8/1/11—8/21/11
In which the dirty birds make a record, get stage-rushed by an insane asylum escapee, triumphantly return to Kansas and spend a glorious moment in time with a shamanistic-type fellow.
So, hey there. This entry may or may not cover most of the month of August. We’ll see how it goes. But first things first: we made a record. Yup, that’s right, our second album is almost a reality. After Gathering of the Vibes, we returned to Brooklyn and hunkered down in the studio for a couple days with our esteemed comrade-in-arms, resident soundwizard Brian Bender. The dude is a freakin scientist at the boards. So, there will obviously be many more announcements and excited banter concerning the release of our long-awaited second album, but just know this much for now: the thing is going to blow yr sweet little minds. 100% Guaranteed. Mark it down. Looking at a late February release date, so keep your ears and eyes peeled way back for that. Anyways, moving on.
After laying down the basic tracks in the studio for three days, our first gig back on “the road” was actually on a boat in the Hudson River. A homecoming of sorts because we hadn’t played a single show in NYC this whole time, the darn thing pre-sold out, which made us birds feel extra warm and fuzzy. It was a truly special night—seeing all our fans and friends who’ve been with us since our golden olden days, or as we like to call them, our “Rockwood Music Hall Stage 1, all nine of us squeezed onto that crazy tiny stage” days. It had been raining on and off all day, and as people began filing onto the boat the clouds really opened up and started pouring down. Sheets of rain obscuring the mammoth skyscrapers, murky clouds and ominous, churning waves. However, we birds were undeterred from the task at hand which was of course to RAWK. So, picture us getting our sea-legs on with our longest-tenured fans, rocking and rolling upon the rain drenched waters of the Hudson, lower Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and the bridges gleaming in the darkness…
The next morning we drove to Hudson, NY to play a show at Club Helsinki, a beautiful club in a giant, meticulously-restored century-old building that has become a bit of a second home for us, our Northern outpost. Suffice it to say (remember, I promised some modicum of brevity for this particular rambling) that we had a great time with the good people of Hudson. The next moonrise found us in Philly, playing World Cafe Live, and the subsequent sunrise found us driving towards Johnstown, PA, aka Flood City, hence the “Flood City Music Festival”. Really interesting history in that area in general but specifically in Johnstown, which has survived three historic and devastating floods. The festival as a whole was fantastic, capped by a performance by the great Greg Allman, but we had a particularly memorable time due to the antics of one ecstatic fan: So we’re approaching the middle of our set and the audience is getting really into it, hooting and hollering as Jackson shreds his solo on our cover of ‘Roadhouse,’ and there’s this one middle-aged woman drunkenly careening down the aisle to join the melee in front of the stage, swinging her beer above her head and screaming. The beer’s spilling all over the place, on her and the people around her but she doesn’t notice and doesn’t care. Jackson’s wailing, she’s screaming and now pointing at him, slams her beer down on the edge of the stage and rips her shirt off and throws it at him. He grabs it out of mid-air, tossing it aside, never misses a beat. At this point, we see her man-friend, a giant mustachioed biker-type fellow, come lumbering down the aisle after her, yelling “calm yer drunk ass down!” He grabs her and tries to lead her out of the tent, but she spins out of his grasp and runs off to one side of the stage and out of sight… The next thing we know, she’s sprinting up the stairs, past security, past the sound man, up on stage and heading straight for Jackson! I remember screaming “Jaaaaaaacksooooonnnnnn!!!!” (in slow-motion of course) but it’s too late, she grabs him from behind and starts dancing up on him. He looks back, confused as hell, tries to shake her off, still playing the whole time, he kicks his hips back and she finally loses her grip and falls sprawling on the ground. Jax steps forward and finishes his solo as security drags her off stage, the crowd is going absolutely wild, just losing it! Best solo ever. The band kicks in and Arleigh blasts out the end of the song to a standing ovation as we all crack up and try to make sense of what just happened. I really REALLY wish someone had good video footage of that, but as of now we’ve yet to see it. If you or someone you know was there, please ask around, the world needs to see this. Oh, and I almost forgot the best part was as she was being led away from the stage she was screaming, “NO! NO! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME GO BACK TO THE MENTAL HOSPITAL! I WON’T GO BACK!” Sorry lady, not sure that particular call is yours to make.
The next few days were spent in and out of the studio, doing all kinds of arcane musical science—horn science, guitar science, harmonica science… It’s a pretty subtle and delicate process making a record, complicated for us by the fact that we were doing it between road stints. Such is our dedication to our fans! I don’t need to say this again but I might as well, this record is gonna be something else. I’m really proud of the work we’ve all done. As an aside, those six days we spent in the city recording were the longest stretch of time we had been home in over three months. Holy whoa now.
The next Saturday we convened in the early morning and drove to Huntington, WV, an eleven hour drive. It was raining as we pulled in, the sun long ago having set. As we sat in the green room listening to the opening band, a singer and a guitar duo, we heard them go into a familiar strain and slowly realized, to our surprise and delight, that they were covering ‘Hollow Bones!’ First time we’ve heard someone cover a song of ours, awesome feeling to see our music spreading it’s wings across the country. The club had a giant mural of the Good Doctor Hunter S. Thompson in the backyard, a positive sign of things to come.
"We'd be fools not ride this strange torpedo all the way out to the edge."
After we played that time at the Zoo in Wichita, we landed a couple of other gigs in Kansas, one of which was our Friday night show at the Granada Theater in Emporia. What an beautiful venue! Freshly renovated old movie theater. Check it out:
Whoa now.
The owners have teamed up with the local radio station, KISS 103.1, to put on events. So, apparently ‘Freight Train’ and ‘Untie My Shoelaces’ had been busting out of people’s radios for some time. When people have heard us and know we’re coming, it can be really special. I never heard the final number, but there were almost 500 people there, packed into seats and pressed up against the stage. Awesome, awesome show. Later, after we had packed the van, some locals took us down to a bar where an afterparty was already raging, with a great local band funkin it up. When the bar closed, we found ourselves out on the street with about 50 other people, Ryan looked over at me said “come on, let’s do this” and launched into a full-out vocal jam. I joined in and soon all the birds had formed a circle, at first a few and then more and morelocals joining in, clapping and raising our voices to the night.
Aaaaand, this:
Vocal jams are the best way to make new friends. We proceeded to ramble down the street with about 20 people dancing along with us. At one point a cop car rolled up next to us, took one look at us in our general insanity, bemusedly shook his head and just drove away. That night also finally ended with us singing The Band songs in the hotel (recurring theme? yes).
Our second to last show of the run was back in Wichita at The Boulevard, hosted by Mr. Don Bean. It was a great, diverse crowd, full of people of all ages who had seen us at the zoo or elsewhere or read about us in the local paper. A couple of people even drove from Oklahoma City to catch us because it was the closest show we were playing to them. Actually, this had been happening all tour—people driving upwards of three hours, planning little mini-vacations to come see us. Amazing. I’m telling you, things are getting very interesting. A family friend of ours owns a spiritual retreat just outside of town, and we had the following Sunday and Monday off again (well, “off” is a strong word—Monday we drove for 17 hours en route to West Virginia) so we took the opportunity to decompress. Stretched out on buffalo rugs, thinking and smiling, taking swims in his pool. Thank you Richard and Paula, you are amazing beautiful people. Sincerely, thank you for everything. Then, as I said, we drove for a really, really long time and then played at PJ Kelly’s once again (video tour of the crazy basement, liquor running ghosts etc—I would direct you to the first entry at this point, but it accidentally got deleted. Sorry.) Just another raging Tuesday night in Clarksburg, what can I say? Ha. And then back and back and back to Brooklyn. So… Whew! We made it.
As always, thank you for taking this journey with us. More soooon, promise!
Yr friend,
Bram
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