audrey napping on a lawn. I thought she was a homeless lady at first.

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 york. opening for us is wye oak, a great two-piece from baltimore, and former crooked finger lara meyerratken, aka el may. I was a little worried about playing on a rainy tuesday, but we had a great, enthusiastic crowd, and everyone sounded awesome. pretty much an all-around kick-ass night.

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 the rest of the band enjoys an afternoon off in new york. letterman was a blast (special guest: zac efron!), and I meet up with everyone at the nokia theatre around 6:30, missing soundcheck but having enough time to line check before doors. playing in times square is a strange but not unpleasant experience for people used to playing in bars. it’s just so… times square-ish. after the show, the ac newman folks and I went to hifi to watch the letterman broadcast and drink more than we ought to.

the keyboard player’s mic stand at letterman. yes.

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 harbor where you can take a water taxi to logan airport and watched bob ross paint a lovely river scene while we finished one of the nice bottles of wine we got in philly.

boston hahbah

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 sox lose to the angels while the rest of the band went across the street for somebody’s birthday cocktails. despite their best efforts, tim and audrey did not steal a painting.

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 month’s worth of ‘lost’ were foiled by a crappy internet connection). we went to a kitschy faux-60s diner after the show and tim and I split a surprisingly good chicken pot pie.