West Indian Girl

the view from my deer sister’s house

i decided wear barrettes again today, mariqueen let me borrow her hello kitty one’s. i’m kinda into it just because most guys i talk to start giving me strange looks and im sure their thinking “is this guy a fag” …little do they know, plus i dont care….it amuses me. so the best part of the annapolis show was the fact we had a day off before the show. we spent that day driving down from maine. while driving down i decided to give my sister a ring. she lives in pennington nj about 45 minutes outside of philly. i asked her if the 4 of us (rob and chris were on the tour bus with turin brakes) could stay at her house. she said yes and this turned out to be the best stop we could have made cos her house is the lap of luxury. we did laundry, took showers, ate tons of food, and hung out in her beautiful backyard surrounded by huge pine trees and a koi pond. it kicked ass….did i mention the ping pong table and hi speed wireless internet access. it was so cool seeing my nieces too. i love those kids so much. anyway, we woke up the next day and cruised to annapolis – a few hours away.

let me just say this about the annapolis crowd. awesome…even thought there were only 77 people there 1 out of every 3 bought our cd. it was a great evening of recruiting new west indian girl believers. the show itself was bizarre because it was at the ramshead tavern which is basically a sit down dinner type venue. i mean there were tables right in front of the stage with people eating while we were playing. it was kooky – the whole show i kept thinking to myself how the hell can these people deal with my bass blasting in their face and eat. talk about taking one for the team the polite people of annapolis provided for a memorable evening. we even got to play our longest set of the tour – we opened with still lost just because we didnt want to blow their salads off the plates too early. gotta give a shout out to jennifer koster (in the pic with carter) who will live in infamy as the first person to buy something from our online store. she was there with her man ryan. i tried to give her my 2 free tickets for the show but she had already bought them…she’s wonderful.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: annapolis is, like most of the cities and towns we’ve visited thus far, picturesque and muggy. the one thing that sets annapolis apart from the others is that it is the home of west pointe and therefore, super duper republicanish. whatever, i don’t know if that’s a good thing or not for any of you readers so i’m not going to get into it. let’s just say i’m super liberal but my parents are republican and i love them with all my heart. hi mom, i know you’re reading this. i miss you. hi daddy, i love love love you. since i’m constantly around guitars, you are on my mind all the time. alright enough sentimentality… so yeah, annapolis… i didn’t see much to do besides play the show, shop for lingerie and hang out at a cool little internet cafe. but you know what? i am not complaining one bit. i really dug the city and hope that next time we come around i get a chance to go sailing.

The Venue: the ram’s head tavern is the only place in annapolis that has shows. the banquet hall room thing spot where we performed at felt a little funny. hey, don’t get mad, i’m just being honest. when i first checked the venue out it made me think of my old gig. when i was fifteen i used to play with a bunch of old filipino men in a big band and we would go sing at banquets in swanky hotel halls and what not. i think the rams head tavern reminded me of this because of the carpeted stage and tables everywhere. it’s nerve racking when you are performing and you know that someone can actually eat and look up your skirt at the same time. hmmm… the really dope part about the venue was that we got an unlimited amount of beer and wine for free. good stuff. after the show i went downstairs to the underground pub they had. i guess rob had discovered a fresh cover band making all the young drunk locals go insane. i had lewscious be my date and we checked it out. one word: amazing. the lead singer had a fantastic voice. mark and i ended up talking to him at the end of the night and find out that he used to play with p-funk when he was fifteen. whaaaaat?!

The Show: the show, despite the sketchiness of the layout, turned out to be a success for everyone. i had so much fun. i was a little dancing tambourine machine. i think it’s a lot more comfortable to dance around on carpet than hardwood floors so i let loose. the response that we got was great. i couldn’t have asked for a nicer audience. they were all so beautiful and friendly. i gave our show an eight out of ten. if the stage had been bigger it’d be a ten for sure.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: “my god, i can see everyone’s face and meal… crazy.” “wow, i wish every theater we played at had carpeted floors, i know it’s probably bad for acoustics but my god, could it be possible for me to get any more nuts with these boots right now? i think not…”

Interesting Things After The Show: the coolest part of the night was listening to that awesome band downstairs and finally meeting turin brakes’ illusive busdriver. the enigma known as jay. actually, i also got a chance to get to know the boys in the other band pretty well. eddie, turin brakes’ bass player and i discussed kafka and girls gone wild… gale, mark and i discussed astrological signs and significant others and then tommy, mark, fran and i drove back to becky’s (fran’s amazing sister) god send of an estate in new jersey. i think i might’ve peed at a gas station on the way back but i remember waking up in the suburban when we finally got to her house and stuffing five congo bars in my mouth. if you don’t know what a congo bar is, i feel sorry for you. ask fran.

Carter’s Conscience Annapolis– Rob and i hopped on turin Brakes’s tour bus to Annapolis. We drove overnight, and had a day off when we woke up. I pretty much slept all day in Annapolis, chilled by the pool, ate good food, etc. I really needed just to catch up on some z’s. Not much to do where we were, so Rob and I saw War of the Worlds. The verdict? I thought i was going to hate it, but it was actually all right. Granted, Tom Cruise is a douche, that’s a given. Oh shit, I’d better not say anymore or the Scientologists might ruin my music career. . . My humblest apologies Mr. Cruise and Mr. Hubbard, but you’re still a couple of douches in my book. Anyway, on to the show– The Ram’s head– A cool little dinner club, where everyone is sat at tables, eats dinner, and watches the show. I think its great for the audience to have seats and a casual environment, but it is a little strange for the performers. You feel like you’re under a microscope a bit– its still fun, just a little less free. But the crowd was really cool and appreciative, I would definitely play there again. Incidentally, I didn’t catch the name of the cover band that plays downstairs, but they were kick-ass. Also, Happy Birthday Troy! Troy is our road dog, almost singlehandedly responsible for getting the stage set up and torn down. Unfortunately, what Troy really wanted for his birthday I wouldn’t know where to find in Annapolis, so he had to settle for a good cocktail instead. happy birthday bud.

robert james setting up shop

F.TEN