///rolled into NYC around 6pm and headed straight to Greenwich Village and the church where we were supposed to check in for the CMJ Music Marathon that was already two days over and would be what we would be up to for the next two days. www.cmj.com
after getting checked in we met up with The Grown Children then went on a direct pursuit for Indian food. we succeeded in that mission, but parking was a whole nother story. Jared and I drove around for a good 30 min before finally settling on a spot near the restaurant… turns out it was metered until 10:30pm!! so i got nailed with a $65 parking ticket… not too stoked about that…
but the amazing Indian food made up for it… as well as the company…
from there we cruised to the Lower East Side and spent the evening venue hopping catching a bunch of CMJ shows… highlight being bumping into our friends from We Vs. The Shark and then catching their side project’s set at the Cake Shop… Pegasuses XL. it was awesome. although sound at the Cake Shop wasn’t all that awesome. soon found out that the best part of CMJ was bumping in to friends and chillin with friends… friday would embody this spirit super well… thursday was a good start…
also dropped in to the Mercury Lounge, the Living Room, the Bowery Ballroom, Crash Mansion and Arlene’s Grocery. ended at Arlene’s and just hung out at the bar since we were with our friend Steve who didn’t have a CMJ badge… super fun night. hangin with Jared, Brianne and Megan in NYC. we were all very excited. we were originally supposed to play a Fanatic showcase this night, but it being cancelled allowed us to just chill and roam… it was nice.
we all crashed that night at Steve-o’s place in Brooklyn. yet another late night.
///unbelievable drive through rural upstate New York between Ithaca and Oneonta. rolled into town around 5pm and headed straight to Hope and Joseph Von Stengel’s place… good buddies of ours from the Moscow days… they were hosting a pre-show potluck and invited us over for some grub and hangtime.
show that night was a benefit for the Oneonta Teen Center and held there as well. what a rad space. decent crowd came out on a rainy and cold Wednesday night. it had been set up by Joe, who has collaborated with us on several occasions now doing projections with his MAshUp, RE-Mix Digital MEdia SHow. the space worked great for the collaboration. the whole show was videoed and we should have footage soon. really really fun working with Joe. check out more of his work and philosophy at culturerecycling.com
Jared Mees & The Grown Children played first. here’s a few photos and a video of “Slabtown (Friday Night)” featuring Joe’s projections… keep in mind that this video is lo-fi off of my digital camera, and not from the video that the venue did… still pretty cool though… note Zissou Cam dancing….
Joe’s always been a wealth of quality conversation… thus we conversed into the wee wee hours… lots of big thinking. psyched we’ve been able to schedule stops in Oneonta on all of our tours out East… this was the first official show though. cool town. look forward to more.
///long rainy drive through north western Pennsylvania and in to New York state up to Ithaca. cold and rainy was definitely the theme. beautiful place though. still plenty of fall leafery remaining for our eager eyes. lisa, however, stayed focused on her reading addiction…
show that night was mostly about visiting Ithaca and seeing our BFF Liz Bageant. all of those things were accomplished marvelously. show was fun, although pretty sparsely attended. good times. cool place. Lost Dog Lounge. right in downtown. thanks to Sprocket for having us and for incredible hospitality.
another wild adventure after the show as The Grown Children’s infamous van James Brown was once again not starting… we pushed it around in the rain for awhile with some drunk guys, then shuttled everyone to Liz’s house for some sleep.
///got an early start from Middletown since we had an 11am appointment in Columbus, OH to film an in-studio performance and interview with Palestra.net. we met them at the studios in the 1305 Artists Ltd building. really nice place. great staff. thanks to Freddy and Jason for their hospitality!! and to Brian, Nick and Dan from Palestra for having us and asking some fantastic questions. we played three tunes: Detamble Wings, Pankakes and Geology. and interviewed for about a half hour. should be posted on their site in the next couple of weeks.
from their we headed north to Cleveland. the drive was gorgeous. 65 degree fall day in Ohio. fall colors ruling. rolled into Cleveland and the home of Cliff & Marie Hershman — parents of Jake from The Grown Children — in Shaker Heights. super rad place and they were incredible to us. lots of food and comforts of home. beautiful yard. and a basketball hoop. my inner basketball star came out immediately.
show that night was at a funky little place called Pat’s In The Flat’s tucked in an industrial part of Cleveland, just down a hill from the hip Tremont neighborhood. Pat’s is owned and operated by Pat — an older lady and an obvious institution in Cleveland. newspaper articles and photos on the wall talked about and showed that Pat’s has been bringing blue collar Cleveland and alternative underground music together since the late 80′s. lots of history.
show ended up being a blast. not a huge crowd, but a great crowd. lots of dancing and merrymaking. a fun fun sextet from Kent, OH called See Urchin opened the show and set the fun knob on high from the getgo. one of the most fun shows of tour so far. after sweaty sweaty Grown Children and Finn Riggins sets, local Sarah Nowicki provided a nightcap with her perty tunes on elec. guitar with some help from cello player Matthew. solid night all around. and we made some great new friends.
thanks to Steve (lightning fingers) for setting the show up, Pat!, See Urchin!, Sarah and Matthew!, Cliff & Marie!, the Grown Children, and everyone that danced and made this Monday night show in Cleveland super super super fun.
///we were super excited to be back at Tree’s Farm… we befriended the family in April on our last tour when our old friend from Moscow, ID — Josh Kettleshake — set us up to play in their barn after a show in Cleveland fell through… we had such a good time with them that we routed them back in on this tour… and this time, we were going to help them celebrate their daughter Mary’s 10th birthday and what would probably be the last music fest/party at the farm.
with The Grown Children in tow, we rolled in around 5:30 to homemade chili and sunshine and a happy happy Tree and Big Dannie and Mary and friends. after munchin some dinner we got the PA and stage setup on their back porch and got the opening band Rev & The Hot Carls started just after sunset. they had put up some crazy lights shining on the trees above the stage and this blue light that responded to the music. and a bonfire to help keep us all warm since it was definitely pretty chilly. it was a Halloween Costume Party too, so that definitely helped increase the intensity of the setting. pretty trippy all around.
Tree’s Farm regulars Burnt Grass played second. and featured our buddy Josh on drums. they were dressed as Alvin & The Chipmunks and were suckin helium balloons on stage. very hilarious set. it was obvious that they were amongst friends and family. even sang a fun song about the farm. amongst other things.
we were scheduled to play a first set before The Grown Children and a second set after them… made for a wild night. our first set was fun and included lots of tunes that we thought Mary would be excited to hear since she probably wouldn’t still be awake for our second set… we closed with her favorite song “A President, A Pacifist, An Auto Restorer” and it featured most of The Grown Children onstage in their bandito costumes and sombreros and local trumpet master Jason. here’s a video of that tune from a distance… gives you a decent idea of the setting… so fun.
after that, The Grown Children played a good long set. it was wild and fun as usual. and sounded great in the blue light. really interesting to see them in that setting. once again, Cam played the whole set with them as a bonus drummer. i enjoyed it all immensely.
from there it kind of gets crazy. our second set consisted of Pankakes, Thumbs To Muse, Mahoney > A Whale, A Fish > Blackrock. then we started bringing up members of The Grown Children, starting with Kevin on additional drums at the end of Blackrock. then Sam (fiddle) and Jake (bass) joined in. they’re also known as the appropriately-named Team Of Mavericks. it got crazy from there. played an old tune of mine from the Oracle Shack days called MIC, then a pretty sloppy but inspired Pump It that included my Tall Tales rap… all for our buddy Josh…. then for awhile we jammed on several different things old and new before bringing it back to some tunes to end the set… Geology > Glitch > noise freakout > Battle. it was pretty rad. the six of us really settled in together for the final stretch. really enjoyed the Finn Riggins Mavericky Grown Children set. we’ve been getting a kick out of recent superjams with our friends. this was pretty damn fun. and the perfect setting to rock it out like that.
by the time we were all packed up and crashing out it was around 4am or so. wow. big thanks for the day of rest today. and on that note, i’m off to bed.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to Tree + Big Dannie + Mary + Josh + Josh’s Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Bob for the cozy place to stay today and tonight and for dinner and for cookies and for the opportunity to watch some baseball + everyone else that made the Hallow Tree Jam such an incredible experience…. it will definitely be much much much different than NYC in 4 days… wow.
///reporting for all of us finn rigginses ///gilbert
