I soooo need a new camera
the three (more?) new skyscrapers on the lower east side really make me sad. i was down there last weekend, before the oakley hall show (still so awesome!) and it just depressed me. how long before it looks like the upper east side? ah, at least it will match the nightlife patrons. i was also shocked to notice at least four new stores and restaurants having cropped up in the month or so since i left. i feel a little bit out of touch over here in the slope. sans skyscrapers, though! brooklyn wins again!
so i was taken out to a business lunch last week, to keens steakhouse, and i ordered the "legendary" mutton chop. everyone seemed fairly impressed with my moxie. (yes, moxie.) there were also lots of exclamations when the chop arrived about its size. i was sort of afraid i was going to acquire the nickname "mutton chop." didn't happen though. also, mutton is tasty! and it's a mature sheep, in case you didn't know. i didn't. they also had "berry bibble" on the menu. good times.
bob pollard! i saw bob pollard last night! his hair was looking quite fluffy, i could not stop thinking most of the night. he was wasted (big surprise!), whereas i amazingly stuck to a strict $20 beer budget. i still reached concert nirvana a few times. brian espoused the theory that this is how gbv shows always went: you tolerate the new stuff in the beginning, rock out to the interspersed old favorites, and then when the encore comes it's so good that you forget how bad it was in the beginning. i laughed my ass off about that one. it's a little harsh but i know where he's coming from. there were a few points last night where i had to issue a "crappy song alert," but actually the new pollard solo stuff sounded really amazingly good live. other random thoughts: the new guitarist and bassist look like pretty-boy twins. and this girl, i gleaned from eavesdropping, is following the band on this tour. she's got a picture of trader vic, aka the bartender at the final show, caught in the madness, as well as some other great pics. i soooo need a new camera.
and folks, if you don't have "from a compound eye," you're missing out. "normal happiness" is the newie, the one that's supposedly the two-minute pop songs, the one you can stream on merge. they both came out in 2006, and they're both good albums, but "compound eye," the double album, is quite simply the shit. and i'm right now listening to a fading captain release by the keene brothers, called blues and boogie shoes, featuring bob and his current stage-right-hand man, guitarist tommy keene, and it is rocking my little basement quite awesomely! it's such bright-sounding pop-rock, i love it. pollard does put out so much product that it's hard to keep up, but i'm telling you: seek this out. i'll let you know when i've digested his other side project releases, the takeovers (with the last gbv bassist, chris slusarenko) and psycho and the birds. or maybe i won't. i still haven't picked up any circus devils releases, after all...and this gothamist interview with bob reveals we crazy superfans can look forward to a "best of" fading captain series, another takeovers album, a second comedy album (oh boy), another acid ranch album, and his next solo album, "silverfish trivia" (from which he played many songs last night). amazing, no? my gbv "sire," if you will, pete bothum, also interviewed bob and goaded him into taking a little bit of a shot at the hold steady. note he didn't say he didn't like them. they ARE the new gbv, after all (who's going to the pre-turkey day show at warsaw??). anyway, take a listen....