Archive Sunday #19

SD: Shortly after SXSW, we set off around the Pacific Northwest to play a few shows with Thao & the Get Down Stay Down. Thao had also started their musical journey in Virginia and even went to the same college as me and Will several years before. Their band migrated to the West coast and made name for themselves touring the states. I think our booking agent noticed the similarities and got them to agree to have us on a few shows.

Our first show was in Portland Oregon at the Wonder Ballroom. It took me until around this time to realize why I recognized their lead guitarist. He had previously played with a band called Prabir and the Substitutes that were based around my home town in Richmond, VA. They were a pretty sweet nostalgic rock band that played in some small venues around town when I was growing up. I remember hitting up a Denny's on the way down to Portland and waiting forever to get seated. Looking back we probably should have just abandoned ship, but I guess we couldn't pass up a grand slam.

Next up was a show at The Neptune in Seattle. It was an old movie theater turned venue right by the University of Washington. Andrew showed us some of his favorite food spots around the venue, and we all checked out the record store in the basement under the venue.   It was a fun show, but I remember it took me forever to get across the venue and up to the merch area behind the balcony after the set.

After that, we went back up to the Cobalt in Vancouver again. I'm realizing now that when we played there in January we actually headlined. There were a handful of people that rocked out, but this time it was a sold out crowd. It was only a couple months apart so I think  I got them mixed up. It was a fun little run, and we got to experience some bigger venues and crowds thanks to Thao. I don't think any of us will ever forget the way Thao sound checked the words "Oh no" over and over with the same inflection for what seemed like 40 minutes. Totally respect the dedication to getting it just right.

WT: I was also going to mention the "ohh noooo!" soundcheck. For these opening gigs I was playing a Fender Mini Squire, a $200 guitar I got exclusively for being lightweight. It went out of tune constantly and it was too small to fret reliably. Looks like we also had our Denial-era photo shoot back in Seattle, where I was memorialized forever wearing a bike helmet the wrong way.

AK: OHHHHH NOOOOO! The text doesn't do it justice. Remind me to reenact it on stream. I would love to sit down with them and talk about that sound check. It seemed so important every show to sound check with that. I'm guessing it was either a request from their sound person or an inside joke. We surely got a lot of entertainment out of it.

I remember that photo shoot. Most of what I remember about it is having to go with the photographer to pick out new clothes because I didn't dress cool enough or something. I just remember being really pissed that I had to buy new clothes. I've owned the same Jimi Hendrix shirt since the 9th grade. I still wear it. Let's just say fashion isn't a top priority for me.