Week 64: 24
To all our friends!
Saturday, Noon – After dropping Ms. Anaconda at work, I met up with our friend Katie O’Brien, bassist for Dan Melchior und Das Menace who has just returned from a six month trip around the world. She kept an excellent travel blog as she went through Greece, Turkey, South Africa, India, Nepal, Thailand, New Zealand and Fiji, doing everything from hiking volcanoes to teaching in townships to caretaking of elephants.
Katie had some amazing stories to tell, and I had a Borders Christmas gift card that I got from my day job co-workers. And since I’ve spent the last two weeks jonesing for some live Led Zeppelin, Katie graciously agreed to go to Borders with me. I will not go on about Led Zep here, but I will tell you that discovering all the live material that is now available feels like I’d never really listened to them before. What a monster of a live band. Borders, though, is another story, prostituted art packed like sardines under torturing fluorescent lights, yikes. Got the Zep and ran, and then, to offset the harsh experience, we went to Carrboro’s Wilson Park playground and pushed Baby Anaconda on the swing until we felt better.
Saturday, One O’clock – Katie and I then met Ms. Anaconda for lunch at Southern Rail, better known around here as the Trains. The Trains is a relatively new place built on what used to be three abandoned railway cars in the middle of town. The place is quickly gaining popularity for its superb food, drinks and many seating options (patio/deck/garden/inside deck/bar car/restaurant car/godfather booth, etc).
Saturday, Afternoon – Had a fun afternoon with Baby Anaconda, who is now walking and getting more fun with every passing day. Her new favorite things are saying oh oh, walking, and playing with tiny people toys.
Saturday, Six O’clock – Nana Conda arrived to deliver her Christmas gift to us. It is a night of babysitting! All night and into the next day! Yay Nana Conda! To all our friends! [Here’s the point where, if you don’t already have a drink, you should get one and toast with me. And then to get the full effect, continue to drink as you read this.]
Of course, we knew about Nana Conda’s gift ahead of time, and had been planning this night for a couple of weeks. So after some final instructions, I left Baby Anaconda with Nana, and headed out to pick-up Ms. Anaconda from her job.
Saturday, Seven O’clock – We checked in at the local Marriott Hotel where our friend Pallas works and had reserved for us the executive suite at her friendly rate of $39.00. The room rocked. It was on the top floor and at the end of the hallway, incredibly private. It had a vestibule, a living room with bathroom, and a bedroom also with a bathroom. Thank you Pallas! To all our friends!!
In such a nice hotel room, thoughts of rock and roll excess immediately began to creep into our minds. But it was still early, so we ordered some room service of beer, wine and snacks and sat down to watch HBO, since we don’t have it at home. HBO, home of so many great series, we thought maybe we’d get to watch some new Curb Your Enthusiasm or any of the other great shows I’m constantly hearing about and never get to watch. But no, they were showing Norbit. And since I’m hard-headed and I wanted to watch some HBO, we watched some of it. Ms. Anaconda’s review: Norbit makes Anchorman seem like a study in human consciousness.
Saturday, Nine O’clock – We caught a cab from the hotel to the local Elvis birthday party. Elvisfest has been going on for a few years, but this year the fest moved to the outskirts of town to the local Holiday Inn. I had second thoughts about this move, but all my doubts were dispelled as soon as we arrived. The Holiday Inn could not have been a more perfect location. Time Out, the sports bar at the Holiday Inn where Elvisfest was held, was spacious, had two separate rooms each with its own bar and stage, one with merch tables, one with a dining area, one smoking, one not, and it was wall to wall packed. In other words, a stellar move by organizer Dave Quick. To all our friends!
The basic rule for playing at Elvisfest is that you have to play at least one Elvis cover. We got there to the sound of Jimmy and the Teasers doing a blistering version of Viva Las Vegas to close their set. Jimmy plays guitar as frenzied as anyone I’ve ever seen, except maybe our very own Ramon here on NAP.
As we waited for our drinks, we ran into little Meredith who gave us a tiny Johnny Cash t-shirt she had just bought for Baby Anaconda. Thanks Meredith! And thanks also to Jack for the Folsom Prison onesie he had given us earlier from the previous night of Elvisfest, and for putting us on the guest list. Woohoo! To all our friends!!!
Saturday, Ten O’clock – After Jimmy and the Teasers finished we went to the other room where some Elvis impersonator/freakshow was sticking nails into his nose. Not the kind of thing I like to see. Luckily we ran into John Saylor and drank and talked and did our best to ignore the freakshow until Billy Joe Winghead started their set.
Saturday, Lost Track of Time O’clock – I generally describe Billy Joe Winghead as a band that plays stadium rock in bars, at stadium rock volume. Tonight they were not as loud as they usually have been and I was able to stand a little closer to the stage. They rocked as hard as I’ve heard them before, but it seemed a little more controlled than in the past. Maybe they need to turn the volume back up again.
While I’m standing by the bar enjoying the music and craving some of Billy Joe Winghead’s bass player, Screamin’ Stevens delicious Chronic Beef Jerky (available at selected locations) I ran into international DJ and drumming sensation Josh Johnson, ex drummer for The Spinns, The Griefs, a slew of other bands, and the man behind Mexico’s Pinche Gringo. Josh was on his way back to el DF, after touring the US for a few months. He's on the road, and kind of broke, so I did the only sensible thing and bought him some drinks and we toasted, to all our friends!!!
After Billy Joe Winghead finished their set, we headed for the other room to watch Killer Filler deliver their instrumental lounge madness. I’m always amazed at how smoothly they can go from rowdy three guitar rock to Hammond laden lounge, sometimes within the same song. I was, however, sad to hear that bassist Scott Moore, brother of Houston singing/bartending/Mary Jane owning legend Brad Moore, had recently quit the band. To all our friends!!!!
Saturday, Maybe Midnight? – Ms. Anaconda, Josh and I rode into town with John Saylor who almost made us pee our pants laughing with his a cappella version of the new song he wrote for his performance at Elvisfest, “I’m sexy, twice on Sundays, always on Mondays, what about Tuesdays? all day Wednesday, sexy, like Elvis… before he joined the Army. I’m sexy” and so on. We laughed the whole way to the Local 506 where we were hoping to be on time to catch some of Robo Sapien and The Moaners. Unfortunately we missed Robo Sapien as they had just finished playing, but we did catch the Moaners.
I think it's become obvious to most people around me that I have been on a Zeppelin kick recently. With that being said, Laura King’s drumming is as heavy, solid, and groovy as John Bonham’s and the way it combines with Melissa Swingle’s masterful slide guitar work is eerily reminiscent of the way Bonham and Jimmy Page grooved with each other on live performances of songs like In My Time of Dying. However, when I mentioned this to Laura after the show, she told me that neither Melissa nor her had ever been much into Led Zeppelin.
Sunday, Not Yet Last Call – At the Local 506, according to some very tentative plans from a few days earlier, we joined up with Southern Culture on The Skids’ drummer extraordinaire, Dave Hartman and his birthday celebration party. We all headed for The Fuse for a last call drink were we ran into Stu Cole who recently recorded some tasty bass tracks for the New Town Drunks upcoming record, and about which there will be more in a future post.
Somehow we had a few drinks at The Fuse and it still wasn’t last call, so we headed for the Trains for another last call. There were quite a few of us, and only two designated drivers so we all had to pile into two cars. And here is where our friend Lynn gets the prize of the night. I don’t know the name of the prize, but it’s the prize given to those who willingly ride in the trunk of their very own car, in order to facilitate transportation of many drunk people from one bar to another. Congratulations Lynn! To all our friends!!
Sunday, Late Night – After leaving the Trains we headed for Lynn and Dave's place where many of the people we had seen throughout the evening and others showed up to wish Dave happy birthday. There we also ran into Ben Mace who will soon be doing a guest post on this blog. To all our friends!!!
Sunday, Dawn – Ms. Anaconda reminded me that we had a really nice hotel room just down the street waiting for us, so we called a cab, and made our way back to our suite as the sun was coming up.
Sunday, Noon – We woke up horribly hungover and checked out of the hotel. We checked in by phone with Nana Conda who told us that Baby Anaconda was eating lunch and that we should go ahead and get some brunch ourselves. So we did. And once again we found ourselves at the Trains for the third time in 24 hours. Things are better in threes, and they do have a great brunch menu, and tasty Bloody Marys. Yum! To all our friends!!!
Saturday, Noon – After dropping Ms. Anaconda at work, I met up with our friend Katie O’Brien, bassist for Dan Melchior und Das Menace who has just returned from a six month trip around the world. She kept an excellent travel blog as she went through Greece, Turkey, South Africa, India, Nepal, Thailand, New Zealand and Fiji, doing everything from hiking volcanoes to teaching in townships to caretaking of elephants.
Katie had some amazing stories to tell, and I had a Borders Christmas gift card that I got from my day job co-workers. And since I’ve spent the last two weeks jonesing for some live Led Zeppelin, Katie graciously agreed to go to Borders with me. I will not go on about Led Zep here, but I will tell you that discovering all the live material that is now available feels like I’d never really listened to them before. What a monster of a live band. Borders, though, is another story, prostituted art packed like sardines under torturing fluorescent lights, yikes. Got the Zep and ran, and then, to offset the harsh experience, we went to Carrboro’s Wilson Park playground and pushed Baby Anaconda on the swing until we felt better.
Saturday, One O’clock – Katie and I then met Ms. Anaconda for lunch at Southern Rail, better known around here as the Trains. The Trains is a relatively new place built on what used to be three abandoned railway cars in the middle of town. The place is quickly gaining popularity for its superb food, drinks and many seating options (patio/deck/garden/inside deck/bar car/restaurant car/godfather booth, etc).
Saturday, Afternoon – Had a fun afternoon with Baby Anaconda, who is now walking and getting more fun with every passing day. Her new favorite things are saying oh oh, walking, and playing with tiny people toys.
Saturday, Six O’clock – Nana Conda arrived to deliver her Christmas gift to us. It is a night of babysitting! All night and into the next day! Yay Nana Conda! To all our friends! [Here’s the point where, if you don’t already have a drink, you should get one and toast with me. And then to get the full effect, continue to drink as you read this.]
Of course, we knew about Nana Conda’s gift ahead of time, and had been planning this night for a couple of weeks. So after some final instructions, I left Baby Anaconda with Nana, and headed out to pick-up Ms. Anaconda from her job.
Saturday, Seven O’clock – We checked in at the local Marriott Hotel where our friend Pallas works and had reserved for us the executive suite at her friendly rate of $39.00. The room rocked. It was on the top floor and at the end of the hallway, incredibly private. It had a vestibule, a living room with bathroom, and a bedroom also with a bathroom. Thank you Pallas! To all our friends!!
In such a nice hotel room, thoughts of rock and roll excess immediately began to creep into our minds. But it was still early, so we ordered some room service of beer, wine and snacks and sat down to watch HBO, since we don’t have it at home. HBO, home of so many great series, we thought maybe we’d get to watch some new Curb Your Enthusiasm or any of the other great shows I’m constantly hearing about and never get to watch. But no, they were showing Norbit. And since I’m hard-headed and I wanted to watch some HBO, we watched some of it. Ms. Anaconda’s review: Norbit makes Anchorman seem like a study in human consciousness.
Saturday, Nine O’clock – We caught a cab from the hotel to the local Elvis birthday party. Elvisfest has been going on for a few years, but this year the fest moved to the outskirts of town to the local Holiday Inn. I had second thoughts about this move, but all my doubts were dispelled as soon as we arrived. The Holiday Inn could not have been a more perfect location. Time Out, the sports bar at the Holiday Inn where Elvisfest was held, was spacious, had two separate rooms each with its own bar and stage, one with merch tables, one with a dining area, one smoking, one not, and it was wall to wall packed. In other words, a stellar move by organizer Dave Quick. To all our friends!
The basic rule for playing at Elvisfest is that you have to play at least one Elvis cover. We got there to the sound of Jimmy and the Teasers doing a blistering version of Viva Las Vegas to close their set. Jimmy plays guitar as frenzied as anyone I’ve ever seen, except maybe our very own Ramon here on NAP.
As we waited for our drinks, we ran into little Meredith who gave us a tiny Johnny Cash t-shirt she had just bought for Baby Anaconda. Thanks Meredith! And thanks also to Jack for the Folsom Prison onesie he had given us earlier from the previous night of Elvisfest, and for putting us on the guest list. Woohoo! To all our friends!!!
Saturday, Ten O’clock – After Jimmy and the Teasers finished we went to the other room where some Elvis impersonator/freakshow was sticking nails into his nose. Not the kind of thing I like to see. Luckily we ran into John Saylor and drank and talked and did our best to ignore the freakshow until Billy Joe Winghead started their set.
Saturday, Lost Track of Time O’clock – I generally describe Billy Joe Winghead as a band that plays stadium rock in bars, at stadium rock volume. Tonight they were not as loud as they usually have been and I was able to stand a little closer to the stage. They rocked as hard as I’ve heard them before, but it seemed a little more controlled than in the past. Maybe they need to turn the volume back up again.
While I’m standing by the bar enjoying the music and craving some of Billy Joe Winghead’s bass player, Screamin’ Stevens delicious Chronic Beef Jerky (available at selected locations) I ran into international DJ and drumming sensation Josh Johnson, ex drummer for The Spinns, The Griefs, a slew of other bands, and the man behind Mexico’s Pinche Gringo. Josh was on his way back to el DF, after touring the US for a few months. He's on the road, and kind of broke, so I did the only sensible thing and bought him some drinks and we toasted, to all our friends!!!
After Billy Joe Winghead finished their set, we headed for the other room to watch Killer Filler deliver their instrumental lounge madness. I’m always amazed at how smoothly they can go from rowdy three guitar rock to Hammond laden lounge, sometimes within the same song. I was, however, sad to hear that bassist Scott Moore, brother of Houston singing/bartending/Mary Jane owning legend Brad Moore, had recently quit the band. To all our friends!!!!
Saturday, Maybe Midnight? – Ms. Anaconda, Josh and I rode into town with John Saylor who almost made us pee our pants laughing with his a cappella version of the new song he wrote for his performance at Elvisfest, “I’m sexy, twice on Sundays, always on Mondays, what about Tuesdays? all day Wednesday, sexy, like Elvis… before he joined the Army. I’m sexy” and so on. We laughed the whole way to the Local 506 where we were hoping to be on time to catch some of Robo Sapien and The Moaners. Unfortunately we missed Robo Sapien as they had just finished playing, but we did catch the Moaners.
I think it's become obvious to most people around me that I have been on a Zeppelin kick recently. With that being said, Laura King’s drumming is as heavy, solid, and groovy as John Bonham’s and the way it combines with Melissa Swingle’s masterful slide guitar work is eerily reminiscent of the way Bonham and Jimmy Page grooved with each other on live performances of songs like In My Time of Dying. However, when I mentioned this to Laura after the show, she told me that neither Melissa nor her had ever been much into Led Zeppelin.
Sunday, Not Yet Last Call – At the Local 506, according to some very tentative plans from a few days earlier, we joined up with Southern Culture on The Skids’ drummer extraordinaire, Dave Hartman and his birthday celebration party. We all headed for The Fuse for a last call drink were we ran into Stu Cole who recently recorded some tasty bass tracks for the New Town Drunks upcoming record, and about which there will be more in a future post.
Somehow we had a few drinks at The Fuse and it still wasn’t last call, so we headed for the Trains for another last call. There were quite a few of us, and only two designated drivers so we all had to pile into two cars. And here is where our friend Lynn gets the prize of the night. I don’t know the name of the prize, but it’s the prize given to those who willingly ride in the trunk of their very own car, in order to facilitate transportation of many drunk people from one bar to another. Congratulations Lynn! To all our friends!!
Sunday, Late Night – After leaving the Trains we headed for Lynn and Dave's place where many of the people we had seen throughout the evening and others showed up to wish Dave happy birthday. There we also ran into Ben Mace who will soon be doing a guest post on this blog. To all our friends!!!
Sunday, Dawn – Ms. Anaconda reminded me that we had a really nice hotel room just down the street waiting for us, so we called a cab, and made our way back to our suite as the sun was coming up.
Sunday, Noon – We woke up horribly hungover and checked out of the hotel. We checked in by phone with Nana Conda who told us that Baby Anaconda was eating lunch and that we should go ahead and get some brunch ourselves. So we did. And once again we found ourselves at the Trains for the third time in 24 hours. Things are better in threes, and they do have a great brunch menu, and tasty Bloody Marys. Yum! To all our friends!!!
Labels: Thursdays
10 Comments:
To All My Friends!!
Slante!
p.s. I read this in draft (with a constant grin on my face) while getting my morning head together for what will be a very grueling work day. Thanks for the boost. Jealous!
That was exhausting.
I thought DD might be interested to know that the Moaners will be on tour with the Mountain Goats starting in March, though I'm not sure they'll make it to new zealand...
glad you enjoyed it wednesday, we had fun too... life as you know it is not over just cause you have a kid, one just needs to focus a bit more, trim some of the fat...
and what does Slante mean?
Cheers in Irish. Should be an "i" in there though. Like so: Slainte.
yep gaelic, means health so it's like ¡Salud!
(or were you jus ribing me for spelink it rong?]
who are the moaners? where are they from?
I honestly didn't know what it meant. i tried to look it up, but because of the spelling i wasnt sure.
Ramona, the moaners are from chapel hill. if you are interested in learning more about them, follow the link to their myspace page. There might also be some moaners on the podcast. Melissa Swingle used to play in Trailer Bride, Laura King used to play in Grand National with Ed fROMOHIO Crawford. They joined up and are doing very well. two records out on Yep Roc, some shows in Serbia and now a tour with the MG... very cool.
amen to nights like that! hotels rule.
i'm a moaners fan. caught them last year when they swung through for sxsw i think.
Finally catching up on my reading. Was so sick on Thursday ad Friday that I couldn't sit up to read a computer.
Anyhow, sounds like a hoot I especially liked the Elvis "I'm sexy" song. Hilarious.
I oly wish you'd have had some pictures. That would have been like the icing on the brilliant blog cake.
I wish I would've taken some pictures... I always like the pictures on your posts. but i have a crappy phone that takes crappy pictures, and we always forget our camera at home... and honestly the times i've taken it with me, i almost always end up forgetting to use it... i think my mind is not on it.
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