17 posts tagged “tour”

I met this really cool dude, Kyle, from Westminster, MD. He's the nicest guy and it's sad to see that it's harder and harder for him to book shows and such. Plus, I have the feeling that Westminster isn't in a booming state at the moment, like things are on the decline. It depresses me to know that there are other places similar to Westminster that have had a harder time booking shows or... Well, Karl wrote about it a couple months ago in his myspace blog. I never would have thought in a million years I would have met Kyle but I did.

Dearest Kyle Woodworth,

You are a top notch guy. I hope to see you in the future, especially if you go to heck fest this year. You said you were there last year, right? 

Love,

-Kenneth-

Well, I can't really leave the apartment I'm at in Charleston tonight. I could but then I wouldn't be able to come back in until 12:45 tomorrow or something. The person I'm staying with is a friend of Peach's, who is probably one of the most anal person to live with. This was an observation from just being around her for five minutes in her apartment that she shares with Peach's cooler friend. I can't even go to the kitchen because this friend is very noise sensitive in her sleep; so sensetive she can hear my socks tip-toe across the carpet.

Since I "can't leave" I'm writing lyric bits, scripting, researching neurology, looking into schooling, looking for shows to go to next month, figuring out money, sending e-mail, thinking about grrrls, finishing up the soon to be online project, and more importantly, watching La Blogotheque and YouTube.

I'll probably go to this provided I can get some already sold out tickets. I'll be back in Brooklyn on the 15th anyway.

Ryland has been doing most of the driving when we're in a rush to our next destination. This could be due to the fact that I'm actually a seventy-five year old woman who hasn't actually had her license taken away. Also, it could be due to earlier today when I drove all the fuck over the Bennington lawn in front of the Fels dorm facility. He doesn't think that the French car can handle it.

We're driving a 1978 Peugeot. I believe that I have forgotten to mention that detail of our trip was that we are driving a completely badass french car with engine problems. We've got it nailed down to a deteriorating gasket but, just like anything car related, you don't always know. Today the car freaked out when we got to Manhatten after we drove though... A tunnel that I cannot recall the name of. The fuel gage read "fucking empty" and so we parked in a parking lot until Ryland assessed the damages. He thought it was a broken fuel line but it turns out it was a burnt out fuse. Yippee.

After that ordeal, we headed over to his friend Thomas's loft in Manhatten, a few blocks from where we were parked. Lisa, R-swizzle, and I went to this forth floor loft to an spoken word/poetry/singing/music/movie showing thing done by all of these really nice people. Everyone took turns performing and Ryland was one of the last to do so before the food intermission. I noted that it wasn't until about fifteen minutes into shmoozing that I realized mostly everyone there were homosexual males. and everyone was incredibly nice. It was a bit surreal because this loft was fucking fantastic. There were wall partitions that doubled as bookshelves filled to the brim (in an orderly fashion) with books. Tons of books!

Jenn, you would poop books for the rest of your life!

This loft was probably five-thouseand for rent, no doubt. It was closer to mid-town Manhattan, which is the more business area of Manhattan.

After that grand time, we headed over to the Surreal Estate in Brooklyn. I felt oddly safe in the area that venue was at. The Surreal Estate is kind of the same deal that Healthy Times has going on where it's a house/collective space (Healthy Times not too much of a collective space). Just like most similar places, it has some interesting colors painted to the walls and art hanging out. There were a few people who lived there who I didn't care much for. One of which was a girl who told me I couldn't go into the kitchen saying that; "We're only having people back here who are helping or live here, even though it looks like a cool hang out here." it was more of the tone she delivered that sentence with rather than the what she said. When I came in with the merch she apologized and said that she didn't realized I was in the band, then I got VI-fucking-P status. I understand off limits areas and such but at least I can be glad that she's treating strangers, that aren't in bands, with kindness.

Dear Aubrey,

Don't be an asshole to strangers that aren't in bands. It's nonsense.

Constructively,

-Kenneth-

P.s. I wouldn't want to be your friend.

She is in the band The Belly Club. She had me cranky for a good five minutes but then my uncle came by and we chatted, I introduced him to Ryland and Lisa, then we went on the roof:

The show was alright. Ryland's set was badass like normal, the band West Dakota rocked some ass, some dude in a plaid shirt was... bad, and the Belly Club was good fun (Old Beasty Boys style hip-hop/YMD). Uncle Russ enjoyed the show more or less.

Ryland is going to skip town for a couple of days to get the car checked out then we're going to eat some Tofurkey on Thursday in Manhattan. I'm presently residing in Park Slope and listening to the Harvey Danger song Pike St. / Park Slope. I'm probably going to jump out and punch the city tomorrow but the way that things are paced right now (it's 5:21), tomorrow may involve me staying inside and doing some laptop business and helping my aunt make cranberry sauce. I've got Tuesday and Wednesday to explore. I'll be back in December anyway, so I'm not to concerned about wasting time. At that point there will be a time crunch.

I've actually spent an absurd amount of time doing computer work. It's funny how much I've been writing people and just in general. Aunt Rose and I stayed up discussing life, England, Africa, cats, depression, dreams, college, nine-eleven stuff, and... Well, stuff. I don't know what led to her wanting to hook me up (not date, but meet) with her friend that writes for Wired. I believe we came upon that through discussing her very sweet/kind burlesque friends and connections. Without saying much, I'll just say that it has to do with a current project of mine.

I realized, per Aunt Rosemary's and mine conversation, that I am actually enjoying waking up in the morning now. Took seven months, eh?

"I'm a Fucking Genius"

11-23-2008
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16:46 EST

Today we're headed down to New York to play two shows and I'm buying a small diaphragm  condensing microphone from a stranger in Queens that's going to venture to Brooklyn to sell the thing to me. I have excitement in me for this. The Belly Club is playing with us at the Surreal Estate and there's another gig to play today at a salon of Ryland's friend Thomas. I'm not sure where it is exactly but I'll find out as soon as I get there

Bennington's just fine from what I experienced. The kids do have the capacity to be out of their minds just like any other kids. I'm going on a date with a wonderful girl, Becki, on Wednesday in New York and then another gal I met in the bathroom last night, Annabelle, is coming to the gig tonight. I'm mostly enthused about the date.

Bennington is incredibly isolated feeling and seems like an odd spread out summer camp, the way the residency halls are laid out. There are a lot of kids here I met who are from the west coast and many who are from Portland specifically. The arts building is amazing and it feels like it's just a factory of cool crafts that come out of it. The theatre kids are really nice too. As our tour guide, Russel, was showing us through the halls we stopped buy some guy doing some art stuff but we caught him smoking a pipe, which was a bit awkward for him but hilarious for us. We laughed about it... then Hemmingway punched me in the mouth.

We eventually made it to Andrew's house. Andrew used to live at the Department of Safety with Ryland a few years back. He lives here in Bennington and goes to the college here majoring in theater? I believe that's correct. I ended up offending one of the five people sitting at the dining table in their house be talking about stealing bikes. The fellow I offended was (from what I was told) not to pleased with me since his impression was that I stole bikes and his friends have had bikes stolen. First of all, I don't steal bikes but more importantly: No one in Bennington College locks up their bike. Fels was the hall we were staying at. We walked outside to head to the car, actually did contemplate stealing bikes but then returning them later, and I noticed that there was an-entire-effing-rack-filled-up-with-unlocked-bikes! I'm sorry but if there are any social norms that I adhere to, it's the one that involves me locking up my bike. I began the classic argument of "Well if you didn't [i.e. lock up your bike] then you were asking for [i.e. theft]." Honestly, that did not make too much sense to the fellow on account of how the social atmosphere of the college operates.

Weird.

I have three weeks until I'm done with the tour. I think Ryland was going to record a band but I'm not sure at the moment. If this does happen, I'm probably going to hang around and learn how to fool with that stuff and set myself on a short path of pseudo-sound engineer pretentiousness. I'll probably leave out the pretentiousness but it would be wonderful to acquire some more common sense on that facet of my life to which I lack some in. Maybe after that I'll work on my relationship common sense or something. Since we do indeed have three weeks, I need to read some books that I brought with so I can mail them somewhere and not have to worry about taking them with me after the tour. The excess weight is nonsense. Also, I'm going to try to learn French in three weeks; the entire language. It's going to be rough but I figure it's not that hard if I already know Spanish. Some audio-learning would be a grand idea since I still have my iPod. I've wanted to learn it since I left the Tri-Cities anyway,

The northeastern coast is beautiful. The more middle of nowhere towns are still depressing but the sprawled out country houses seem to look very nice if not decent. The countryside is stupendous and the way the roads overlook the small valleys are marvelous. I'm mainly talking about northern New York and the bit of Massachu-chu-chusetts that we drove through. I would give it about an eight of ten on being hillactously pleasant. Also, both Massachusetts and Vermont get a high rating in ridiculously cold.

I've got to come up with a game plan for the next three days though. I forgot that thanksgiving was on Thursday so that probably kills a free day. Ryland, Lisa, and myself are going to be eating Thanksgiving dinner with my Uncle Russell and Aunt Rosemary's friends pad in Manhattan, which should be pretty fun. I'm glad that came about because there wasn't really a Thanksgiving plan when we hopped on the tour but it kind of rolled out that way.

11-22-2008
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16:03 EST

While we were in Madison, there was this wonderful dental hygienist who we drank with at a bar called the Caribou on Johnson St. She told us of this rich jewish family that she worked for. The mother was a ridiculously successful/frightening lawyer and the father did some other rich thing but the...

Someone just honked their van, rolled down the window and yelled "Dude, that's a classic! I used to have one of those..." That's all I remember. That guy looked just like Gobey from the SNL skit called "Jared's Room."

... Daughter of the family was a total brat. Not just brat but also quite dumb in conjunction with being spoiled. Apparently the mother skipped her daughter ahead a grade by threatening to sue the school on medical grounds and at some point during this girls enitre school year, the mother did her homework. This girl is now attending Bennington College at the ripe age of 16 but probably being. Essentially, these brief and boring details lead me to Bennington College.

Bennington College is, I imagine, the Evergreen of the East Coast where the grades are conceptual but mostly rich yuppie hippies (yippies) attend; it's a rich persons Evergreen in a sense. I estimating that all of the kids will be out of their minds, and according to Ryland, they are out of their fucking minds based off the last show he played here a few years back. He says I'll know it when I see it. I'm going to probably spot some friaries, VW's, and some other variety of cars that are probably owned by some of these "yippies" but just like always, I may be wrong.

It's been an interesting experience, so far, observing social behavior in the various places we've been but especially for those folks that are in the music scene. It's interesting seeing the audience vs artist interaction and the differences between how each lives. I'm thinking of when I made cookies with Jessie of Pepi Ginsburg and ate dinner with the band/their company in Kansas. Also, I've been taking mental notes on what defines a hipster and all of the disposition jargon that coincides with that. I've been becoming less keen in using the term hipster since there is a paradox I've noticed of hipsters calling hipsters, hipsters but the thing is that I don't really think anyone knows what a hipster is exactly. Characteristics that I've observed attributed to the 'hipster' are the same that you could attribute to anyone. It seems incredibly arbitrary.

It's the prejudice that's killing me, I'm not a big fan of it, quite sick of it. It just feels like a prejudice outlet.

This is the part where I start taking more notes...

We're driving into Hartford CT right now. It looks very packed togeather and clean as far as tall buildings go. I wonder what the streets are like; most likely clean as well. CT seems like a pleasant-ville type of state. Also, it's freezing outside. The leftover water from the car-wash is frozen onto the car. It's probably ~28º.

11-21-2008
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14:34 EST

It's not until we leave that nonsense called the middle east that it gets sunny. Connecticut is, at this moment, burning my eyes. It's sooo nice outside. It's that kind of brisk cold cold air mixed with the warmth of sunshine.

Now I have to eat Thai food.

23:04 EST

So, this show I'm at... Right now, is an indie-frat house show that I'm now DJ-ing. I'm also writing this and reading news at the same time. Slightly anti-social. The kids here are all college kids, you can spot some traditional hipsters in the crowd and one girl I had my eye on is dancing with some taller than her, dude. It's funny because they both look incredibly awkward like they don't know what they're doing but they want to do it... Whatever it is, being either it or... Wow, I have no fucking clue what I'm saying.

While I was DJ-ing there was one of those pseudo-audio engineer jackasses that were telling the current sound kids what they were doing wrong. I appreciate constructive criticism myself but the manner to which this fellow, and other people like him, presented the critiquing was the same way that one would present themselves as better. I shook his hand or something and about a minute later he asked who the fuck I was. I replied with "Kenneth" which was immediately followed by "No, I mean, what do you do?" I answered is question and he set off in some shpeal about how the kids here don't know what they're doing in terms of what the capacity of the sound equipment can handle and blah blah... He was just trying to talk shit and it came down to me kindly telling him that I, nor others, appreciate anyone sounding arrogant. I ended up kindly telling him to go away because he's just being negative and I, nor others, need that kind of bullshit.

He was just some audio douche...

1:02 EST

Cops just busted the place. Well, not in the traditional way. They are making their casual citation rounds. I saw a girl get cited.