West Indian Girl

calm before the storm… 6.28

the afternoon before the show i was finally able to see the fish market. being able to walk around such a beautiful city on a perfect day reminds me that there are some cool perks to being in a band. new sights, scenes and sounds have a way of keeping you in sort of a psuedo stress free vacation mode. who knows, maybe i was still riding the high from having a room at the holiday inn. at night we played at chop suey with trespassers william (from seattle) and the brakes (from philly). the show had a different vibe for me this time around. there was a mellow energy in the club, im not sure what it was but it definitely wasn’t as raucous as our previous 2 seattle shows. two people that did bring a ton of positive energy in with them were misti and my friend ellen. you guys really do rule. as far as the show goes—hmmm i dont know what to say except its par for the course at chop suey…on stage is sounds real bassy and boomy to me but everyone seemed to be into it.

supersonic thanx to: colin and shiho, misti, ellen, my old friend juan who left early…thanx a-hole, nic, blaine o and jacques (if i remember correctly) for telling me the story about hearing trip while he was in iraq. im glad we played it for him.

dressing room and rider wrap up: chop suey gets a four. the staff at chop suey was real cool though. the sound man and monitor guy were easy to work with and didnt have an attitude. way to be guys…i noticed and appreciated it. the back stage area at chop suey is pretty shitty. it’s just a communial band room that all 3 bands had to share along with their cases. for some reason it smelled like puke. i spent a total of about 30 seconds in that room. i remember seeing some some beers and a bag of chips in there. in any case i had no desire to hang out backstage cos it stank. thus a 4. hey, a four isnt too bad, it happens to be my lucky number. i need to start taking pics of these rooms but i always forget.

Mariqueen’s Mind

The City: after our radio show i fled to my hotel room and then went on a little tour of the city with ian, josh and fran. we walked to the market and then had sushi at a restaurant. owned by chinese people. um. ok no! i have never had a good sushi experience in seattle and it bums me out. dear citizens of the city, if you would like to take me to a spectacular sushi meal next time im in town you’ll be on my guestlist for life. no kidding.

The Venue: our good friend, colin, from mercir, is the main booker which automatically makes chop suey super rad in my book. i havent had the best shows there, but i’ve always left the venue really drunk. im still trying to decide if that’s a one or an eight on the awesome scale. chop suey never disappoints on aesthetics but god do their bathrooms stink. terrible. good job on the apples, boys… way to make a little girl giddy.

The Show: let’s just say i walked off the stage completely disappointed. i didnt understand what had just happened. i’d go into detail about how terrible the show was for me but it’s not that important. bottom line – it sucked for everyone except for fran – but he’s in denial or just wants to be argumentative. typical gemini. if nathan had written a show report he would’ve explained why his show was terrible too or maybe not since he likes to focus on the good parts. unfortunately, i didnt see any – i feel that focusing on the bad parts makes me a better performer. anyway, boo hoo, big deal – i’ve moved on. next time we’re in town we’re gonna kick ass. i promise. big thanks to our sound guys, they did a fantastic job taking care of us on the fly.

What Were You Thinking While Playing: are we done yet? these shoes make me look like i have cankles. gross. are we done yet?

Interesting Things After The Show: got to see shiho and colin, which was really great – i love you guys. hung out with my friend chad who i hadnt seen in like, two and a half years. got to see nic before the show too while i was in the bathroom talking to someone – im sorry it seemed like i was preoccupied, i would’ve loved to have hugged you hello, youre the raddest. had a deep discussion about music in seattle with blaine and then got drunk with our sound guys. im sure that isnt that interesting to you, but what’s interesting is i cant remember their names even though i remember exactly what they look like — i do know their signs though… monitor guy: virgo & house guy: sagittarius. you boys were rad. hope we work with you again.

Nathan’s Nonsense

By the time this show was over and in the books, I felt like a big mucky bowl of chop suey myself. But first, allow me to touch on some of the good points. I just listened back finally to our on air performance at KEXP earlier in the day. For the most part, the performance was pretty good, considering 3 of the 4 songs played were new, but the mix was a little bothersome. By song 4 it seemed like the mix was dialed in pretty good, but until then a lot of the instrumentation seemed a bit buried. Even so, it had a nice, soothing sound to it, and the new material really seems like it’s on its way to becoming something special. After KEXP, we all checked into our lavish (meaning non slum-like) hotel rooms at the Holiday Inn Express. Then it was off to get in a good meal and see the sights. I ended up wandering around by myself for a few hours, down to the waterfront, back up past the space needle, taking a few pics along the way on my crappy cell phone camera. Reminisced a bit about the only other time in my life when I had been to this great city: at the age of 15 I kicked off a 1500 mile journey on my 12 speed Peugeot bike all the way back to Moreno Valley (that’s in So. Cal, just east of Riverside).

It was an honor for me personally to be playing with Trespassers William that night. I’ve been a fan of their music for a while, and seeing them live and talking a bit with the members was a real treat for me. The Brakes also proved to be a swell bunch of Philly lads as well. Unfortunately, our own show didn’t go as smoothly as I, or any of us, would have liked. Most of that seemed to center around the fact that somewhere between sound check, moving my keyboards to the side of the stage to make room for the other bands, and moving them back again to start the show, somehow the tuner knob on the back of my moog satellite keyboard must have been inadvertently nudged causing it to go horribly out of tune. These moog keyboards, though they sound amazing when their sounds are properly dialed in, unfortunately go out of tune if you even look at them wrong. So, when we started into our first song, instead of a nice melodic melody, the band heard what must have sounded like a yeti’s discordant mating call. It wasn’t pretty, and worse, it wasn’t a problem that could easily be fixed on the fly. Aside from that train wreck, the show actually seemed to go along pretty good. The venue wasn’t as packed as I would have liked to have seen it, but at least I could see my friend Ian bouncing around, having the time of his life. I love the vibe of this city, and look forward to many warm returns.

sushi sucked but the photos were goodfishmarket – not exactly potpourristage timesstage right view of robstage left view of nathaneveryone’s view of lewsciousfront stage view of fran adjustingQ’s view, since she was photographer, of herselfseattle red light specialjosssh working lightsian-us! always happy working merchshow poster – when did nathan get so short?who can give you what you need? no bhatti!one big copacetic family