nyc and back vol. II

Ok so we went back to n.y.c. and even though i said i was going to take pictures this time...I didn't. So here goes my best attempt at recounting:

Headed up to Chapel Hill last Tuesday to play The Cave with Juanita and The Rabbit, a blues-metal two piece from San Francisco. They rocked ass with such classics as We Live in a Motherfucking Van and a cover of Motorhead's Orgasmatron. And yes, they really do live in a motherfucking van and it is quite possibly the baddest van in these United States. Thanks to all who came out to see us: Mimi from The Pneurotics, Joe from Hammer No More The Fingers (looking forward to playing with those guys, stay tuned), James the Chapel Hill photographer, and our pals from Athens' very own Pride Parade, who were also playing Chapel Hill that night. Killer show and a really cool venue.

From there it was on to Philadelphia PA to play at The Fire, a cool little joint in Fishtown/Northern Liberties of Philly. Once again we were with our new pals Juanita and The Rabbit and their killer van. Thanks to all of the staff of The Fire for letting us post up in their great little apartment and teaching us how to play dominos. They do in fact have fine cheesesteak sandies in that town and even better breakfast joints, but thats neither here nor there.

We rolled in to New York on Thursday to play a show at Manhattan's Cake Shop with two really great stoner/sludge type bands from the city: Heavy Hands and our pals Ancient Sky. Another stellar lineup and a grand show.

Friday we hung out in Manhattan and went to go see Pride Parade kill a 1 a.m. set at Arleen's Grocery. The beer flowed like wine...

Saturday we headed out to Brooklyn to play our final set of the week at the Cameo Gallery in Williamsburg. It was a great little room with a cool atmosphere. Thanks to our old homeboy Hunt a.k.a. "HDHR" for letting us post up at this brownstone Brooklyn Great Gatsby house that he may or may not have legally had access to. Either way, we played the grand piano, slept like kings, got up late, drove 16 hours to Athens and got into town about 5 a.m. Monday morning.

Along with HDHR thanks so much to all our other pals who were so hospitable to us on this recent trip. See ya.

Countdown To Christmas Eve

H is for:  Harry Belafonte, Calypso (RCA Victor, 1956) 

Bring a little island music home for Christmas with the "King Of Calypso". A classic album and a classic cover.  If you look closely it appears Harry Belafonte has 7 fingers on his left hand <--.  

Unfortunately, Harry became quite crazy. He was once known as a great humanitarian back in the day, but now-a-days he's sooo opinionated about everything that he doesn't really make any sense. As most people know, he's a huge opponent of Bush's foreign policy, prompting the rest of us to say "come on in Harry, the water's fine." But then he called Bush a terrorist, more of a terrorist than the 9-11 attackers. Then he called Colin Powell and Condi Rice slaves who have been let inside the master's house. Yikes. Um, I do not agree.

So what's the most logical thing to do?  Call up your boy Danny Glover and go kick it with one of the absolute worst humans in the world, Venezuelan Presidente Hugo Chavez.  Here's a guy who has personally caused food shortages, riots, protests ending in many deaths, and hording of scarce necessary items among Venezuelans.  He uses his country's oil to control anything in the world that doesn't suit his needs while claiming to be a man of the people.  Does anybody really want to defend Venezuela's government as being less corrupt than ours? Despite the fact that Harry and Danny told Hugo how great he is, I'm with the Venezuelans on this one:  he sucks.      

Like I said, Harry has done some great humanitarian things in his day, but I think this is a prime example of why musicians, actors, etc., need to stick to their crafts and keep their mouths shut.  Yeah, our government does some deplorable things sometimes, but I think speaking through your music instead of through headline-grabbing interviews is always a good idea.  If you see some injustice occurring in the world then hey, you're an empowered individual so go physically do something about it.  (Say what you want about Bono, but that guy gets more done before noon than most of us do in our whole lives).  Otherwise, you'll wind up denouncing one "terrorist" in support of another with a whole bunch of talk and nothing else.  Somehow Belafonte lost that humanitarian touch and starting spewing rhetoric. Talking smack about W. and then rubbing shoulders with Hugo Chavez is one of the most insane hypocritical contradictions I have ever come across.  Just my two cents. 

As far as I know, Belafonte still lives in New York City, proving that even though the big bad U.S. is led by a terrorist, he still calls it home.  So get this album for any out-of-their-mind left-wing extremist hypocritical own country bashing jackasses that you know.  Sounds like a perfect Christmas gift for them.    

Francis and The Lights: "The Top"

Check out this video for the song The Top by a band called Francis and The Lights. 

I know very little other than a few things I've heard from Vaughan & MKY, which are:  his name is Francis Starlight, the band is from NYC, the video is directed by Jake Schreier, and Hank (Kuroma) and Nick (Velveteen Pink) saw Francis and The Lights live in New York during CMJ and came back to Athens raving about the show. Daddy likey.