Day 39: Radio Bean. Burlington, VT. 4-12-08

We enjoyed a nice drive through Vermont and got to Burlington early so we could meet up with Joe and Hope (the Von Stengels) once again and catch some dinner before the show. We ended up having lots of time and used it to hit up some sights along Burlington's infamous Church Street. Burlington's awesome, and it was great to be back.

This time we played at the Radio Bean -- a super rad itsy-bitsy coffeeshop / pub / live music venue that is a classic fixture on the Burlington music scene. They have music from 6pm until 2am. Pretty wild. We had coordinated a bill with two sweet local acts called Villanelles and Lendway that started at 10pm and didn't realize that there would be 4 other acts before that. It was intense and made for an interesting evening. Some other acts that played included Acoustic Chatter from Boston and Ben Hammond from Montreal.

The place packed out pretty early and stayed that way throughout the night. At one point, there was a line outside the door and all the windows were steaming up as it was a pretty chilly night in Burlington, and the bodies inside were definitely putting off some heat. It was a fun scene.

Stage was super tiny, so we stripped down our setup a little bit but still brought the rock, and Joe did some projections once again. Awesome as always. (if you haven't already, check out more of his art at www.culturerecycling.com.

Both Villanelles and Lendway were fantastic and great guys as well. Check them out if you get a chance... especially if you're in Vermont as they are pretty active in the Burlington area.

Since Burlington is an old stomping ground of mine, I got to see some old friends including one of my college roommates and good friends Kelley as well as meet her girlfriend. A constant tour perk: catching up with old friends and getting a better sense of what they’re doing these days.

After the show, we drove back towards my parents house and slept in the van at a rest area. We had the next day off and had plans to hang out with my family, have a big family dinner and see everyone. I was excited. I think we all were excited.

Day 38: unexpected day off. new hampshire with family. 4-11-08

We received a message right before going to bed the night before that the house show planned for Somers, CT on this particular date had been cancelled suddenly. We were a little bummed, but decided to make the most of the extra day off. We spent the morning hanging out with Miranda in Northampton. We ate a fancy breakfast then went to a very cool store in Northampton called Faces -- knick-knacks and joke stuff and overall goodness. After the store we went by a local candy store that makes ice cream... and were unable to escape the temptation. It was delicious.

Since we were so close, we headed up to my parents house in Belmont, NH. Along the way we saw our first snow since Colorado back at the beginning of tour. There was quite a bit of snow still in my parents yard when we got there. It was kind of fun to have snow again. My parents were excited to see us an extra day, and I was excited to see them as well. It ended up being a nice night off, the guys headed out to find wireless and get work done, and I got to hang out with my mom and grandma and work on a puzzle.

reporting for all of us finn rigginses.
lisa

Day 37: Sierra Grille. Northampton, MA. 4-10-08

Northampton is a college town. In fact, in college I heard the rumor that the characters from Scooby Doo represent the six colleges in the area…each character representing the stereotype from each institution…including Scooby himself. I guess you can all go online and check snopes.com, or go to wikipedia or something. I’m content to let it be a good story.

A friend from our time in Johnson, VT lives in Northampton, and was kind enough to put us up for the night, as well as hang with us and show us around. Her name is Miranda, and she’s pretty much the shit. Not only did she play a pretty major role in the combining of the simpson-gilbert superpowers, but she’s a rad artist, a roller-derby girl, and all around sweetheart with impeccable taste. We were psyched to get to catch up with her.

We played a Thursday night series at a restaurant called the Sierra Grille, which happens to be part-owned and ran by Susan Sarandon’s brother... a pretty kick-ass guy in his own right. The food is quite marvelous. You get to pick your protein, then what kind of sauce you would like, and finally the two sides to go with it. When you get little choice of fresh vegetables on the road, this was like food heaven. The host for the music series, Mark, joined us for dinner, as well as all the other musicians playing that night that had made it in time to do so. Big community dinner. It was rad. Then we all loaded-in and got the show rolling.

First to play was a young lady who’s band, Stewart, had pretty much fallen apart before the show. She was rad. And even busted a couple of tunes with some pre-recorded drum tracks. It was pretty wild. She was followed by a Boston band called Rotary Club. The lead singer/guitarist looked a lot like Jackson Browne. The third group was called Curious Buddies -- a quirky noir-pop band from the Northampton area. They were pretty sweet. Good songs. Good guys.

We played last. Lots of folks stuck around. It was a really fun set. Our host Mark got some video from it. A few of those are posted below. Also, got some great free chocolate samples from an audience member! Chocolate he had made himself. It was pure magic. We're definitely pumped to get back to Northampton. Treated us well. Rad town.

reporting for all of us finn rigginses.
lisa simpson


BOX ELDER



GLOVE COMPRTMNT



THE PLUMEST

Day 36: The Von Stengel House. Oneonta, NY. 4-9-08

We awoke in one of the dirtiest parking areas we have ever stopped in. It had this beautiful view looking down on a town, and over some hills, but the hill just over the guard rail where the cars park was covered in litter. It was pretty gross, and I think really added to our excitement at leaving the city after a few days there.
We headed north, and a little west to get to Oneonta. Beautiful beautiful drive through barn country.

We visited our friends Joe and Hope here in the fall, and this time we did a little house show at their place. We would at least hang out, see what happened. Hope cooked some amazing vegetarian food, and we set up our gear to do an acoustic show if the mood should strike. Oh and boy did it strike.

After a couple of hours of engaging conversation with Joe, Hope, Barry from the US Postal Service, and some other rogue characters, we fired up the music making juju and played a short acoustic set. Couple of the tunes got captured on video and should be surfacing soon, but in the meantime, here's a stripped down version of Detamble Wings that we filmed the next morning. Joe - Joseph von Stengel - doctored it into 8 bit to fit the nakedness of the music. Sorta looks like video game versions of ourselves. Check it:



It was nice after the hectic pace of the city to have a bit of a night off in a small town in upstate NY. And with friends and good food. It was pretty much amazing.

reporting for all of us finn rigginses.
lisa


PS little reminder. check out more of Joseph von Stengel's work at www.culturerecycling.com

Day 35: Lit Lounge. New York City, NY. 4-8-08

We headed into the city and ended up eating Indian food again. At the same place. Cuz we love it. We were getting free internet on the street, so I walked around checking out some cool toy stores and such while Eric tried to keep up with the machine. Steve met us after work, and Marty came and met up with us once again. We had several more friends come down for this, our final NYC show on this tour, which was very exciting.

The Lit Lounge is very cave-like. Dank. Dark. Crooked walls. Little pockets of magic. Basement. It was fantastic. Sounded great too. We did get the chance to see a huge cockroach down there, so the trip felt pretty complete at that point. We played with a solo artist from a band called The Study. He was nice. Helped us carry our gear down the crazy steps into the dungeon. He was good too. We all really enjoyed his set. His name was Eric.

Joseph von Stengel came down from Oneonta, NY with his partner Hope to do projections for our set. Really fun having them there and to have him onboard with the visuals as it seemed to add a lot to the overall ambiance. Was pitch black other than his moving pictures. Joe got some good video footage of a couple of tunes. We hope to share it with y'all at some point.

The show was a lot of fun, and the best crowd yet for a NYC show for us. We did get a few new people who came out, or just happened to be there. A couple of Hasidic Jews seemed to really like it, and they spoke to us briefly after the show. Nice guys. Cool that they dug it. Steve brought a couple of friends out. Cam also had a friend from High School there. It was a fun show, and it was a nice way to end our stay in the city that never sleeps. And as we loaded out, some go-go dancers started doing their thang to help fire up the dance party. It was, uh, pretty epic.

After the show, we decided to hit up a French fry place that Steve had told us about called Pomme Frites. They only serve fries. We tried to go by verbal directions that were a little sketchy, and then decided to look it up on our handy dandy direction giver. We got there just in time to get some amazing Belgian-style fries. They offer at least 28 different dipping sauces. They were super good, a bit extravagant, but mighty mighty tasty.

We drove Marty back to her hotel and got to see Times Square all lit up like Vegas. All the flashing lights made Eric very happy. We then headed on out of the city and used our friendly direction giver to avoid paying any tolls, so the trip out of Manhattan was a little convoluted and windy, but cheap. We slept about 45 minutes outside of the city in a parking area in the hills.

reporting for all of us finn rigginses,
lisa the simps


Note: check out Joseph von Stengel's work at www.culturerecycling.com

Note: the Ghost Ghost spent two whole nights parked on the street in Brooklyn, we were somewhat surprised and mostly glad that it didn't leave the city looking like this:

Day 34: Goodbye Blue Monday. Brooklyn, NY. 4-7-08

We were fortunate enough to be able to spend two nights with my friend Steve. I’ve known Steve since my last year of high school, so a little while…something I was pondering as I walked around Greenwich Village with him in the afternoon. It was nice to be able to hang with him and chat, and he was nice enough to treat me to a gelato while Cam and Eric worked away at a coffee shop. We had spent the morning checking out the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, a neighborhood considered very hip right now that has fallen into gentrification quite quickly and was even spoofed in an article by the Onion while we were there. We saw a baby rat, the dirty waterfront, a huge building being built for condos, and ate thai food for breakfast/lunch.

Our show in Brooklyn brought us back to a venue called Goodbye Blue Monday. It’s a cool little bar/junk shop that hosts free music. We had a fun time playing there again. Inspires a real Beat ambiance. Subway rattling past every 7 minutes or whatever. We played a pretty loose/psychedelic set. It was fresh. Really fun. Played 'snowglobe' for the first time all tour.

After us, two members from a band called Starcode played a set of acoustic interpretations of their rock songs. Good guys. Got a kick out of what they added to the room. After them, a solo ambient/laptop set from Up The Turrett brought the
evening to an appropriately strange close. Marty and Steve both came out again to see us. Fun to have them there. Marty and Cam headed into Manhattan after the show to visit one of the oldest bars in Manhattan, while the rest of us headed back to Steve’s apartment in seek of rest.

reporting for all of us finn rigginses:
lisa simpson

Day 33: Arlene's Grocery. NYC, NY 4-6-08

apologies for the long blogging break... sorta lost control in NYC. weird, huh? after that, the whirlwind just kept carrying us forward and sneaking away to blog about it all got deprioritized amongst it all... however, Lisa started picking up the slack during long drives... so we'll pass the torch over to her to tell the stories... i may augment here and there. let's see what she reports:

Our return to NYC… without paying a ton of money to get into the city? Well, just a little to go through the Holland Tunnel. We landed in Manhattan in the midst of a characteristic sea of cars, taxis and people and slowly made our way to Arlene’s Grocery where we would be playing. Arlene's is located in the lower east side, close to where the Mercury Lounge is, and also close the yummy Indian restaurant we had eaten at in the fall: Indian Mahal Curry. Once we found some parking we headed to eat some Indian food for dinner. It was a splurge dinner for Eric and I of veggie samosas, coconut soup, banana pakuras, and lamb curry. Holy heaven. So good. Cam was able to meet up with a family member he'd never met --Jordan, the step-son of his mom’s cousin. He joined us for dinner and jumped right in with both feet. Rad guy. After dinner we all headed to the venue for load-in.

The first act cancelled after a drunken string changing debacle and general drunkenness really. Oh my. The sound guy - Howard - was hilarious and full of east coast sarcasm. He was fun to work with. Midwestern implant to the city, Dan Hawkins, kicked the night off just him and his guitar slingin folk tunes. It was great. Hank Williams, Dylan, traditionals, his own... Sounds like he's gonna jump trains this summer. See the country. All wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. Dig it. St. Louis rock trio Riddle of Steel played next. They apparently had a lot of friends in the area, had a great crowd, and played a long set for them all. They were tight and rocktastic.

We played last to our small collection of friends: Jordan; Marty - a new friend from Chapel Hill, NC who was in town for work; Steve - a NH transplant now living in Brooklyn and our host for our time in the city; and Jenna Malone - a fellow UI grad of the Lionel Hampton School of Music and former theory student of mine in Moscow. Representatives from all over this great nation. There were a few other stragglers in the room as well. We had fun with it. Nice club.

NYC can be a hard market to break into. It really takes a lot of work to build a crowd there and after chipping away in the fall, we scheduled ourselves three nights in a row in the area to try and get to know the place a little more and hopefully vice-versa. I'd say night one was a good start to our NYC residency.

After the show we all headed across the street for slices of pizza... of course... then cruised to Steve's place in Brooklyn, where he introduced us to "drinking out of cups"... which would become a major theme for the rest of tour. and continues forward to this day... oh my. check it. watch it more than once. it will become you. you will become it. no way.

Day 32: Sparky & Clark's. York, PA. 4-5-08

woke up in Baltimore to a home-cooked breakfast by Bob's girlfriend Adrienne -- a culinary graduate -- it was amazing. fresh fruit: mangos, avocados, strawberries. apple sausage patties. bird's nests (egg cooked into a piece of toast). good strong coffee. orange juice. it was sunny out. then Bob played us several Small Sur tunes in his living room. wood floors. gorgeous and patient tunes. it was all pretty dern epic. as a reminder, go listen to Small Sur... they're finalizing the mixes on a new album that will be released on Tender Loving Empire sometime this year. all very very exciting. www.myspace.com/smallsur

we were originally supposed to play in Philly on this Saturday, but the kid working on the show sorta flaked out and it fell through... and we had been trying to scrounge something up for last several weeks to no avail. BUT, the day before, we decided to take a very nice offer from a band in York, PA called Sharks! With Knives!!! to jump on their bill at a coffee shop in York that night. so we did. and it was only an hour drive up there. and a beautiful one at that as we cruised along the rolling hills of southern Pennsylvania.

the place was called Sparky & Clark's and was nestled in the historic downtown area of York. very very cute town and a super mellow sunny saturday afternoon to enjoy it by. it was located right next to an Obama campaign office as well, so i took the opportunity to say hello, get a new button, and smile with them about our successes in Idaho for Obama. then holed up in Sparky & Clark's for the afternoon, as we hung out with our new friend Emily the barista.

show that night turned out to be a blast. due to some miscommunication with Rachel Leah -- the opener -- she was running late, so we volunteered to play first since we were just happy to be playing anyhow. it was a super tiny space, so we used the opportunity to try a very stripped down setup with me just using the organ and Cam stripping down his set. made for a fun and unique set and it seemed to translate well to the room.

Rachel Leah followed with her keyboard-driven pop tunes. she was super sweet and dug her tunes. fun and cute. she was super posi and pumped on life and it's infinite possibilities. word to that. www.myspace.com/rlcsounds

then our kind kind host, Sharks! With Knives!!!, polished the show off gloriously. featuring the mastermind Chris on acoustic guitar and vocals and his sidekick Martney on glockenspiel. they put up props all over the stage and when they started Cam and I tossed a couple bags of balloons around the room for everyone to frolic in. it was rad. created a great mood in the room. really liked their music too. had me thinking of early Mountain Goats stuff with some of his vocal delivery and lyrical content. he did a great job of involving the crowd... even passed out percussion instruments that several people played throughout the set. lots of clap-a-longs and a nice sing-a-long to finish the set up. coupled with everyone popping all the balloons. we might as well have been at a birthday party or some other festive family gathering. that's how it felt. very fun. www.myspace.com/sharkswithknivesband

thanks to Chris and Sharks! With Knives!!! for inviting us to jump on with them... what a blessing. and to Emily and Sparky & Clark's for being so nice and making us feel so welcome all day. York, PA is now on our radar. we're in love.

afterwards, we ate at a strange diner called the Majestic across the street... then drove off into the hills to find Wi-fi and crash out in our beloved home -- the Ghost Ghost. she's so cute. and comfy. and tinted. and warm. and cool when she needs to be. and full of power and safety features. we love her. dearly. oh so dearly.




blah blah blah for the whole Finn Riggins clan
sincerely,
uncle gilbert

Day 31: Talking Head Club. Baltimore, MD. 4-4-08

Finn Riggins takes on the nation's capitol head on once again... literally... we drove up 16th Ave from Silver Spring and right up to the front doorstep of the White House... before being turned left and on around through crazy DC traffic... eventually winding around past the Smithsonians -- dropping Lisa off to pee and get in line for us-- and up to the steps of the Capitol Building... then swept around the Native American Museum where we scored a parking spot within striking distance of our target -- the National Air and Space Museum, also home to some of the highlights from the American History Museum, which is currently closed for renovation...
We spent a couple of hours tooling around seeing artifacts and history on American space and air exploration. Pretty awesome spectacle. All kinds of relics from years of amazing developments in flight... everything from the actual Spirit of St. Louis hanging from the ceiling to rocks and crafts used in the moon landing. Rockets. Computers. Airplanes. Space suits. helmets. planes planes and more planes. pretty amazing the strides we've made in the art of flying in a relatively short amount of time.

also got a kick out of the American History section, obviously just a taste of what they have in the actual museum, but i was admittedly pretty excited to see some of these infamous relics: kermit the frog, Abraham Lincoln's top hat, Albert Einstein's pipe, signed babe ruth baseball, C3PO & R2-D2 from Star Wars, several Wizard of Oz relics, early telephones and computers, one of Prince's guitars, Declaration of Independence, Elvis relics, war relics, civil rights relics, and so on and so on. all kinds of exciting things. including a faux-portrait of Stephen Colbert. oh my. would love to see the whole museum sometime. pretty grounding in the magnitude of this nation's history.

we quit the sight-seeing early as we could only handle so much -- brains and feets were maxed out -- and we got a headstart on our 45mile trek to Baltimore... little did we know that it would be bumper-to-bumper the whole way and it would take us nearly 4 hours and we'd barely make our load-in time. omg. it was kind of fun, but definitley a reminder as to why we love Idaho. granted, it was Friday and rush hour, but still... pretty intense. thankful that that's not a daily routine in our lives.

show was at The Talking Head Club in Baltimore -- a place ran by musicians for musicians. great place. great sound. nice intimate setup. great staff. all led to a great show. big thanks to our buddy Bob Keal for putting the show together for us. Bob has a project called Small Sur. really great songwriter / guitar player / singer. really really cool stuff. go get yourself a taste at www.myspace.com/smallsur. watch out for his enormous beard for it will swallow you hole if you're not careful.

he put together a really interesting and good show for us with three great locals. Neil Cotterill opened with his project Infinite Honey. awesome tunes. loved his voice and guitar style. and he sang about beekeeping, which had us thinking of our Woodland Honey friends back in Moscow. tasty tasty: www.myspace.com/infinitehoney

we played after him, and took advantage of the space he'd created to play "a whale, a fish" again. as well as plenty of our ragers. really fun set. sound was solid, good crowd, and we were pretty fired up.

after us, Jason Dove & the New Aerosmith followed with a raucous set of pop tunes and guitar shreddery. they were fun. pretty hilarious stage presence and friendly delivery for it all.

Caleb Stine closed the night out with an inspired set of folk tunes sans mics.... he stood in the center of the room and gave us a glimpse into the future of music with a set of pre-post-apocalyptic music... mostly comprised of old traditionals, even sang a tune out of an old shape-note book. he had some vocal accompaniment by some lady friend, and by the end he had vocal support from the whole room with rendtions of "Circle Will Be Unbroken" and "I'll Fly Away". it was awesome. reminded me of my days hanging out with the Chubbs Toga boys back in Moscow and singing tunes around campfires. really cool to watch a bar be commanded by a set like that. loved it. really nice aural treat in the midst of tour. he has a band he plays with too... great guy. check him out: www.myspace.com/calebstineandthebrakemen

crashed at Bob's that night after some late night hanging. it was great.
here are some more photo highlights from our time in DC earlier in the day:













reporting from orbit for all of us Finn Rigginses
=== gilbert ====

Day 30: Quarry House Tavern. Silver Spring, MD. 4-3-08

we accomplished our goal of getting into Washington D.C. by midday... although it was pouring rain... didn't phase us too much though. cam and i dropped lisa off close to the Smithsonians than undertook the journey in search of parking, which ended up taking us over behind the Jefferson Memorial where we had parked in the fall... and were confident we could find spaces there... although it led to a decent hike in the rain to get back to the Smithsonians... we were excited for it, though, as the infamous cherry blossoms were in full bloom -- a stroke of luck for us -- and we learned more about the history of the trees that were a 1912 gift to the city of Washington of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to enhance the growing friendship between the United States and Japan... there's even more cherry trees today. pretty awesome spectacle. even in the rain.

we worked our way to the Natural History Museum, where we rushed through the last hour that they would be open taking in tons of history on wildlife and nature on our planet... lots of dinosaurs, giant ground sloths, ancient birds, ancient fish, mammals, plantlife, peoples, rocks, stones, gems, crystals, all kinds of educational displays, diagrams, facts, artifacts, fossils, the hope diamond, geological marvels, stories of the evolution of living creatures on our planet, cultures, life on earth of all sorts, tons of people, it was intense... really way too much information to try and consume in so little time... but it was fun to breeze through it all and take in the overall spectacle. pretty awesome.

from there we headed back to the van and jumped into the absolute cluster fuck that is is DC traffic. holy shit. what a nightmare. we were very thankful for our GPS babe at this point in time as she kept us on the course... took us about 50 minutes to travel the 4 miles up to Silver Spring and to the Quarry House Tavern... still pouring rain.

had a great time at the Quarry House. staff treated us super well and we loved their food and beer selection and overall ambiance. cool place. a new friend named Trevor from Pennsylvania opened the show as his solo project Triangle Shirt Factory. cool stuff. and super nice guy. he brought out a nice little posse of folks thanks to his girlfriend Jesseka who is going to school in the area. we had a great time with all of them. ended up staying with a really nice guy named Dan and going to breakfast with all of them the next day.

the show was pretty laid back and we used it as an opportunity to play some different stuff, including the first "A Whale, A Fish" of tour. really fun playing that tune again, and it felt rejuvenated and ready for the live stage again...


















reporting for all of us Finn Rigginses
>>>> gilbert <<<<<