Love Hangover

Last night was the 10th year of the wonderful Love Hangover, curated by Sir Richard Alwyn. The 5th of the NYC ones, and the 4th I've participated in. An excellent time was had by all.
Joe and I played first and rocked out (or folked out, really) some Cooke, Petty & Madonna, along with an original Pillowfighter tune.
Lots of other wonderful people, including the Kaiser Cartel duo, Kendall & Richard, Pete & Anna, Doug & Seryn, and many more, played beautifully and melted hearts.

On Vday proper we had a Mascott/Hotel Lights/Jennifer O'Connor extravaganza. One of the best Mascott shows we've had, and HL and JOC were pretty amazing themselves (though I won't speak for them as far as it being their best - but it wouldn't surprise me!).

And I just discovered that Mascott now has a blog. Kendall was keeping it a secret, but in finding it I was inspired to post a new entry here, which is an extremely rare occurrence...

Back on the Blog!

Or at least I'll attempt to occasionally update. I got busy and forgot and then had to figure out how to log in again. Whew!
So, it's been a while. I'll try not to let it go quite so long again, though no guarantees.
I won't attempt to cover the past, jeez, 2 years? Stuff has happened. I've played a bunch. Worked a bunch. All the normal.
Right now I'm playing with a few different people/groups, some regularly, some occasionally. Still doing the Portastatic thing though pretty sporadically. Pillowfighter (me and Mr. Joe Seely) plays occasionally (including this Friday in Brooklyn!) and hopefully will start playing more than occasionally. And our wonderful pooch Samson sings backup. I think I'll post a song on my webpage where he sings a bit... Also playing here and there with Mascott, Doug Keith, Shannon McArdle, Regina Hexaphone, Lauren Smith, and more depending on the week...
I think I'm going to attempt to update the webpage now! Maybe figure out how to put videos on there and whatnot while seeing what this mystery woman Palin has to say...

back in brooklyn

The past few weeks have been pretty busy ones. Mac and I did a Portastatic duo thing in Spain for the Tanned Tin festival. A couple days off after that, then a full band tour that was kind of an east coast-y/midwestern type thing. All of the shows went really well, I think. And people turned out for all of them! Not necessarily tons of people, but more than we were expecting at some. And we got to play at the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, which besides just in general being a great place, had the best room ever, filled with big silver balloons. Here's Mac playing in it:

Once the tour finished up, I headed to Cleveland for Thanksgiving and birthdays with the relatives. We discovered that my young cousin is very adept at balancing gumdrops and licorice twists on the tops of gingerbread houses. She alternates between being a dog and a duck now, but maybe she'll be an architect when she grows up...she's showing me and my sister the way it's supposed to go here.

Anyway, tomorrow it's back to the grind. Other shows are coming up but no tours are scheduled at the moment. Apt to change at any time, of course...

end of tour

The last show of the JO'C/Portastatic tour was last night in Atlanta. All of the shows went well and most had pretty good crowds. Even the shows with few people (Charlottesville) had an enthusiastic audience, and the ones that were pretty packed (Mercury Lounge and Maxwell's especially) were really into it, even getting a mini mosh pit going at Maxwell's!
It will be nice to get back home on Monday. I think I have some allergy thing going on since I got to the south so am hoping that it will be remedied upon my northern return.

JO'C record/isolation chamber

First off, the new Jennifer O'Connor album was released yesterday. Tomorrow holds the cd release extravaganza at Joe's Pub. I believe it will rock. And we'll be dressed up. You really can get no better than that!

But the main thing on my mind at the moment is how, though I love having this huge room to myself at work, I think it might be driving me a bit nutso at times. The whole lack of human interaction thing, especially on slow email days. And now they've blocked myspace at work so one of my communication venues is now gone, which is most disturbing. I just want to say, thank the lord that Kendall is nearby for at least sporadic human interaction.
This of course also means that everyone should email me more often so that I don't go insane.

Monday morning coming down

I'm totally beat right now. I'm not sure why. I didn't have an exceptionally busy weekend. I mean, I had things to do and yesterday was a long day with a JO'C practice straight to a Mascott soundcheck and show. But I was home by midnight, if not before. Maybe it's just the fact that it's Monday and I'm at work and bored waiting for work to be given to me. I should decorate my office more.
At least I can listen to music here loudly and sing along or whatever I want since barely anybody comes in this room...
JO'C rehearsal yesterday went pretty well. My first keyboard experience with her. Another practice tonight and then tomorrow we head to NC for the Tweedy show on Wednesday. My plan is to sleep in the van.

NY/NC

I'm looking forward to this upcoming week of shows and seeing people who I don't see nearly often enough. Tonight I'm playing with Kevin, and hopefully some of my friends who are visiting from NC that I hung out with last night will stop by so that I'll get to see them again in hopes of convincing them to move up here...but I'll be down in NC next week again so I'll see everyone then anyway. I feel like I'm in NC these days nearly as much as I'm in NY. Especially over the next few months, what with the new Portastatic record coming out and passing through for shows plus a few rehearsal days. It's good having a reason to go back and visit pretty regularly...