whirlpool, down an exciting drain that never actually sucks you down. We drove through the day and played our first show at an art space called the Big Top. There was a stage but we played on the floor, because there were easels on the stage. Five people painted and drew on giant canvases while we performed, a long set that was largely improvised. We hadn’t gotten to stretch out like that in ages and it felt that between Nashville the night before and this we were really finding our footing again and maybe sounding better than we ever had, which is a nice byproduct of us being apart for months getting better on our own and then coming back together.

The next day we went to the Chime Tree. A big tree by the New Orleans museam of art with giant chimes of different sizes in it. They resonate differently depending on the changing wind and we spent an hour underneath it, walking in circles, listening and not driving and not eating and not playing music.

We ate Po Boys at Parkway. Do that.

That night the show was at Mudlark, a small public theater where we did our own sound but there were no microphones so that was easy. My friend Micah’s band played. Then we played a short set. The power was surging while we played, making the lights flicker and the bass amp click. Then Aurora Nealand and Helen Gillet ran over after their production of Sweeney Todd ended. Aurora is an amazing saxophonist and human, who played a short solo set called Monocle, where she plays amplified accordion, kick drum, high hat and sings. The accordion and voice were going through the same guitar amp that crunched the sound delicately. She came out in aviation gear. She ate a banana. She sang some really really great songs.

Then we played a second set, improvising with Helen Gillet. As a band we rarely have guests play with us but we’ve been moving more towards collaborating with people we admire, as a way to improve as a band and also reach a bigger audience. Helen is a cellist whose name I heard the moment I first arrived in New Orleans. She’s incredibly adept and melodic, plays with tons of people and often alone, looping herself. I was the only one in the band who had met her and we’d never played together before.

It shot a dose of energy back into the band and the tour, it was the midway point and we were fucking exchausted but this was a truly new experience for a great crowd and we were pushed to do new things musically that never would have happened otherwise. We recorded it and I will put it online soon if Helen is cool with it. In the meantime if you’d like to hear it, email me at ALS458 (at) Gmail .

Drive drive drive drive drive. New Orleans is far from Everything. It’s on the way to Nothing. It’s too bad because it keeps a lot of people from ever getting to live it.

It was Monday night in Atlanta. It was legal to smoke in bars. It’s just the worst. If it’s a packed room, it will stain our instruments and take residence in my mustache at least until the next morning.

But the show was packed. Mondays tend to be horrible. This was the opposite. It matched Nashville in terms of audience energy and sound, a small loud rock club called 529, full of hungry faces. We really really slammed and sold a ton of stuff to boot. After we played, Babar played. They were ferocious, instrumental, loud and really worth your time.

We’re getting close to the end.

PART 3: WE’RE GETTING CLOSE TO THE END.
After a run of sleeping in houses that were less than clean, the final two nights of the tour were spent in North Carolina in the food & bed filled house of Allison, a childood friend of my mother’s. It was the definition of necessary. Jas was getting sick and bassically had a full on flu by the time we arrived, with soup already on the table. A Christmas miracle. Tuesday night in Raleigh was good, a really great club called Kings Barcade with a giant recreation of the Muppet critics installed onto the wall. The crowd was decent, we sold out of records, and the Savage Knights played, older brooding insrumental gents with a killer distorted cello sound and great songs, led by the appropriately named Crowmeat Bob.

Raleigh BBQ was exciting and something that also definited necessary.

We ate a lot of Allison’s food and Jas kept sleeping, being the ultimate trooper by performing without complaint despite a high fever.

Durham is 20 minutes away from Raleigh and we really had no business playing in both places 2 days in a row, except that I knew we would need a day of not driving, and there was a possibility both shows could be successful. They weren’t. No one came to the Durham show. But we hung out with some great people who played, drank some free drinks, drove 20 minutes back to our beds and leftovers from Allison’s Korean dinner and we did not feel bad. If that’s what touring was all the time I’d do it for free. I sort of already do it for free. But I sort of don’t!

This story has a happy ending. It also doesn’t have a very good story structure. There was very little conflict. Actually, zero real conflict. It’s a pro to touring with people you love. Both tours, stresses can run high, frustrations can be heightened, but no conflict was enacted, and a really good meal tended to reset everything.

We had one more show. Washington DC. A house concert at a place called the Paperhaus. Drive drive drive drive. It was raining. Not a good sign. It was finally cold again. Shit. We got to the house and people were nice. We set up our gear because the first artist was a solo performer. A guitarist named Anthony Pirog, who we spoke to and learned he had been at NYU years before us, when the program director was an alcoholic.

We got tacos. Or I got tacos. Burritos were also had. This place is really good. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

We returned to the house and there was a crowd there, despite the rain. I hope one day I won’t have to approach a performance wondering if anyone will be there but I don’t think that will ever be the case, even some of the most popular artists I know have that problem from time to time. But in a job that is truly day to day, we could definnitely use a few more stabilizing elements. Maybe we have to invent them and drink them every morning.

People were there. Anothy Pirog played and was incredible. An inspired set of instrumental guitar melodics, loops, drones and rips, completely listenable and exciting.

Bob Boilen from NPR walked in, who I invited to the show, and we enjoyed the set together from the stairs.

We knew this was it. Jas was less sick and ready for the old all or nothing. The house was full of people. We hit and we hit hard. The same opening song we played at The Shop in Pittsburgh, but it sounded 100X better, 100X fuller, 100X more streamlined, electricity firing between all five of us. We played a second song, this one with more improvisation and Ross made some keyboard magic that at the time felt unparalleled. The bass drum broke and we had to pause our set. Bob Boilen came up to me apologizing that he had to run to another show but said that what just happened was the most intense 15 minutes of music he’d ever seen and that we had to do something together.

Tremendous.

A second bass drum was fetched from down the street and we finished our set playing the last notes as a band of 2012. The audience was warm and shouting. We sold some Beaks. We packed our gear up into the car, watched a bunch of Les Rhinoceros’ set (look them up look them up they are so good) and we drove off through the rain back to Brooklyn, accompanied by the LA Philharmonic playing the music of Star Wars. It was a hilarious and appropriate exit.

We got to NY around 5 am, I was in bed by 6 am, and up the next morning to drive to Boston for 5 days off of family time. I’ve never been more excited to not play a show.

But after the holiday cheer and homebrewed couch cushions I’m ready to go again. California tomorrow, San Francisco tomorrow, and it goes on and on and on.

The Velvet Underground are great.

Dudes In Vans #3: Pontiac, MI

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 12:10:00 -0500

This day and night should probably be explained mostly through the mediums of video and photography. All that follows will accurately depict the ebb and flow of the day, going in ways none of us could have dreamt. I will also include the morning after meal. Taking place at the Hilton Road Cafe in Ferndale, MI. A dream of a restuarant. Impossibly affordable and homemade and delicious. Look them up if you’re in the Detroit region. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.