Weekend Update

Friday: 5:00 PM. Under cloudy skies, I pulled into a parking spot directly behind the stage at The Taste of Amherst, Massachusetts. I entered the throngs of munchers and spied Dennis Crommett ordering some Pad Thai. Hmmm. The Taste of Amherst, suddenly it all came back to me. Year after year, when I attended this event, I never had any luck with the food. This year proved no different with two so-so egg rolls and a horrible under-cooked "bourbon" chicken sandwich. At least the Ice-Cream from Bart's was good. The girl in the "I'm A Slave for Dennis" shirt (upon questioning, it turns out, of course, that the shirt had nothing to do with the Winterpills' very own Dennis Crommett) served me a healthy serving of coffee and chocolate-covered espresso bean ice-cream that would hold me through the Winterpills show that I was about to play.

The Taste of Amherst soundstage was one of the sonically most unfriendly places that I have ever played. I have no idea how the Winterpills show sounded, all I heard was a rumble of noise. When the show was over, we all just kind of looked around at each other. Not a great way to start a weekend of rock.

9:00 PM: Lesa and I climbed the stairs up to Shakago's and try to assimilate. I found out that there was, in fact, a band before my solo set. I believe they were called Conscious Phil. They were a classic rock originals / covers band. They closed with a really nice version of Time by Pink Floyd. Brian and Andrea walked in just in time to see them.

Ok...so, now wimpy lil me with my acoustic guitar is going to follow the soaring guitar solo from Dark Side of the Moon. I hopped up on stage and we tried to get the sound as good as we could. It didn't matter, because anything that I played just got drowned out by the big drunk squawking lady with the piercing, loud voice. I tried to sing my songs, she kept asking people to smell her shot glass.

Again, the thing to remember when you are performing is that you don't hear all the people that are listening, you only hear the ones that aren't. Still, it was rough and I felt stupid being up there playing. I cut my set short and got out of the spotlight as quick as possible. I should have been in NYC playing glockenspiel at Joe's Pub to a crowd of people who were there to hear music. But what are you gonna do? You make your bed...

To be fair, a couple folks at Shakago's did say they enjoyed my set. One guy said that Persicope (he called it by name) reminded him of the Decemberists. So, see? There were people listening. And I got to see and talk to our old Humbert-era buddy Tom (Hi, Tom).

Space Captain was good. The kicked off their set with a nice old Floyd cover. Those guys would have liked The Aloha Steamtrain, I think.

I was excited to see Apollo Sunshine but, after a half hour of them setting up had passed, I just couldn't take it anymore. I was overly hungry and warn-down and there was this stupid strobe light flashing in my peripherals all night. We left before they started finishing getting ready to start. We'll see them another time, perhaps.

Saturday: Musical redemption. My set playing bass with The Winterpills was really nice. I played Max's brand new bass and amp and they were both incredible. It was like the bass played itself. Everything sounded great and we were able to actually be musical rather than just struggle to hold it together. Those Winterpills songs, man. Good stuff.

It was extra-cool seeing Spanish for Hitchhiking again. They had some new songs to introduce and I liked them all, but it had been so long since I had seen this band that I wanted to hear the hits. When they broke into the chorus, "Tonight we take the palace!" I felt like I was 16 at a concert by one of my favorite bands.

It was nice to see Max play again, too. The scene has been missing his presence and his bouncing.
Sunday: After seeing two friends, Mike Flood and Jose Ayerve in an on-stage reading of a documentary on Guantanamo prisoners (they were really good, by the way), I headed back into the studio to work on the new Fawns record. It's coming along beautifully. Brian came over for a bit and we went through some drum things.

Later that night, Lesa and I visited some friends in their brand new home in the hills for a small barbecue. What a perfect night sitting outside under a large sky surrounded by candles and pool lights. We felt like we were at a resort in the mountains. It was silent and peaceful and slow.