An insane weekend of a lot of driving, a lot of music, a lot of flatulance out of Sharif, and just in general, a lot of fun.
Meredith gave me an egg for Easter, and a wrapped present that “begins with a C and ends with a D”. Just as I’d hoped, it’s a copy of her first recording efforts, and her songwriting is exquisitely revolutionary, saying some things that I wish I was better at stating.
The crash is perhaps unavoidable, but I’m delaying whatever negative moods are no doubt on the heels of this high.
Friday morning we set out in convoy towards California, PA – probably what is going to be our last visit there for quite some time, if only because there’s no reason to go there over the summer. The students all go home and visiting abandoned towns, beautiful or not, just isn’t lucrative.
Leftover photograph from when we were last in Philadelphia. The point of this picture being that floorspace was rather tight.
Getting there was a typical hurry-up-and-wait situation. Holly was running things in frenetic fashion which meant there were a LOT of people desparately trying not to get in her way. It’s a pretty good survival trait. Once things got rolling we all had an awesome time. A lot of the other bands were pretty good – I was particularly blown away by the Distorted Penguins – an awesome ska band that I’m really glad I stuck around for.
Hugh McGowan at the Waterstreet Hotel playing SNAFU in Baltimore, MD.
Our performance had been pretty exhausting, and we also had to leave for North Carolina at 8 the next morning, so we’d sort of been interested in making a run for it… but I ended up sticking through most of the night, meeting good people and sticking around for the headline, the Gym Class Heroes. Not half bad were they. Their frontman was a particularly awesome persona, full of Life and long-limbed frenzy.
Dave Morrealle hosting SNAFU in Fells Point – Baltimore, MD.
Over to Baeckel’s for a token appearance at the after-show party – then running off as the house became far too crowded for me to flail my elbows around. This was particularly disappointing because I’d just met someone who was particularly interesting, but there’s only so much conversation you can make under such conditions. I made a run for it and transformed myself into a prone rob by around 2am… by dawn I still hadn’t caught any bounding sleeps but I definately woke up with my alarm at 7.30am so some loss of consciousness MUST’VE occured at some point.
Wandering back to the Seminary in Forest Glen, Maryland. One of the coolest things ever built, it was very cool to get to wander around.
Quite admirably we were on the road and roaring by 9am and racing towards Cary, NC to surprise my friend Katy for her 21st birthday. We passed through farmland and mountain and thunderstorm and West Virginia, and generally had an awesome time.
I should point out that Rowan and Heather were in her Saturn, and Sharif and I were in the Sharif-mobile. This is the longest time I’ve ever spent in close-quarters with Sharif. Oh my god. He’s such a dirty boy. We got through the entire I Love Bees saga and then listened to all sorts of different music. By the end of the weekend, however, I was sort of thinking “your momma” was sort of equivalent to “period” and “wang” equalled “exclamation mark”. Erf.
Castles and pagodas and dutch windmills, the place was built in the late 1800’s as a retreat from the swamp odour of summertime DC.
We pulled into Cary after about 9 hours of driving, set up, sit in air conditioned comfort, play with the dog, play a gig, flirt and commune and generally take great pleasure in our company, and then fall the fuck to sleep.
Driving home the next was uneventful and exhausting. The whole weekend was whirlwind and wonderful – but I sort of worried that it was mostly fun for me. When it came down to it, I’m the one who’s close to Katy, I’m the one who really Loves all those people in California – Heather and Rowan and Sharif don’t rally know these people that well, and I was hoping they wouldn’t feel DRAGGED along through the whole ordeal. Rowan got to visit his family, and Sharif made most of his gas money back – all in all I thought it was an awesome full-band gallivant…. but we also lost money on the trip. Not a lot, but we don’t generally operate in the red like that.
My friend Amanda is introduced to bubble tea. Yes – those are tapioca pearls NOT strange growths!
My mom walking her cats.
