April 2009
33 posts
chicago
the chicago theatre is one of the most beautiful venues I’ve ever seen, much less played. it feels like a real honor to be there. I wandered around inspecting frescos and chandeliers and private balcony boxes while neko soundchecked. I adore chicago, and wistfully walked around downtown, snacking on a polish sausage and wishing I could figure out how to live there half the year. the union guys...
columbus
despite the fact that smoking is not allowed in the venue, it apparently still reeks so bad of something that there is incense burning when we get there. the couch in our green room looks like it might make me preganant if I sit on it, and nothing from our rider is there (neko’s room is fully stocked, so I know it’s not that they haven’t gotten to it yet). just the same, it is good to be back in a...
charleston
the mountain stage people are beyond nice. I thought it was just a radio show for npr, but it turns out that they’ve begun filming it as well, and will be pitching the show to hbo or bravo or something. I think we’re the first ones to be filmed. also invited to the taping are a young acappella group from l.a. called sonos and the incomparable vic chesnutt. I foolishly didn’t set any parameters...
ithaca
some friends and family of the band flew out to ithaca from denver to visit, and we all had dinner at the famed moosewood restaurant the night before the show. duh-licious. (forgot to take pictures of my sicilian stew, sorry.) the day of the show was cold and rainy, so I went to a korean restaurant for lunch and lounged around the hotel room all day, watching stupid lawyer shows. it’s too...
toronto day 2
jon, tom, kelley a. and I went to the blue jays-a’s game during the day. it’s an indoor park, and it’s much like going to a game in a mall. a very canadian mall. as a red sox fan used to the drunken, foul-mouthed heckling at fenway, I’ve never experienced such a quiet, polite crowd. I felt like I had to keep my voice down. I didn’t have much invested in either team, but since toronto was...
toronto day 1
I was shocked by how small the trinity church is, although I guess I shouldn’t have been. I mean, it is a church. not being a cowboy junkies fan, I was also unaware of it’s history as a music venue. but it is a fantastic-sounding space, as a lot of churches tend to be, with the acoustics creating warm natural reverb. I finally get it together to soundcheck ‘this tornado loves you’ with neko and...
montréal
a relatively painless border-crossing, and into canada. le national is beautiful (as is the front of house guy, sigh), and located in a fun part of montreal, lots of restaurants and shops nearby. we had an hour or so after soundcheck to kill, so we all scattered and wandered around by ourselves. I got some vietnamese food and stretched my legs on st. catherine st. after our set I mostly skulked...
new york day 3
while eric spends his day with the neko camp at letterman, I did laundry and filed for an extension on my taxes and lounged around my friend’s apartment and watched ghostbusters. thrilling stuff. we finally got out of the city around 8 and headed north for burlington and beyond.
new york day 2
I’m staying at a friend’s apartment in brooklyn while the rest of the band is staying with a different friend in brooklyn. I nurse a hangover all afternoon, then meet up with everyone at the bell house for load-in (neko is doing two nights at the nokia theatre, but we again opted to have own show the second night). a new-ish venue in brooklyn, it’s quickly become one of my favorite places in new...
new york day 1
eric and I will both be on letterman this week, although not with crooked fingers. I’m performing monday with ac newman, neko’s new pornographer bandmate with whom I just got off tour right before this tour started. eric will be on it on wednesday, playing guitar for neko. I spend the day freezing half to death in the ed sullivan theatre and getting tarted up by stylists and make-up artists, and...
boston
one pay lane open on a saturday night going into boston from the mass pike? bullcrap. after spending an hour waiting to get through the toll booth, we got to berklee college of music with just barely enough time to set up and run through a quick soundcheck. the acoustics of the hall were amazing, as you would expect them to be at a music school. we stayed at a ridiculously nice hotel on the boston...
philadelphia
well, glenside, to be exact. a little town ten miles outside philly, it’s the definition of quaint. the keswick theatre was the first venue to buy us not just decent, but actuallly good wine, which I enjoyed while catching up on ‘lost’ and eric soundchecked with neko (he’s begun sitting in with the band during ‘this tornado loves you’). after the show, I retreated to the van to listen to the red...
arlington
day two in the dc area. it was a beautiful day outside, so audrey and kelley went to the washington monument, tim walked around and took pictures, eric made phone calls and napped, and I completely ignored our nation’s capitol by sewing up frayed seams on the handful of vintage dresses I brought on tour while watching ‘flight of the conchords’ on my computer (my plans to catch up on a...
washington d.c.
neko’s doing two nights at the 9:30 club, but we’re only doing the first night with her, opting instead to have our own headlining show at IOTA the next night. due to cherry blossom traffic, we arrived pretty late for soundcheck but the staff at the 9:30 club is pro-style and has us set up and checked inside half an hour. cool club, cool show. obama didn’t come, though. dommage. the trees...
raleigh
the meymandi concert hall is located within the massive progress energy center for the performing arts. it takes up an entire block. seriously. I believe there are five venues in this one space. the green room was like a bunker, underground and windowless, and without the benefit of wifi (incredulously, they wanted $225 for access to their wireless. wtf?), I got bored quickly. all the national...
richmond
ah, the national. we were first here a few months ago, with okkervil river and black joe lewis and the honeybears. a new-ish venue, they have the green room situation figured out better than most places I’ve played. there’s a rec room with a pool table, big flat-screen tvs in both green rooms, and the most kickass of all: a damned hot tub and sauna in the back of the main green room. for reals. I...
day off
spent ten hours in the van, not much to report. we stayed the night at our friend george’s house in carrboro, and made it there in time to have some cocktails at the orange county social club with him and our friend brian. later, finding ourselves very hungry, we made a late-night pit stop at the time out restaurant, where we gorged ourselves on chicken biscuits and mashed potatoes and fried okra...
birmingham
we wrote an amazing song about birmingham once. ask me about it the next time you see me. the workplay theatre is a cavernous space, divided into two venues. while neko soundchecked in the big space, a band by the name of total a$$ets (a band comprised of accountants, I believe) soundchecked their set of cover songs in the smaller one. if you sat in the hallway between the two rooms, you could...
savannah
I’ve never seen so much pollen in my life. it’s piled up on windshields, dashboards, breakdown lanes. everything is yellow. I can’t believe I haven’t sneezed myself into a broken rib. beyond that, savannah is very pretty and the savannah music festival people are unbelievably nice. at one point, the hospitality lady called her husband and had him bring us a bottle of local sweet tea-flavored...
atlanta
you know you’re in for a classy tour when there are no cock-and-balls drawings on the walls of the green rooms. neko et al are already at the variety playhouse when we arrive, and it is lovely as ever to see them. we catch up in between soundchecks, and their set is (of course) fantastic, augmented by judge’s kickass artwork/animation behind the band. eric used to live in atlanta, so there are...
March 2009
1 post
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