Tour Blog #3!
Catching up is hard to do. As you are probably aware by now, our car was broken into while we were in DC and quite a bit of stuff, including Stacie’s laptop was stolen. Now, I know I can’t complain about losing my unpublished blogs that I had saved on Stacie’s computer, so I won’t. But I’m going to have to do some catching up and rewriting.
July 10, 2009 : Furlong, PA
On the way to Furlong, which is right outside of Doylestown, which is right outside of Philadelphia, we decided to stop off in Hershey, PA. The GPS said it would only add 20 minutes to the trip, so we felt it would be a fun diversion. Unfortunately, there was terrible traffic outside of Harrisburg and we were forced to take a detour through some really old shit town and it ended up taking an hour and a half to get to Hershey. By the time we arrived, we weren’t really in the mood for looking at the Hershey kiss shaped street lights or exploring much, so we stopped in for a quick sandwich at some café and headed out. I ate a banana, peanut butter, and chocolate panini, which was actually quite good. Upon seeing Reese’s headquarters, I mused over the possibility of a great rift existing between the chocolate and peanut butter departments. I also wondered if the high school mascot was the Fudge Packers. The countryside around Hershey and to the east of it was quite breathtaking.
We were playing at the brand new studio of our good friend Mike Pfeiffer, which was in a barn behind a home built in the 1750’s. The county and specifically the neighborhood are historically known for housing many meetings of revolutionary era Americans. There was a statistically significant chance that George Washington was plotting some serious shit right where we were playing. The studio was breathtaking. It was a musician’s cream dream. Every type of instrument you could imagine was strategically laid out around two stories of the renovated historical barn. Eastern PA is another great destination for the band as we have developed many friendships with Pfeiffer’s band of merry musicians. After the set, we had a bonfire and sat out enjoying the beautiful Eastern Pennsylvania night while lightning bugs punctuated the sky. What a night.
I would be remiss to not mention that we owe our eastern PA connection to our good friend Mike Wexler, who graciously put us up for the night in his new home.
July 11, 2009 : New York, NY
The secret to playing New York is doing it on a Saturday after doing Philly on the Friday before. This minimizes the drive time into the city, which can be extremely stressful if you come from DC or any other southern location. The ride in was only 2 hours long and we pulled into Brooklyn with hours to spare before showtime. The main drag in Williamsburg apparently shuts down every Saturday from 11-8 for a street festival/hipster freak out. Performance artists wrapped their heads in red yarn, painted themselves blue and rolled around on a white tarp, offered “dating advise” or played various instruments. While it wasn’t intentionally a performance, we greatly enjoyed watching a young asian boy sobbing uncontrollably while riding a scooter down the sidewalk after his mother. Our good friend Mike Carroll met us by the venue and we grabbed a quick lunch at a local Thai restaurant, which turned out to be the very restaurant used in the opening scene of Garden State. We then hopped a train to Manhattan for two specific, yet entirely unnecessary excursions. Chris’ excursion, seeking out a favorite store that only exists in New York and London, was much more legitimate than mine, which was walking to the house where they film Flight of the Conchords. Mine also sucked because we had to walk through all of Chinatown including two hikes down Canal street to get there (Canal is the disgusting, overcrowded street you get dumped onto when you take the Holland Tunnel into the city. Chinatown smells like rotting death fish/puke/death. It’s the worst smelling place I’ve ever been.
We hopped another train back into Brooklyn and met up with all the old friends who were sporadically arriving at the venue to see us play. There were so many people who came to see us from anticipated New Yorkers to totally surprising out of towners. Some notables (there were too many to list) were Johnny and Devon who flew up from south Florida, Mark (who hopped off the Apalachian Trail, where he’s been since February, and took a bus into the city), Rishi from Boston, and many more. As soon as we returned to Brooklyn, the day’s vibe took a huge positive turn. The street parade/hipster flea circus had cleared out and we were able to park both cars right out front of the venue. If you bought a beer at the club, you got a free personal pizza, so the night’s eats were totally free. The show was the best of the tour so far and we played to a packed room. Our old drummer Evan’s band helped fill out the bill and was fun to play with. As soon as we had to load out, it started raining, but fortunately, it was a light rain and our cars were right out front. We stayed right down the road with Sarah and David from Gainesville and she treated us to delicious tea. In a bizarre twist of events, we went to bed the earliest of the whole tour in New York, 1 AM.
For breakfast the next morning, we ate at some hipster deli, where like everywhere else, they were blaring hardcore screaming music. Nothing says Sunday morning like some RAWR. The neighborhood was historically Irish, but became largely Polish, while being overrun by hipsters. I thought a funny Polish/Hipster joke would be: “how do you get a one armed hipster out of a tree? Wave a copy of the new Arcade Fire CD at him.”
July 10, 2009 : Furlong, PA
On the way to Furlong, which is right outside of Doylestown, which is right outside of Philadelphia, we decided to stop off in Hershey, PA. The GPS said it would only add 20 minutes to the trip, so we felt it would be a fun diversion. Unfortunately, there was terrible traffic outside of Harrisburg and we were forced to take a detour through some really old shit town and it ended up taking an hour and a half to get to Hershey. By the time we arrived, we weren’t really in the mood for looking at the Hershey kiss shaped street lights or exploring much, so we stopped in for a quick sandwich at some café and headed out. I ate a banana, peanut butter, and chocolate panini, which was actually quite good. Upon seeing Reese’s headquarters, I mused over the possibility of a great rift existing between the chocolate and peanut butter departments. I also wondered if the high school mascot was the Fudge Packers. The countryside around Hershey and to the east of it was quite breathtaking.
We were playing at the brand new studio of our good friend Mike Pfeiffer, which was in a barn behind a home built in the 1750’s. The county and specifically the neighborhood are historically known for housing many meetings of revolutionary era Americans. There was a statistically significant chance that George Washington was plotting some serious shit right where we were playing. The studio was breathtaking. It was a musician’s cream dream. Every type of instrument you could imagine was strategically laid out around two stories of the renovated historical barn. Eastern PA is another great destination for the band as we have developed many friendships with Pfeiffer’s band of merry musicians. After the set, we had a bonfire and sat out enjoying the beautiful Eastern Pennsylvania night while lightning bugs punctuated the sky. What a night.
I would be remiss to not mention that we owe our eastern PA connection to our good friend Mike Wexler, who graciously put us up for the night in his new home.
July 11, 2009 : New York, NY
The secret to playing New York is doing it on a Saturday after doing Philly on the Friday before. This minimizes the drive time into the city, which can be extremely stressful if you come from DC or any other southern location. The ride in was only 2 hours long and we pulled into Brooklyn with hours to spare before showtime. The main drag in Williamsburg apparently shuts down every Saturday from 11-8 for a street festival/hipster freak out. Performance artists wrapped their heads in red yarn, painted themselves blue and rolled around on a white tarp, offered “dating advise” or played various instruments. While it wasn’t intentionally a performance, we greatly enjoyed watching a young asian boy sobbing uncontrollably while riding a scooter down the sidewalk after his mother. Our good friend Mike Carroll met us by the venue and we grabbed a quick lunch at a local Thai restaurant, which turned out to be the very restaurant used in the opening scene of Garden State. We then hopped a train to Manhattan for two specific, yet entirely unnecessary excursions. Chris’ excursion, seeking out a favorite store that only exists in New York and London, was much more legitimate than mine, which was walking to the house where they film Flight of the Conchords. Mine also sucked because we had to walk through all of Chinatown including two hikes down Canal street to get there (Canal is the disgusting, overcrowded street you get dumped onto when you take the Holland Tunnel into the city. Chinatown smells like rotting death fish/puke/death. It’s the worst smelling place I’ve ever been.
We hopped another train back into Brooklyn and met up with all the old friends who were sporadically arriving at the venue to see us play. There were so many people who came to see us from anticipated New Yorkers to totally surprising out of towners. Some notables (there were too many to list) were Johnny and Devon who flew up from south Florida, Mark (who hopped off the Apalachian Trail, where he’s been since February, and took a bus into the city), Rishi from Boston, and many more. As soon as we returned to Brooklyn, the day’s vibe took a huge positive turn. The street parade/hipster flea circus had cleared out and we were able to park both cars right out front of the venue. If you bought a beer at the club, you got a free personal pizza, so the night’s eats were totally free. The show was the best of the tour so far and we played to a packed room. Our old drummer Evan’s band helped fill out the bill and was fun to play with. As soon as we had to load out, it started raining, but fortunately, it was a light rain and our cars were right out front. We stayed right down the road with Sarah and David from Gainesville and she treated us to delicious tea. In a bizarre twist of events, we went to bed the earliest of the whole tour in New York, 1 AM.
For breakfast the next morning, we ate at some hipster deli, where like everywhere else, they were blaring hardcore screaming music. Nothing says Sunday morning like some RAWR. The neighborhood was historically Irish, but became largely Polish, while being overrun by hipsters. I thought a funny Polish/Hipster joke would be: “how do you get a one armed hipster out of a tree? Wave a copy of the new Arcade Fire CD at him.”