Sitting in a coffeeshop, passing the time, trying to get my email, hating the sheer bloody-minded stupidity with which Windows networks wirelessly. If I had it all to do again, I’d have kept my bus and bought a Powerbook. Sigh.
We’re home again in Wilmington – though in all honesty, Cary was beginning to feel a lot like home as well. Jamie was a great person to just hang out with, watch television, eat. We like eating. Jamie was easy to seduce into television and eating. We ate a chocolate cake. And a lot of Cheerios. We watched all of Firefly. And some Robot Chicken. And the Hobbit. And the Last Unicorn. Forgive us Father for we have sinned slothily.
Saturday night we earned our rest, though. We played at the Pourhouse in Raleigh, North Carolina. Last week was interesting because every place we played we’d advertise the Pourhouse show and people would say “Wow! You’re playing the POURHOUSE?!! You’re going to LOVE it there!” And then they would go on about the sound and the cement bar.
So I was wary. Most places that audience members Love to go SEE Live music, they’re often not fun places to play it. I’m not really sure why I say that, but I’m sure somewhere deep inside of me I know this to be true.
In any case, no matter how awesome the venue was supposed to be, we also knew we’d been booked on the same day as the Rally in Raleigh – a biker rally was blocking off the street where we were playing, making getting there tricky, making it hard for all the other drummers to get their loads in on-time…. and on top of all the problems we KNEW were coming, it rained HARD alllllll day. It was an interesting night. We got there at 7pm. My mistake. Never be early. Never be on time. Not unless you’re in charge. Cause if you get there before everyone else (and everyone else WILL be late) people will assume YOU’RE in charge, and express to you all the problems with “your” plans for the night.
Jack, the soundguy, was awesome, and pretty friendly – but he really wanted to let me know that I was pretty stupid for having so many bands booked in one night and how I was crazy for thinking that it would all fit and… well… I set things straight REALLY quick, and Heather and I took advantage of the very very nice couches scattered around.
It’s interesting being at an event like this – getting there first and watching the other acts filter in. I think the next person to come in was the bass player for Viva La Venus – (she’s on the right in the pic to the left – note her flaming boots… if I’d noticed them when she came in, well, I’d have had a new friend to talk to!) and then Coyote came in shortly after. I recognized THEM from their website, and we got to talking. Their percussionist was someone I actually vaguely knew from Baltimore, as he used to play percussion for Sarah Pinsker.
I wasn’t sure what to expect over the course of the night. A weird mix of metal and folk and lots of stuff in between. And we were at the very end of it all. It was really flattering – the people who did know us kept pushing our name. If nothing else, everyone knew how to pronounce us by the end of the night, but unfortunately, by the time we hit the stage, only about a fifth of the audience was still there (estimating about 30 people left in the room). But, we rocked them. Sitting and listening to that music and knowing we were going to have to compete with Marshall stacks and leather pants, well, it gave us a little extra verve for our performance. We left there well-Loved but utterly exhausted. So we went back to Jamie’s and totally failed to watch any Firefly whatsowhoever.
Deanne playing music to her birds…
