I am the god of thunder

The band played a double-header this weekend with shows in Fairfax at TT Reynolds on Friday and Club Mojo in Baltimore on Saturday. It was fun albeit a tad tiring because life outside the band doesn't seem to give a shit how late I was out rocking magnificently the night before.

Friday - I have played at TT Reynolds many, many times over the years and have always enjoyed it there but never even once have I played when it was just a decent sunny day outside. Rain, snow, hail, hurricanes...I've had it all and am thankful for the large parking lot right by the door and the steadfast nature of the Fairfaxians who brave the elements to come see us play there. The stage set-up is unique, kinda sideways, but the folks that work there are cool as hell and people genuinely have fun and enjoy music in the bar which sets it apart from most everywhere else in Northern Virginia outside of Arlington. Our friends John and Courtney from Rotoscope played first and it was quite nice to see them up on a stage again. John has more gadgets in his guitar rig than.....well...Inspector Gadget has in his head and I always dig the cool sounds he can create. I don't know shit about guitar effects and didn't have a single pedal for my first two years of playing guitar in a band so I always marvel at people who can keep all that stuff organized let alone make it useful.

We played second and as we were rocking the heavens opened up in praise and sang along...for real. The mics picked up the sound of thunder outside and pushed it through the P.A. Kinda disconcerting at first but then amusing. Thor can at least thunder on key which puts him head and godly shoulders over 95% of the band dudes that yell into microphones.

The show was good and sweaty and fun was had by all.

Saturday - Off to the Mojo in Baltimore. To get there you pretty much go North, turn left at a housing project, right at a cemetery and park in front of the adult movie theatre. It's a great room though and as with TT's the people that work and hang out there are cool as hell.

Bartender line of the year -
Us - "Hey do we get anything at the bar for the bands?"
Him - "How about a tall glass of go fuck yourself?"

We got along famously for the rest of the night talking about music and his disdain for bastards in pleated khakis that order Pabst Blue Ribbon and pay with an Amex Paltinum card. Funny dude that has been around the block many, many times.

The first band, from Boston, was called Bourbon Princess. Really cool groovy smooth dark rock from the scene that birthed Morphine. Singer played a fretless bass, they had a baritone sax player, a guitarist and a kickass drummer who was as it turns out the original drummer for Morphine. The highlight of the night was their sax player sitting in with us for "All Night" and it made my butt happy to be in the middle of he and our guitarist Trey trading riffs for a while. Good good stuff.

We played the rest of our set and all was well.

The third band was a three piece named after their singer, Gavin Elder. The crowd was thin by the time they went on but we all hung in and enjoyed their set, kinda Sonic Youthy noise rock that would get soft and loud and weird and raucous all in one three minute tune. Good band and cool guys that I would like to play a show in D.C. with.

The drive home was long and arduous but we made it through weaving amongst the maniacal drunks skipping to and fro upon the B/W Parkway. We cut through some dark parts of D.C to get to Trey's place on Mass. Ave and nobody fucked with us because I'm such a scary badass.

Anyway....

It was fun.