tea at 3:30am

Good morning laddies.

Well it’s 3:30am which is a bit early to get home from a Linus show (I normally get in at 4am) so i’m a little awake. Everbody else was pretty bushed but I actualy needed to chill a bit before I hit the hay so, given that everyone is sleeping, tea and blogging will have to do.

I have to say that, given the fact that Blue Cheer was playing with Gods Temple at Walters and Mike was having his benefit party for the adding machine, we had a really good night. Plus Rosa was at our show which was a rarity given the fact that usually Orion is with one of us.

Concrete Violin’s set was really trippy (it made me wish I still did shroons!) and the addition of the guitarist was really cool. Perhaps we were pushing the Rudz crowd a bit but I really enjoyed it. The Dimes followed with a fantastic set of music. I’ve already posted about them so you know the story. The nice thing was that a lot of people came up to me saying they’d never heard the Dimes and really liked them which, to me, is half the point of asking bands we like to play with us.

Our set went off well; given the fact that I tend to be hypercritical, that is saying a lot. Surprisingly, we actually had a decent turnout of people so it was nice to do a good show. Sloppy at points but good. We started off with an off-the-cuff version of “Interstellar Overdrive” and as it turns out Daniel Johnson was outside with Two Star Symphony and he totally loved it – going so far as to request a copy of the board mix on CDR. Go figure.

I can say this though the Kimonos, who closed the evening, sound much better live than they do on CD and that’s from someone who liked their CD. But while The Kimonos played I was pretty busy and only caught chunks between my chores. Example – one chore was to pick up our projectors. Now given that Karen was busy with Mike’s benefit, I was surprised and happy to see her at the show (though she missed our set). Naturally I get to talking with her when suddenly – disater – I realize that the reel I left rewinding is totally eating the film. JOY! See I take 5 minutes with a good friend and see what happens! Needless to say, I spend the next 20 minutes or more picking up my mess and marking spots where I have to splice out damaged film. Mercifully nobody stepped on the film that was laying on the floor. So the rest of the night consisted of the usual rock and roll glory of picking up shit, counting money, and such.

Well, it’s almost 4 am now and the rest of my tea is getting tepid. But I should close with how typical this is for a rock show. It’s not sex, drugs, and rock and roll ala Lonestar Pornstar. No, it’s spending a lot of money on repairs, equpment and supplies. Picking up and hauling heavy equipment to and from the rehearsal space. You hardly have any time to talk to anyone and you smell when you get home between 3 and 4 pm.

So why do we do this? Fuck I guess its all about the music. Despite all the above, it’s simply nice to play your music well and play with other bands you admire. If people like it, well that’s just gravy.

So goodnight. Apologies to anyone to whom I didn’t get to say “Hi” but thanks for coming out. It was fun.